Three public sector general insurers lose market share in 2019-20: IRDAI report

The market share of public sector general insurers fell to 38.78 per cent in 2019-20 from 40.52 per cent in 2018-19 although in the life insurance sector, Life Insurance Corporation of India has roughly managed to maintain its market share in the period with only a marginal decline.

“In case of public sector general insurers, all four companies expanded their business with an increase in respective premium collections over the previous year,” said the Annual Report 2019-20 of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). The report revealed that the market share of three of the four public sector insurers, except New India Assurance, has decreased from the previous year.

New India grows

The market share of New India marginally increased to 14.19 per cent in 2019-20 from 14.11 per cent in 2018-19.

The market share of United India Insurance, National Insurance and Oriental Insurance declined to 9.27 per cent, 8.08 per cent, and 7.24 per cent in 2019- 20 from 9.69 per cent, 8.93 per cent and 7.79 per cent in 2018-19, respectively.

“New India, which collected direct premium of ₹26,813 crore, once again remained as the largest general insurance company in India,” it further revealed. The market share of private general insurers increased to 48.03 per cent in 2019-20 from 47.97 per cent in the previous fiscal.

Life Insurance

The market share of LIC remained at 66.22 per cent in 2019-20 marginally lower than the 66.42 per cent in the previous year, the report showed.

The market share of private insurers slightly increased from 33.58 per cent in 2018-19 to 33.78 per cent in 2019-20.

In terms of number of new policies issued, LIC witnessed a growth of 2.3 per cent in 2019-20 while the private sector registered a decline of 4.05 per cent compared to the previous year. Overall during 2019-20, life insurers issued 2.88 crore new individual policies, out of which LIC issued 2.18 crore policies (75.91 per cent) and the private life insurers issued 69.50 lakh policies (24.09 per cent), the report showed.

Insurance penetration

Insurance penetration also increased in 2019-20 in both the life and general segments. After a small decline in 2018 to 2.74 per cent, life insurance penetration increased to 2.82 per cent in 2019.

The penetration of non-life insurance sector in the country has gone up from 0.56 per cent in 2001 to 0.94 per cent in 2019.

Source: The Hindu Business Line