ON Singh quits Universal Sompo General Insurance Company as chairman

Mumbai: ON.Singh has stepped down as non-executive chairman, Universal Sompo General Insurance Company from today.The Board of Directors accepted his resignation during the board meeting today. He has been associated with the company since its inception.

Some sources have said that Singh was asked to go by some of its stake holders,though he had few more months to complete his existing 2-yr extension since 2019, after a lackluster long innings at the helm of the company.

With Singh's exit, the company has seen complete overhauling of  its top management as Shrad Mathur had joined the company as MD & CEO recently.Mathur, who was holding senior position at the SBI General Insurance, also had to wait for some time, though he was supposed to join the company immediately, after his selection as the MD and CEO of Universal Sompo General Insurance,to join the company .

His predecessor Rajiv Kumar, a close cofidant of of Singh, had put in his paper suddenly and reasons for his resignation was not very clear. It is belived that Rajiv was made a scapegoat and had to resign after IRDAI inespection report found lapses with the company's  functioning led by Singh,'' said industry sources.    

Source point out that Padmaja Chunduru, MD& CEO, Indian bank,a majority stake holder in the Universal Sompo General Insurnace, is waiting for the ministry of finance(MoF) nod to be appointed as the non-excutive chairman of the insurance company.  

Singh, who joined the insurance company after retiring as a CMD of Allahbad Bank in early 2000, now merged with Indian Bank, had worked as an executive chairman of the company for long before being made a non-executive chairman of the company..

Recently, an inespection report of the insurance regulator IRDAI had found fault with the way Singh had managed some of the business of Universal Sompo General Insurance which was using his son's broking company Risk Care, to do business.. However, Singh had defended his controversial set of actions saying that he had taken permission from the board of the company.

Everything was OK for Singh,who had got two more years of extension by the IRDAI, since 2019, as the non-executive chairman of the Universal Sampo, as long as Allahbad bank was in the picture, The situation changed drastically after the govenment merged Allahbad Bank with Indian bank.Chunduru had a critical assessment of the general insurance company under Singh and therby giving signals that she would like things to change,'' said MoF sources. 

Even the Japanese joint venture partner Sompo was not happy with the way, Singh was managing the company and was patiently waiting for the change to happen. Performance of the company, under Singh, was also weak in comparison with other old players who had started their operations that too with the backing of public sector banks.

Asia Insurance Post couldn't talk to Singh to get his responses on the whole issue of mismanagement  of the company that led to his departure from the company..  Universal Sompo General Insurance is currently a joint venture of Indian Bank, Indian Overseas Bank, Karnataka Bank Ltd, Dabur Investment Corporation and a leading general insurer from Japan, Sompo Japan Insurance Inc.

Source: Asia insurance post