Mumbai:
The General Insurance Council, the self regulatory body of the general insurance industry with 33 players, has now been fully reconstituted after a gap of three years.
A V Girija Kumar, CMD, Oriental Insurance Company, has replaced G Srinivasan, as the chairman of the council. Srinivasan has to relinquish the post as he retired as the CMD of the New India Assurance, in July end .
The executive committee of the Council comprises of four general body members of the General Insurance Council elected for three years in their individual capacity by the general body; and five nominated members comprising of persons nominated by IRDAI. They incude an eminent person not connected with insurance business, one representative of Insurance agents,.one representative of Third Party Administrators(TPAs),one representative of Surveyors and Loss Assessors and one representative of policyholders.
Along with Girija Kumar, three new general body members of the executive committee are, Alice Vaidyan, CMD, GIC Re, Ritesh Kumar, MD & CEO, HDFC Ergo General Insurance,Anuj Gulati, MD & CEO, Religare Health Insurance
As the nominated members by the IRDAI, former additional chief secretary, Andhra Pradesh, C R Biswal has been inducted in council as the eminent person not connected with insurance.
The other nominated members of the council are Vikram Jit Singh Chhatwal¸ whole time director, Medi Assist Insurance TPA as the TPA representative, Saumil Dilip Mehta, director, Mehta & Padamsey Insurance Surveyors & Loss Assessors Pvt as the representetive Surveyors & Loss Assessors Representative, V V Venkatasubramanian as the policyholders representative and Y Ramanand Rao as the agents' representative.
Besides, there are regular invitees to the executive council including M Santhana Gopalan,CEO, SCOR SE, India Branch, Ashish Mehrotra, CEO, Max Bupa Health Insurance, Mahesh Balasubramanian, MD & CEO, Kotak Mahindra General Insurance, Rakesh Jain,ED & CEO,Reliance General Insurance, T L Alamelu,CMD,Agriculture Insurance Company.
R Chandrasekharan has been the secretary general of the GI council for the last six years and currently is on an extension. He may be reappointed or will be there till a new official is appointed in the post.
“The Indian general insurance industry grew to Rs 1.5 trillion as on March 31 2018. We do expect to achieve a growth of 15 per cent for the current fiscal. The industry is growing at a much faster rate and has a lot of growth potential.I do think that the industry has to grow to next level, keeping in view the uninsured vehicles to be insured along with other things as the economy is on an expansion mode. We will definitely move ahead falling on the lines of direction given by the sectoral regulator IRDAI and the instructions of the government towards implementatlon of government-sponsored insurance schemes,'' said Girija Kumar.
The General Insurance Council has been constituted under section 64C of the Insurance Act, 1938 since 2001 by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). The General Insurance Council is an important link between the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India and the non-Life insurance industry. It also pushes for the Industry’s issues with the Government. While the Council plays the role envisaged for it by the Insurance Act, it also facilitates overall growth for the industry in a fair and equitable manner in the interest of all stake holders.
One of the important functions of the GI Council is to developing codes of conduct for member companies, strengthening non-life insurance companies' disclosure, developing compliance programs to observe laws and regulations, among the industry players..