Public sector insurers’ plan to set up their own third party administrator (TPA) for managing health insurance claims has taken wings once again.
But this time round, there is no intent to rope in a foreign player/strategic partner for the new venture.
All the four public sector general insurers — National Insurance, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance and United India Insurance — along with LIC and GIC will form a separate company for this purpose, A. K. Saxena, Chairman-cum-Managing Director, Oriental Insurance, said here on Friday.
The new venture will be purely a public sector one.
Saxena said that the insurance companies are yet to decide on the shareholding that each of them would take in the new venture. The new company is likely to commence operations next year, he said.
Meanwhile, Oriental Insurance is in the process of filing new premium rates for health insurance with the regulator. “Our health premium has not changed for the last 4-5 years when the annual medical inflation is around 17 per cent,” Saxena said.
Net profit jumps
For 2011-12, Oriental Insurance reported a net profit of Rs 253 crore. This is a near five-fold increase over the net profit of Rs 55 crore last year.
Saxena attributed the significant jump in bottomline to, among other things, better claims management. He expressed confidence that net profit this fiscal would surpass that of 2011-12.
On the recent draft IPO guidelines, he said the company was examining the norms, and added that there was no specific communication on this matter from the Finance Ministry.