“GIC Re’s lean organisational structure with fewer than 500 employees, compared to the thousands employed by public sector general insurance companies (PSGICs), makes uniformity under GIPSA operationally infeasible and strategically flawed,” the GIC Re officers’ association has said in a letter to finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman
Mumbai: The officers’ association of state owned GIC Re has knocked at the door of finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman to exclude the reinsurer from GIPSA ,the official coordinating agency among six PSU general re/insurers including Agriculture Insurance Company and GIC Re, and provide a separate HR and compensation frameworks for the organisation.
The other companies which come under the purview of GIPSA are, New India Assurance, Oriental Insurance Company, United India Insurance and National Insurance Company.
GIC Re may have independent HR and governance policies, free from external administrative interference by a body not applicable to its statutory mandate, the association has demanded in a letter to Sitharaman on 16 May.
According to the union, the skillsets of a reinsurer are fundamentally different from that of a direct non-life insurer, necessitating separate HR and compensation frameworks.
“GIC Re’s lean organisational structure with fewer than 500 employees, compared to the thousands employed by public sector general insurance companies (PSGICs), makes uniformity under GIPSA operationally infeasible and strategically flawed,”
According to the union, GIC Re’s continued association with GIPSA violates the legislative intent behind the delinking it from PSGICs which happened in 2000 , contravenes the statutory status granted to GIC Re under the Insurance Act, undermines GIC Re’s autonomy as a SEBI-regulated, IRDAI-licensed listed reinsurer and raises constitutional concerns about governance and independence.
Earlier, GIC Re management had also pleaded with the Department of Financial Services (DFS) not to club the organisation along with other PSU general insurers in the matter of wage negotiation and allow higher pay of scale for its employees as unlike other companies, it is a highly profitable company, whose small number of employees have to be suitably remunerated for sake of talent retention in a competitive market.
Besides, unlike other companies, most of its officials stay in places like Mumbai where cost of living is high.