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State-owned New India Assurance Co, India’s largest insurer, reported a 187 per cent increase in net profits for the second quarter ended September 30 at ₹748 crore. This was its first results announced after its listing on the stock exchanges earlier this week.
The gross written premium was ₹6,489 crore, a growth of 12 per cent compared to the same quarter last year.
G Srinivasan, CMD of New India Assurance, said the results had improved substantially due to drop in claims ratio and operating expense ratio, thanks to various steps taken by the company.
This was achieved by repricing health insurance products as well as claims control being done more efficiently, for instance by recruiting more doctors on their panel, he added.
There was a 25 per cent increase in retail health premiums while corporate health premiums were hiked between 20 and 40 per cent, he said.
Claims ratio in health had come down from 111 per cent to 102 per cent while motor claims ratio was down from nearly 88 per cent to 83 per cent.
Srinivasan said operating expenses were also down by 4 per cent, mainly due to scaling up of business without any increase in costs. This helped in reduction of combined ratio at 111.76 per cent, against 119.81 per cent in the previous year period.
The company declared an interim dividend of 75 per cent. The payout for the company would be about ₹300 crore.
Srinivasan said he expects growth for the industry will be in the 18 to 20 per cent range in the current fiscal.
The company would grow in line with the market and increase its market share marginally, as it has been doing for the past five years, he added. New India has a share of 15 per cent in the ₹1.30 lakh crore general insurance market. The company’s solvency margin was at a comfortable 2.24, Srinivasan said.
The company had raised ₹9,600 crore through an IPO earlier this month.
The stock had listed at ₹750, a discount of ₹50, this Monday. Today, the New India stock closed a further ₹20 down at ₹681.25 on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
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