Reliance General Insurance, Royal Sundaram lost market share in FY13

Reliance General and Royal Sundaram were the only two private sector general insurance companies that witnessed decline in market share during 2012-13, says regulator IRDA.

At a time when the market share of 17 private non-life insurance companies rose from 42.2 per cent to 44.39 per cent, Reliance General's business slipped from 3.24 per cent to 3.19 per cent in 2012-13.

Similarly, market share of Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance witnessed a decline from 2.8 per cent in 2011-12 to 2.48 per cent in the last financial year, said the annual report of Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

However, both Reliance and Royal Sundaram reported jump in total premium realisation to Rs 2,010.01 crore and Rs 1,560 crore, respectively.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance, leading private insurer, maintained its market share at 9.74 per cent in the last fiscal.

Another major insurer Bajaj Allianz General Insurance showed improvement in operations by capturing 6.35 per cent of total business as against 6.22 per cent in 2011-12.

Other private players including IFFCO Tokio, Tata AIG, HDFC Ergo, Cholamandalam MS and Bharti AXA, too witnessed increase their market shares.

The increase in private sector business of non-life insurance comes at the cost of four state-owned companies as their market share declined from 57.8 per cent to 55.61 per cent in 2012-13 year-on-year despite increase in premium collection.

Among the public sector companies, share of National Insurance dipped to 14.56 per cent (from 14.73 per cent), New India to 15.94 per cent (16.16 per cent), Oriental Insurance to 10.41 per cent (11.44 per cent) and United India to 14.71 per cent (15.47 per cent).

IRDA further said that over the last 10 years, the penetration of non-life insurance sector in the country remained steady in the range of 0.5-0.7 per cent.