Insurance By Choice

Health Insurance and micro insurance are projected to drive the insurance industry of India in near future. It is very surprising but only 1% of the current population is covered under health insurance as of now. There is a huge potential in the health industry and need to be capitalized quiet rapidly.

India is fifth-largest country in Asia with regards to total insurance premium.

With the environment of insecurity prevailing all over the country, Terrorism insurance founds many takers. Terrorism Insurance provide insurance insurance guard against all kind of terrorism attacks. There has been a surge of interest in these policies as a result of bomb blasts occurring country wide.

HDFC Standard Life ventured into Health Insurance market and launched HDFC Critical Care. The policy provides covers against around 30 critical illnesses. Minimum sum insured is of 2 Lakhs and maximum 20 Lakhs.

Policy cover of HDFC Critical Care is available for 20 years. One can take policy starting from five years and min and max age at entry is 18 and 55 years.

MAX India and BUPA are planning to launch a separate Health Insurance Company soon. It is expected that BUPA will hold around 26% of stakes in Max Bupa Health Insurance Ltd which will start operations in around 12 months. India is being eyed as huge market place for Health Insurance as a result of increasing spending power and average age is expected to reach around 29 years in a spam of 12 years.

Pantaloon Retail is soon entering into non-life insurance industry with a joint venture with Assicurazioni Generali - one of the biggest insurance player in Italy. The license is in its final stages of approval by IRDA & can be passed anytime.

It will lead to the entry of Generali Group in India, the 3rd largest insurance group in Europe. Future Generali will hold 26% of the business while 74% will be retained by Pantaloon.

Health Insurance industry is increasing & spreading very rapidly in India. Health Insurance industry recorded a growth of 36% over last year & currently constitutes 9.6% of total insurance premiums of non-life insurance industry. ICICI Lombard has registered a record growth of 257% in Health Insurance segment as compared to previous year. This clearly shows that how much Indian public is getting aware of health safety and large number of people are turning up to buy Health Insurance policies.

Bharti-AXA announced commencement of operations for art insurance in India. Axa also owns Axa Art Insurance(UK based), the largest art insurance firm in the world. Their main focus will still be on the tradition lines of business, has started to receive some leads on art insurance from India. Company will take its time to launch products as they are first eyeing on understanding the market requirement for the product.

In a unique & innovative marketing approach, Max New York Life Insurance has entered into an agreement with Indian Railways, whereby allowing Max to approach passengers traveling by Rajdhani Trains for their Life Insurance Needs. Max New York Life will sell it policies on Bangalore, Chennai and Trivandrum Rajdhani Express trains. As per the agreement, 24 agents will be allowed to pitch for Max New York Life Insurance policies to passengers traveling on these trains.

Also the exterior & interior of these Rajdhanis will feature billboards of Max New York Life Insurance. This is probably first time that an private Insurance Player is pitching on advertising in Trains.

ICICI Lombard is aiming to increase its market capitalization to 20% by 2010 from around 14% as of now. The customer base of ICICI Lombard stands at 25 lakhs, including 10 lakh 2wheelers, seven lakh cars eight lakh commercial vehicles. They are claiming to have around 1,75,000 fresh policies each month.

Bajaj Allianj generated premium of over Rs 2,500 crore through gneral insurance segment & registered around 45% growth during the year 2007-08. The insurance industry is going through a phase of transition from tariff to a free-pricing regime & it will be a challenge for Bajaj Allianj to maintain the same growth in coming years.

Apollo DKV plans to lauch long term health insurance plans for Indian professionals working overseas. Apollo DKV is looking at gaining a health insurance marketshare of 10-12%. Apollo DKV started operations with a paid-up capital of around INR 101 crore. They are expected to break even in next 7-8 years. The company started in early 2008, and until March, sold policies with a premium of INR 2 crore. Post that period they have sold group and individual health plans worth approximately INR 10 crore.

AEGON Religare Life Insurance Company has received the final approval from IRDA to start their operations in India and start selling Life Insurance Products to Indian customers.Just a few days back DLF Pramerica Life Insurance Co Ltd has also been granted license by IRDA for operations in Life Insurance segment. This clearly shows how much competitive Life Insurance Market is getting and Indian consumers are going to benefit more and more as a result of same in term of better plans and reduced premiums.

DLF has jumped into the life insurance business. They are coming with the name DPLI (DLF Pramerica Life Insurance Company), It is joint venture of DLF (Indian real estate giant) & Prudential Financial, Inc (US based company). They has been approved by Indian regulatory body (IRDA) and hopefully will commence business from Quarter 3 this year (2008).

Bupa planning to enter into Indian insurance market. Sydney will be the base camp for launching their operations in India. Bupa is planning to enter via joint venture with a Indian Health insurer. Details aren't disclosed yet but they are eying something big in India pretty soon. Bupa also offers Car, Travel & Home insurance.

SBI and BNP Paribas Assurance, jointly plans to launch health insurance products by July, 2008. They have already applied to IRDA and are waiting approval of same.

In any normal cashless health insurance policy, cash is usually paid to the hospital. In the proposed policy by SBI, the insured will get some amount in cash whenever an ailment which is covered by the insurance policy is detected. The mediclaim will provide insurance cover for life threatening ailments like heart attack, cancer and blood pressure.

Since IRDA announced in December 2007, allowing car insurers to decide premiums, premiums have fallen drastically. Car Premiums are as much as 30% cheaper now as compared to last year. The focus is clearly on adding more and more retail customers. Commercial vehicles & Two-wheelers have also seen a drop of 20%.

In 2007, the insurance premium for Honda City was around Rs 20,760 in the city of Mumbai. This year it is at around 15,770. There is a immense competition prevalent among car insurance companies at the moment. If you want to insure a Tata Indica through ICICI Lombard, you will need to pay around Rs 11,724, whereas National Insurance Company is offering insurance at Rs 8,048 for the same vehicle.

One point which is quiet clear is that this competition is going to make customer the king and they are going to benefit a lot by each coming year.