The present paper attempts to review the growth of general insurance in India over a period of time, examine its distinguishing features, trace its growth in different class of business, review claim experience and analyse its potential over a period of time, in a competitive environment.
The paper has been divided into four parts. Part I traces its growth in historical background, Part II deals with its main characteristics, Part III brings out its growth in terms of sectoral development, classwise division of business and their respective claim ratio, underwriting experience, profitability etc. and Part IV sets out the areas of future growth as well challenges in a liberalised economic environment.
Part I
The concept of general insurance is linked with the human urge to protect and secure ones goods and property in different forms against known perils. With the growth of industry, trade and commerce the insurance also grew over a period of time and gained maturity. Historically the growth of general insurance in its crudest form may be traced back to 14th century in Italy when ships carrying goods were covered against different known perils. From there it gradually entered UK when ships and goods transacted through it used to be covered against frequent perils. Thus, the first known form of general insurance was in marine portfolio. It scientifically developed in UK at Lloyd’s coffee-house in Tower Street, London. Edward Lloyd was the owner of the coffee-house. The coffee-house used to be meeting place for merchants, bankers, captains and seafarers. During these coffee sessions they used to discuss various problems and risks involved in marine transaction of goods and services. Individual merchants gradually started adopting marine risks, which culminated into present form of insurance. Subsequently Lloyd’s Act was formed facilitating other forms of insurance business.
Presently, Lloyd’s is the largest underwriter in the world. Lloyd’s Registrar of shipping is still most reliable and dependable source of information. It is one of the largest source of shipping and reinsurance information in the world.
In the context of the growth of general insurance over a period of time, it may be defined as a contact between the insurer and insured whereby insurer covers insured perils in lieu of mutually agreed upon premium paid by the insured. It is primarily based upon the principle of sharing of losses of few b many. From this angle, a large base of insured population is always beneficial in terms of competitive premium rates.
In India, general insurance was brought by Britishers. Their operation was through agencies. The Triton Insurance Company Ltd. was the first general insurance company established in India in 1858 at Kolkata. It was totally British owned company and its share were held by them. The first general insurance company to be set up by Indian was Indian Mercantile Insurance Company Ltd. in Mumbai in 1907. It was to transact all types of general insurance business. Therefore, a large number of both Indian and foreign insurance companies were set up in the country. However, till independence as much as 40% of the insurance business was held by foreigners mainly Britishers.
With the setting up a large number of insurance companies, it was felt that there should be a code of conduct to be followed by these companies in order to ensure fair and sound business and prevent unethical practices. As a result Insurance Association of India through its General Insurance Council framed a code of conduct, which was to be administered by the Controller of Insurance. Its head office was located at Delhi with branch offices at Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. Further, the need was also felt to retain maximum business in India. To achieve the above objective, Indian Reinsurance Corporation was established in 1956. All the insurance companies voluntarily decided to cede 10% of their gross direct premium to the above Corporation. In 1961 the Govt. constituted Indian Guarantee and General Insurance Company Ltd. as a Govt. owned reinsurance Company, which coexisted along with Indian Reinsurance Corporation. The insurance companies were required to cede 10% of their premium to each of these two companies. In addition, insurers established two other organisations namely Fire Insurance Pool and the Marine Insurance Pool and a percentage of companies fire and hull insurance business was ceded to these pools respectively. The business ceded to these pools was retroceded to the ceding companies thereby ensuring the spread of risks amongst the members of pools.
In 1968, the insurance Act, 1938 was amended which empowered the controller of Insurance to regulate deployment of assets, provide for maximum solvency margin, issue licenses to surveyors, investigate, search and seize their books of accounts etc. the amendment also facilitated setting up of Tariff Advisory Committee to be chaired by the Controller of Insurance. Its functions comprised of controlling and regulating rates, terms and advantages of General Insurance business in India.
After independence, under the planned development of the company, the Govt. came to the conclusion that a strong public sector under its direct control will be able to meet national objectives of growth, equity, resource mobilisation, employment generation etc. The financial sector was construed as one of the strategic sector capable of mobilising resources and placing it at the disposal of the Govt. for being invested as per the planned priorities. In pursuance to the above objective, life insurance was nationalised in 1956, and banking sector in 1969.
