The FIR said: “In the kharif 2020 season, 7,00,129 farmers had paid a premium of Rs 277.65 crore to the company. Of these, 1,61,390 farmers’ claims amounting to Rs 107.94 crore were approved by the company. Of these (approved claims), the company paid Rs 52.84 crore to 88,997 farmers. However, it has not paid the remaining Rs 55.10 crore to the 72,393 farmers, whose claims were approved.”
Mumbai:
After raising the matter with the centre, the Maharashtra government has filed an FIR against Reliance General Insurance Company (RGICL) in Parbhani district, for non payment of insurance claim amounts to farmers under the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana.
The FIR said the Anil Ambani owned general insurance company has not complied with the directions of the district collector to pay the due crop claims of farmers under the PMFBY.
The FIR said: “In the kharif 2020 season, 7,00,129 farmers had paid a premium of Rs 277.65 crore to the company. Of these, 1,61,390 farmers’ claims amounting to Rs 107.94 crore were approved by the company. Of these (approved claims), the company paid Rs 52.84 crore to 88,997 farmers. However, it has not paid the remaining Rs 55.10 crore to the 72,393 farmers, whose claims were approved.”
“In the rabi 2020 season, 55,477 farmers had paid a premium of Rs 10.96 crore. Of these (insured farmers), 12,300 farmers incurred losses against which the company was expected to pay Rs 6.05 crore to the farmers’ account, which was not paid despite frequent reminders,” alleged the FIR.
The FIR further said in the kharif 2021 season, 3,24,356 farmers had informed the company through different mediums about the losses incurred due to natural calamity. “The company was ordered to carry out a survey(panchnama) of the losses within 10 days of receiving the complaints about losses. However, even after a month, the company did not carry out these surveys citing lack of manpower.
Later, the company approved claims of Rs 183.20 crore to 2,72,113 of the 3,24,356 farmers. The company was directed to pay this amount to the farmers before Diwali. However, it has not been paid till today,” it said.
Earlier, in a letter to the central government, Maharashtra’s Agriculture Commissioner had alleged that RGI has refused to claims under the PMFBY for Kharif 2021 season despite receiving the first instalment of premium.
All other insurance companies except RGICL have started started depositing the claims amount in the affected farmers’ bank accounts. for the loacalised calamity and mid-season adversity
“In 2021, the Insurance companies have already received an amount of Rs 2,312.22 crore premium amount. Accordingly, all the insurance companies except Reliance General Insurance Company have started depositing the localised calamity and mid-season adversity claims amount in the affected farmers’s bank account”, the letter written by Dheeraj Kumar, Commissioner Agriculture of Maharashtra read.
The letter has mentioned that that Reliance general insurance earned Rs 2,285 crore as profits in the last five years in Maharashtra from crop insurance scheme but the claims percentage to premium paid by the company, 26.55 per cent, is the lowest among all the insurance companies.
In comparison, other insurance companies such as Oriental Insurance’s payout ratio is 163 per cent, Bajaj Allianz general insurance’s payout ratio is 148 per cent, IFFCO Tokio’s is 39 per cent, HDFC Ergo is 42 per cent, and Bharti Axa’s is 45 per cent.
“This shows that Reliance general insurance company is deliberately avoiding payments to farmers on some pretext or other; is wilfully suppressing losses occurred to avoid payments to farmers and is resorting to total unethical and corrupt practices to tarnish the name of PMFBY and denying benefits of the scheme to farmers”, Kumar said in his letter.
However RGICL has clarified that it is not possible to pay the claims as the Maharashtra government and central government have not paid their part of premiums to it under PMFBY..
In a letter to the CEO of PMFBY, Reliance General Insurance said, eligible claims for Kharif 2020 and Rabi 2020-21 have been kept on hold due to non-receipt of overdue state share of subsidy Rs 156 crore for Kharif 2020 and 34 crore for Rabi 2021 season. Also, since the state share has not been released, the corresponding central government’s share has also not been released. As a result, total premium outstanding against the previous season is Rs 355 crore.
“We believe the unilateral and arbitrary attempt to delay the release of due premium/claims shall set a wrong precedent, have potential issues of compliance with the reinsurers, regulators and hamper effective implementation of PMFBY besides lack of commitments for future participation in the scheme by insurers”, the insurer in its letter.
Reliance General Insurance has received Rs 430.59 crore as first instalment premium for the Kharif 2021 season.