What are the challenges the general insurance industry is facing now?

The industry post-detariffing has gone through a challenging period. Overall, pricing has come down and there was a slowdown in new business last year. But things are now looking up both in terms of overall growth and pricing. The pricing challenges that we have seen in the past are probably at its bottom. I am more hopeful in the short and medium- term on growth. The industry should grow at around 10 per cent. Being in the same environment, we, ICICI Lombard also had the same impact. But we are changing our focus. Our focus will be on profitable growth rather than topline growth at any cost. What is your strategy to ensure profitable growth? We are doing much more due diligence on the risk that we are bringing on board. We are focusing on segments of business where there is appropriate pricing. We are picking business that is rightly priced. We are willing to forego those businesses which we think are not priced appropriately. We are also trying to manage our costs. The other thing that we are concentrating on is to improve our service architecture. One of the things we have done is to take the entire health claims servicing in-house. Typically, there are a lot of complaints about health claims servicing. Almost all our new business is done by an in-house claim servicing team. Some of the older policies are still handled by TPAs. We have invested heavily in technology and people. There are more than 250 people in the service team with more than 100 doctors. Which are the loss-making segments? In the industry, marine hull has been a loss-making segment in the past. Another area where the industry has bled is group health. When it comes to underwriting, most of the large companies are trying to bring in some discipline in pricing in the group health segment. Which segments you think are profitable? Retail health is a profitable segment. Motor insurance is an important segment and more than 40 per cent of the industry is motor. Within motor there are profitable segments and we are trying to focus on that. Within corporates, we are looking to pick up the right risks. Are you concerned about losing market share? We are not concerned about losing market share. We are quite happy where we are today in terms of our share and our leadership in the private sector. How is the company's claims ratio?

Our claims ratio is less than 100 per cent. The number of claims we paid last year was around 30 lakh34 lakh for health, 3 lakh for motor and the rest to other sectors. How much business do you do through your parent? ICICI Bank contributes less than 10 per cent of our sales. We follow a multichannel distribution strategy. We have the agency, other bancassurance partners, the and the online channel. The direct sales force caters to corporates. Is using e-channels giving you an edge over your competitors? Our online sales constitute around four per cent of our total retail sales. It will be significantly higher for travel insurance. In segments where customers are largely buying on their own, using e-channels in an advantage. Motor is another area where customers are buying policies online. In health also, awareness is building up. Do you think the industry has room for more players? The only way for the industry to grow is to come up with innovation around products and new segments. Penetration levels are still at 0.6 per cent. There is clearly a huge scope for the industry to grow. Competition is welcome. It is good for customers, for SOUCEpenetration levels and for overall service. One thing one will be always be concerned about is the strategy that new entrants adopt. If the players adopt a price-driven strategy, it will not help the industry. Any plan of unlocking the shareholder value? There are so many routes, but we have not evaluated the options. It is not our immediate priority. From our perspective, capital is not an issue. The solvency margins are comfortable. We don't need capital right now. Since there is no immediate need to raise capital, I would look at what is the right timing. At the end of the day, it's the decision of shareholders. The IRDA chairman has expressed concern over the underwriting losses of the industry. What are your comments? Last year, at an aggregate level underwriting losses for the industry were Rs 4,800 crore. However, it was covered by the investment returns. So, overall as an industry, it was profitable. The industry cannot sustain underwriting losses forever. However, now companies will have to pay tax on profit on sale of investments, as mentioned in the Finance Bill. This will hit the investment income. General insurance industry will be the only industry which pays tax at a

nominal rate. No other financial institutions such as banks and mutual funds pay tax in the long-term. It is not acceptable.