The General Insurance business was nationalized with effect from January 1, 1973, through the General Insurance business (Nationalizaition) Act 1972. However, as a prelude to the above act, the Govt. took over the management of all the operating companies in 1971, through General Insurance (Emergency provision) Act 1971. The emergency act provided for the appointment of custodians who were empowered to exercise controls over these companies subject to the directions of the Central Govt. At the time of nationalization of these companies, there were a total of 107 companies underwriting general insurance business in India. All these companies were amalgamated and grouped into four namely the National Insurance Company Limited, the New India Assurance Company Limited, the Oriental Insurance Company Limited, and the United India Insurance Company Limited with head offices at Kolkata, Mumbai, Delhi and Chennai respectively. The General Insurance Company (GIC) was formed as a holding company in November 1972. The GIC was constituted for the purpose of superintending, controlling and carrying out the business of general insurance. The entire capital of GIC was subscribed by the Government and that of four companies by the GIC on behalf of the Government of India.
The main objectives of nationalization were to ensure the development of the general insurance business in sympathy with the best of interest and advantage to the community. Further, these companies were required to promote competition in the economy. They were supposed to widely spread their activities over geographical area, innovate new products as per the requirements of different segments of population and also meet social objectives through formulating polices for weaker sections of society. The functions of GIC as laid down in the act were:
1. Carrying on of any part of general insurance business, if it thinks desirable to do so;
2. Aiding, assisting and advising the acquiring companies in the matter of setting up of standards of conduct and sound practice in general insurance business and in the matter of rendering efficient service to holders of policies of general insurance.
3. Advising the general insurance companies in the matter of controlling their expenses including the payment of commission and other expenses;
4. Advising the acquiring companies in the matter of investment of their funds;
5. Issuing direction to acquiring companies in relation to the conduct of the general insurance business.
Part II
In this section of the article, the pre-requisite conditions for conducting general insurance business, and its distinguishing features have been discussed:
The general insurance business is based upon certain pre-conditions [1] which need to be present for its healthy and sound growth. These are:
1. Insurance Interest.
2. Indemnity.
3. Utmost good fiath.
4. Proximate cause.
A brief about these conditions is given as under:
Insurance Interest
For conduct of general insurance, the insured should have insurable interest in the property that he proposes to ensure. It would basically mean that first, there has to be property capable of being insured, second the proposed property should be subject matter of insurance, and third the insured should have legal relation with the property to be insured, which may be through different ways such as ownership, mortgage, trustee, lessee etc.
Indemnity
The indemnity objective is basically based upon the principle that the insured does not make any profit originating from insurance operations. He is supposed to be placed in the identical financial position as he was before the occurrence of insurance peril. However, in case of marine insurance the indemnity is determined by the mutual agreement between insurers and insured as provided in the Marine Insurance Act, 1963. Further, in case of personal accidents, it is not possible to place a value on life. The indemnification is normally facilitated through following four methods. These are:
1. Cash payment.
2. Repair.
3. Replacement.
4. Reinstatement.
It may also be mentioned that all contracts of indemnity are based upon the principles of subrogation and contribution. The principle of subrogation entitles the insurer to all the powers to recover the loss from the third party after the loss has been paid for. The principle of contribution implies that the payment to the insured by the insurer is limited to the extent it was insured with a particular insurer. It prevents emergence of profit by insured in insurance operations.
Utmost Good Faith
The general insurance is based upon the fact that the insured discloses all the relevant facts about the property/object to be insured in good faith without any concealment. Based upon the above information the insurer decides as to whether it is worth ensuring as well as the premium rates, terms and conditions of the policy.
Proximate Cause
The contact between insurer and insured is in respect of covering specific perils, which are laid down in the policy documents. The insurer is liable to pay only against such specified perils and not against, those not covered in policy documents.
Unique Features
The general insurance is characterized by certain unique features, which distinguishes it from other forms of financial services. Mukherjee [2] has very clearly spelled out the following four conditions of general insurance, which places it in different category as compared to other financial services.
Firstly, the general insurance is a contingency oriented activity and unlike other financial services, there is no guaranteed return from the general insurance operation. The insured is paid only when the insured peril has occurred during the period of insurance policy.
Secondly, there are limits to insurability meaning thereby that the capacity of insurer is positively correlated to the units of insured exposed to similar contingency/peril. The larger, the number, the spread of risk is wider with favorable impact on a premium rates.
