United India Insurance Company Ltd is planning to enter the the SAARC and the Gulf markets for general insurance during the course of this year The company has also initiated talks with the Life Insurance Corporation of India to offer a combo product of life and general insurance.
Milind Kharat, Chairman-cum-Managing Director of UIIC recently said in Coimbatore that in the last fiscal, the company made a gross premium income of about Rs 9,260 crore, which was a 13 per cent growth. It also made a profit after tax of Rs 527 crore during 2012-13. During the current year, the company has targeted a premium income of Rs 10,500 crore.
Kharat said that UIIC was eyeing the SAARC countries and the West Asian markets. It was looking at the local regulations and once the plans were finalised it would seek IRDA’s approval. At present, UIIC was intending to go it alone though it was not averse to joining hands with any other insurance player and initially it planned to open one office each in SAARC region and in West Asia this year.
The company has planned to open 531 micro offices across the country in tier IV towns and also has planned to bolster the sales force by adding about 15,000 new agents to promote its products which he felt would help UIIC to achieve its growth plans despite economy under stress with automobile sales continuing to decline.
He attributed economic slowdown and the decline of automobile sale behind the fall in the growth in premium income during the last financial year in comparison to that in the previous fiscal which was about 28 per cent. However he said that the agency business was growing and the company also recognised the potential of online business as people are becoming tech- savvy and has taken steps to give a thrust to online sale of general insurance products.
On the hit taken by the insurance companies in Uttarakhand due to floods, he said it was estimated that the non-life insurance claims might be in the order of about Rs 3,000 crore and United India itself has received about 37 claims involving a total amount of about Rs 500 crore. This was mainly from hydro electric power projects that took a major hit due to the floods. He said the company would take steps to settle the claims expeditiously. The surveyors were not able to approach the damaged areas and he said the claim ratio may go up later.
