MUMBAI: New India Assurance, the country's largest general insurance company reported profit after tax of Rs 617 crore at the end of third quarter against loss in the same period a year ago mainly due to improvement in combined ratio.
During the same period previous year, the company had reported loss of Rs 24 crore. Combined ratio, which is a measure of profitability for general insurance companies, is arrived at by diving total incurred losses and expenses by premium earned, dropped to 109.1% compared to 123.9%. Combined ratio of over 100% shows that the company.
"The results have improved substantially due to improvement in combined ratio," said G Srinivasan chairman and managing director New India Assurance. "The drop in combined ratio was aided by lower claims ratio and operating expense ratio due to various steps taken by the Company."
The company saw 23% increase in gross written premium to Rs 6,385 crore as against Rs 5,213 crore.
Srinivasan said that the general insurance industry is poised for a great growth. The government has announced National Healthcare Protection Scheme to cover 10 crore people below poverty line with enhanced coverage of Rs 5 lakh.
"It will contribute to insurance penetration going up in a big way. The insurance sector will also be greatly benefitted by various measures announced in the budget to improve rural economy and infrastructure," he said.
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