Thirdly, the cost price of the product i.e. premium cannot be determined before the sale of the insurance product. Since the claims arise only after the sale of the product, the optimum price of insurance products can only be determined after a time lag based upon the past experience.
Fourthly, since the actual claim cost is uncertain and cannot be pre-conceived, there is always the possibility that the amount to be paid as claim may exceed the provisions made for the same. It may cause financial strain on these companies. It, therefore, necessitates sound financial position and solvency of insurance companies on a sustained basis.
Part III
Growth of General Insurance
The growth of general insurance over a period of time could be evaluated in terms of parameters such as growth of gross and net premium, geographical spread of the business, class wise distribution of business, underwriting results, reinsurance operations, investment income, free and technical reserves, net worth, overall profitability etc. The overall claim ratio expenses on management may also be examined. In this section, growth of general insurance has been examined in the context of the above parameters. Based upon the data as given in Table 1 the following picture emerges.
1. The gross domestic premium income in India (GDPI), which was Rs.184 crore in 1973, has increased to Rs. 9522 crore in 1999-2000, recording an average growth rate of about 16.90%. The premium income originating outside India went up over the level of Rs. 24 crore in 1973 to Rs. 460 crore in 1999-2000, registering annual growth rate of about 11.95%. The total gross premium income, which was Rs. 208 crore in 1973, stood at Rs. 9,982 crore in 1999-2000, recording average annual growth rate of about 16.50%. The total net premium income increased to Rs. 9364 crore from the level of Rs. 222 crore in 1973. It recorded average annual growth rate of about 15.75%. The net premium income as percentage to total premium income was 93.8% in 1999-2000, indicating that only about 7% of GDPI went outside the country through reinsurance. As compared to 1973, the GDPI in India has grown by about 47 times. This is depicted in Figure 1.
2. The net claim payable were at Rs. 7,586 crore in 1999-2000 as against Rs. 1,123 crore in 1973, accounting for 81% to net premium.
3. The expenses including management expenses, commission and other outgo which were Rs. 68 crore in 1973 increased to Rs. 2,510 crore in 1999-2000. It constituted 31% and 27% of net premium income in 1973 and 1999-2000 respectively.
4. The expenses of the management increased from Rs. 43 crore in 1973 to Rs. 2,264 crore in 1999-2000. It amounted to 22.7% of gross premium income and 24.1% of net premium.
5. The total investment increased from Rs. 355 crore in 1973 to Rs. 16,659 crore in 1999-2000. It about 47 times. The compound annual growth in investible funds was about 17%. The investment income increased from Rs. 21 crore in 1973 to Rs. 2,392 crore in 1999-2000. The average annual gross yield on mean funds amounted to about 13%.
6. The paid up capital and free reserves increased from Rs. 34 crore and 62 crore in 1973 to Rs. 375 and Rs. 7,745 crore in 1999-2000 respectively. The increase in reserve for unexpired risk which was Rs. 23 crore in 1973 increased to Rs. 485 crore in 1999-2000.
7. In so for the class wise distribution of business is concerned, the fire, miscellaneous and marine accounted for 24%, 66%, and 10% in 1999-2000 respectively. The net incurred claim ratios were 41%, 99% and 70% in fire, miscellaneous and marine business in 1999-2000 respectively. In miscellaneous portfolio, motor business, which is a loss making business has steadily grown over a period of time and accounted for about 32% of the total business was more than 30% of the total business. For instance, it was about 63, 56 and 54 percent in Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan respectively (Figures 2 and 3).
8. The geographical spread of the premium written in India indicates that the maximum, i.e. about 40% was generated from western region and minimum i.e. about 9% from the eastern region. The northern and southern region contributed about 26% and 24% of gross premium in 1999-2000 respectively.
9. The underwriting profit of the industry was Rs. 18 crore (8.2% of the net premium) in 1973. However, over a period of time underwriting operations have resulted into losses and these losses amounted to Rs. 1,215 crore in 1999-2000, accounting for 13% of net premium income.
10. The investment income amounting to Rs. 2,392 crore was in excess of underwriting losses and produced profit for the industry. The level of profit was Rs. 1,153 crore before tax payment and Rs. 874 crore after tax payment. In 1973 the profit before tax and after tax were Rs. 38 crore and Rs.14 crore respectively (Reference Figure I).
