`After January, we are now making efforts to maintain a healthy topline growth till the end of the year. We are giving  a very strong thrust towards risk selection, bringing  in greater accountability and monitoring  mechanisms have been strengthened. All these efforts  will pay in terms of bottom line,’’ said Girija Subramanian, CMD, NIA

Mumbai: The Indian general insurance industry’s premium income, at Rs 29,021 crore, up seven per cent year-on –year (Y-O-Y) over the year-ago period, has recovered some of its growth momentum in the month of January as two of the large multiline PSU general insurers, New India Assurance(NIA) and  National Insurance Company (NIC)  have sprung a surprise by growing at 16 per cent and 24 per cent respectively during  the month.

Earlier, the industry had a marginal negative growth in December and a low single digit growth of 2.45 per cent- in November.

NIA, the country’s largest general insurer, has recorded a premium income of Rs 3788 crore while it is Rs 1296 crore for Kolkata based NIC during the month of January.

NIA, which had been consciously shrinking its top line growth by shedding its loss making business and to have a profitable growth, for the last few quarters, has now decided to maintain a robust premium income going forward.

`After January, our aim is to maintain a similar healthy topline growth till the end of the year. We are giving a very strong thrust towards risk selection and bringing  in greater accountability and monitoring  mechanisms have been strengthened. All these efforts  will pay in terms of bottom line,’’ said Girija Subramanian, CMD, NIA.

Earlier, indicating the return market discipline and a costlier Apr 1 renewals in the Indian general insurance market  that had seen huge undercutting of Fire premium in recent months, Subramanian had said the premium in the property segment has shown signs of hardening in since January beginning .

However, private sector general insurers have remained cautious as two of  large insurers, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and HDFC Ergo General Insurance–have  continued degrow their topline significantly during the reporting month .

Bajaj Allianz General Insurance has further cut down its premium by 15 per cent y-o-y to Rs 1675 crore while HDFC ERGO General insurance has followed suit by 28 per cent to Rs 1082 crore. The premium income of HDFC Ergo General insurance had declined by 43 per cent y-o-y to Rs 945 crore in the month of December.

ICICI Lombard General Insurance ,the  second largest non-life insurer in the country, has augmented its topline by six per cent y-o-y to Rs 2561 crore in the month of January.

The stand alone health insurers except Star Health Insurance, the largest in the retail space, and the new ones like Galaxy, Narayana Health Insurance, have maintained their double digit growth.

The general insurance industry has expanded by eight per cent y-o-y to Rs 2,59, 211 crore  in the first 10 months (Apr- Jan period) of the current fiscal and if this growth momentum is maintained for the next two months, the industry will likely to exceed Rs 3.10 trillion of premium in FY25.