11. Although the total number of insurance products in the general insurance industry are around 175, only a few i.e. 40 to 50 products have dominated the market controlling about 75 to 80% of the total market. Rest of the products have not been popular as they lack mass base, may be due to poor publicity and marketing, lack of awareness, higher premium rates, and might have been introduced without adequate database.
12. The rural and non-traditional business, which was practically nil in 1973, has gradually increased over a period of time. The premium collected through this business was only about Rs. 425 crore in 1999-2000, constituting new products for the rural gross premium income. It calls for innovating new products for the rural population suiting to different income groups and marketing them aggressively. However, if the total policies issued by office in rural areas are taken into account, the premium from rural areas will account for about 30%.
13. The reinsurance operation of the industry indicate that the total reinsurance premium was Rs. 1,011 crore in 1997-98, accounting for about 13% of the gross premium. It indicates that about 87% of the premium was retained in the country. The operations between 1990-91 to 1997-98 reveal that the retention was about 85.5% of the gross premium. Further break up of reinsurance premium indicates that about 45% is required for placement of large projects and specialised risk on facultative basis and another 45% is for the surplus treaties, which is necessary to create capacity. The cost of reinsurance reveals that in 1997-98 while the commission earned was Rs. 271 crore (3.5% of GDP), the claim recoveries were Rs. 557 crore (7.2% of GDP), accounting for a total of Rs. 828 crore. It amounted to 10.7% of GDP against the reinsurance premium of Rs. 1011 crore. Thus, the net outflow of premium works out to be Rs. 183 crore which may be termed as net cost of reinsurance, accounting for 2.4% of GDP. For the years between 1990-91 to 1998-99, the average total reinsurance cost, commission earned, claim recovery and net cost of reinsuance as percentage of GDP works out to be 14.5%, 3.5%, 7.9% and 3.1% respectively (Table 2).
In so far as the inward reinsurance business is concerned, in 1996-97, the total premium earned was Rs. 374 crore (5.3% of GDP), the commission paid was Rs. 124 crore (1.7% of GDP) and the balance resulted into net outflow of Rs. 81 crore (1.1% of GDP).
14. The general insurance industry has operations in 30 countries. Out of these in 16 countries it is operating directly and in 14 countries through subsidiary and associated companies. During 1999-2000, the total gross and net premium income from business operations in these countries were Rs. 488.76 crore and Rs. 440.36 crore respectively. The net claim during the year amounted to Rs. 288.19 crore amounting to 65.7% of the net premium.
Despite the fact that the industry has grown after nationalisation in terms of premium income, introduction of new products, wide coverage of individuals and organisations, innovating new covers for weaker sections of society, investment in social sectors, creating infrastructure at grassroots level etc., several weaknesses have also come to surface during these years of operation. These are :
1. Low level of insurance penetration.
2. Low level of insurance density.
3. Poor quality of insurance services.
4. Lack of qualitative and quantitative insurance products.
5. Low productivity.
6. Inadequate application of information technology.
Each of these issue has been covered in the following section.
Insurance Penetration
Despite the growth of gross domestic premium by 47 times between 1973 to 1999-2000, the insurance penetration defined as insurance premium as share of gross domestic product, was as low as 0.56% in non-life business in 1997. The life side accounted for 1.39% and the total penetration being 1.95%. it was as high as 4.64% and 4.53% for non-life side in USA and Newzealand respectively. The average for Asia was 1.90% while for the world it was 3.06%. Even amongst the developing economies and other East Asian Countries, the Indian insurance industry lagged far behind in this area. For instance it was 3.79% for South Korea, 2.45% for Japan, 1.69% for Taiwan, 2.19% for Malaysia, 1.31% for Singapore, and 1.22% for Thailand. Low insurance penetration is pointer to the fact that spread of insurance business has relatively been poorer in the country and large section of insurable population is still isolated from the insurance coverage (Figure 4/Table 3).
Insurance Density
Another parameter to measure the spread of insurance is the insurance density defined as premium per capita. The available data indicate that in 1997 for non-life side, it was US dollar 2.2. The total being US dollar 7.6, the life side accounting for US dollar 5.4, it was as high as US dollar 1403.7 in USA and US dollar 1296.6 in Switzerland. It was US dollar 176.8 for the world as a whole and 46.4 for Asia. Insurance density in the country was low even as compared to several developing countries. It was US dollar 338.3 in Singapore, US dollar 303 in South Korea, US dollar 299.2 in Hong Kong, US dollar 222.1 in Taiwan, US dollar 99.8 in Malaysia, US dollar 26.3 in Thailand, and US dollar 6.91 in Indonesia. It was as high as US dollar 804 in Japan. Most of the African countries were also ahead of India in this respect. Although insurance density is positively correlated to the per capita income which is quite low in India, but what surprises is that the insurance density is lower even compared to several developing countries whose per capita income is even lower than India. The low insurance density and penetration are also partly due to lack of awareness on the part of general masses regarding the benefits flowing from the insurance in improving their standard of living and welfare (Figure 5/Table 4).
Share in the World Market
The total insurance business in India comprising both non-life and life business constituted only 0.42 % of the total world insurance market in 1997. The relative figures for Japan, South Korea, UK and USA were 31.61 %, 3.47 %, 8.24 % and 25.37 %. The share of entire Asian insurance business in the total insurance business was 38.53 %.
Quality of Insurance Service
In general the quality of insurance services has been at a low key. The quality of insurance services may primarily be evaluated in terms of expeditious settlement of claims, delivery of policy documents and after sales services. At the end of March 2000, a total number of 10,09,542 claims were outstanding, of which about 55% were suit claims. Of the total suit claims, motor suit claims accounted for about 75%. Time wise analysis of pending claims indicate that about 45% claims were pending for more than one year and out of these about 23% were pending for more than three years. Although a total number of documents issued during 1999-2000 were quite large amounting to 3,39,70,855, yet as many as 10,12,908 documents were still outstanding as on March 2000. The delivery of these documents also takes a long time. Although the cost of the insurance services measured in terms of the price of insurance products for the non-tariff products has been by and large, fair and competitive but there is still ample scope for lowering the rates with proper control on management expenses, optimal utilization of investible resources and through wider coverage of insurable population.
Availability of Insurance Products
Although the general insurance side, there are a total of about 175 products covering most of the common insurance products in their portfolio, yet hardly 30 to 35 products are actively traded in the market. Today customers desire to purchase package products instead of purchasing several multiple policies. There are very limited number of such package policies (such as Industrial All Risks Policy and Office Umbrella Policy). The policies catering to special needs of the public such as Advance Loss of Profit, Director’s and Officer’s Liability etc. are quite limited in number. The products catering to rural sector where disposable income is increasing are limited in number and existing products have not been properly marketed. The policies in segments of Health covers, Household Risk covers, have not been properly marketed and publicised. For instance, health insurance products roughly cover only 25 lakh population with premium income of about Rs. 20 crore. The entire thrust on health insurance has been on the products after the occurrence of illness while the preventive aspects have been ignored. The health care aspect in health insurance has yet to gain in importance. The products covering environmental and financial risks are non-existent. Another area, which has remained untapped, is the development of saving linked non-life policies in the country. The countries like Japan has innovated several saving linked non life policies and the premium from these covers was as much as 40% of the total non life business premium in 1986.
Productivity
There could be several parameters to measure the productivity in the insurance sector. These could be in terms of collection of premium per development officer, issuance of documents per employee, claim settlement per employee, underwriting results, yield on investment income etc. however, measuring productivity in terms of collection of premium per development officer, issuance of policy documentation and claim settlement by class III employees indicate that it was quite on a low scale and needs to be enhanced. For instance collection of premium per development officer is about Rs. 30 lakh, issuance of documentation per class III employee is about 600 and the claim settlement per class III employee is 50 on an annual basis.
Internet and Information Technology
The spread of information technology in the industry has not been to the desired extent. The upgradation of technology does not necessarily restrict itself to the process of computerization, which is already taking place in the industry, but through it a wide database has to be built up for being utilized by the insurance companies, agents and consumers. There is a need to create technology infrastructure such as electronic fund transfer, internet, automatic teller machines, interactive voice response, electronic data inter change, local network services etc. The use of internet and e-commerce for selling the insurance products has yet not commenced in the industry. Presently about 0.2% of premium in USA and 0.02% in Europe is generated through internet. However, the increasing importance of internet in marketing of insurance products is revealed by the fact that out of the total customers with internet access, 45% in USA and 7% in Europe used internet for on-line search even though the policies were sold through conventional methods. Further, as per the estimates of the Swiss Re Economic Research and Consultancy by 2005 out of the total of personal lives business, the on-line sale will rise by 8% in USA and 4% in Europe.
Part IV
Future Potential and Challenges
The opening of the insurance sector offers ample opportunities to both existing as well as new players to penetrate into untapped areas; sectors and sub-sectors and unexploited segments of population as presently both insurance density and penetration are at a low level. As mentioned earlier, insurance density and penetration are at a low level. As mentioned earlier, insurance penetration broadly measures the significance of insurance industry in relation to a country’s entire economic productivity. It indicates importance of insurance industry in the national economy as a whole. On the other hand, insurance density reflects upon the country’s insurance purchasing power. Both indices being at very low level in the country even compared to the countries with the same level of economic development and per capita income, are indicative of the vast potential of the growth of this sector in future. Besides, as the economy grows at the rate of 6% in future, the scope for increasing insurance network in the country further grows up.
Primarily, the scope of for higher premium growth in the country is due to the following factors:
1. Low level of insurance penetration.
2. Low level of insurance density.
3. Growth of national income at the rate of 6% and above.
4. Increasing level of awareness amongst the masses about the benefit of insurance and availability of insurance products owing to increased publicity and advertisement.
5. The introduction of new tailored made products, based upon extensive market research and database catering to the needs of different segments of the population, and organisations. These new products will mainly be in areas of financial sector such as credit guarantee, performance guarantee, product liability sector, political risk sector, rural sector, information technology sector, health care etc. The scope for saving linked long-term personal products is also maximum in this country. The growth of such saving linked products in Japan is a case in point. The package policies, which are limited in number offer extensive scope for development in competitive environment.
6. The supply of products at fair and competitive prices and with increased coverage of perils and losses.
7. The market potential will also increase due to efficient delivery system of insurance services and professional selling of products through brokers, banks, sales through internet, telesales, counter sales through departmental stores, direct marketing etc.
The world-wide experience in different countries where insurance sector has been opened up indicates that after liberalisation of the insurance industry, there has been substantial growth of insurance market on a sustained basis. For instance, in Indonesia, which started insurance deregulation in 1983, the insurance market has been growing at the rate of about 25% p.a. and during the last 10 years insurance penetration has tripled in that country. Similar trends have been observed in the economies of Philippines, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, Hong Kong etc.
The general insurance business in India has grown at the rate ranging between 10 to 20 percent over a period of time. The average growth rate of gross domestic premium in India amounts to about 16% p.a. As mentioned above, there is scope for accelerated growth rate of premium in the country, which will be in tune with the world trend where insurance sector has been opened up both for domestic and foreign players. It may safely be assumed that the market may start growing at the rate ranging between 16% to 20% p.a. from the year 2001 onwards.
In case the market grows at an average rate of 16% p.a. the total gross direct premium in India will be around Rs. 20,965 crore by 2004-5. In case the market grows at the rate of 20% p.a., the total gross direct premium income in India will be around Rs. 24,838 crore by 2004-5.
It is expected that the premium will grow in between these two limits but with the large number of firms operating in the market, it is likely to pickup starting from around 16% in 2001 and may touch 20% by 2004-5. Even the growth at that rate will be less as to touch the level of insurance penetration in the country to 1%. The total gross premium income was Rs. 9982 crore in 1999-2000. During the next five years, the scope for additional premium is in the range of Rs. 11,000 to Rs. 14,000 crore (Figure 6).
The shift from monopoly to competitive market besides being an opportunity, also poses challenge to both existing as well as to new firms. The challenge will be in terms of increasing sensitivity of the consumers to the quality of services offered by the firms, in terms of policy conditions, time consumed in the delivery of policy documents, pricing of products, expeditions settlement of claims, marketing channels etc. With the arrival of new firms in the industry, consumers will expect new product designs at lower prices, their professional selling, responsive services and the firms lagging behind in these in these areas are likely to loose share of market in a very short period of time and may even be forced to leave the industry. Thus the competition while offering ample opportunities to the firms to widen the horizon of the market are also subjected to the firms to widen the horizon of the market are also subjected to serious challenges due to increased sensitiveness of consumers to the quality of customer’s services. There will be change from sellers to the buyers market in the insurance industry.
Notes
1. Essential Features of General Insurance in General Insurance Compendium, 1999-2000.
2. Emerging Realities of General Insurance in India: Vision 2000, A.C. Mukherjee in International Conference of Insurance: Vision 2000 by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).