Girija Subramanian, CMD, New India Assurance

“Even more encouraging is that our continued emphasis on profitable growth over the past several quarters is now yielding results. Despite the rise in gross written premium, the company has managed to improve its combined ratio, reduce its underwriting losses driven by lower claim ratio and significant reduction in operating costs’’ Girija Subramanian, CMD, New India Assurance

Mumbai: Despite significantly brining down its underwriting losses and improving combined ratio, New India Assurance, the largest non-life multinational insurer in the country,  has ended Q4 FY 25 with almost a flat profit of Rs 347 crore  as it has preferred to clean up its balance sheet by providing one time Rs  802 crore on account of its legacy reinsurance portfolio.

The company, which had a board meeting on Monday to finalise its results, has declared a dividend of Rs 1.80 per share.

NIA’s gross premium  has risen by 8 per cent to Rs 11.433 crore in the fourth quarter ended March 2025.

“The company made a provision of Rs802 crore towards legacy non-moving reinsurance balances, which has also impacted the reported profit after tax and return on equity (ROE) in FY25, adjusted for which the YoY results have been excellent. Our focus in FY26 will remain on further enhancing profitability, with a strong emphasis on launching innovative products aimed at the retail and MSME segments,’’ said Girija Subramanian, CMD, NIA on Monday after declaring the results.

With strict monitoring of all portfolios, NIA has improved its combined ratio majorly from 119.29 per cent in Q4FY24  to 111.46 per cent in Q4FY25.

Similarly, the insurer’s  underwriting losses have also fallen year on year(y-o-y) by 32 per cent to Rs 1143 crore in the reporting quarter.   

The combined ratio improvement could have been even greater if not for the elevated loss ratio in the Motor Third Party segment, where the much-needed premium revision has not happened yet, added Subramanian.

“Even more encouraging is that our continued emphasis on profitable growth over the past several quarters is now yielding results. Despite the rise in GWP, the company has managed to reduce its underwriting losses driven by lower claim ratio and significant reduction in operating costs.’’explained Subramanian.

With market volatility, the  insurer’s investment income has  fallen by 11 per cent y-o-y to Rs 2339 crore during the reporting quarter.

“The company’s growth vis-à-vis the industry over recent months, is quite encouraging. The solvency ratio has improved from 1.81x in FY24 to 1.91x in FY25, underscoring the company’s financial strength. Our balance sheet remains robust, with assets under management of more than Rs 98,000 crore,’’  stated Subramanian.

The insurer is entering new lines like parametric insurance by this month end and going forward will emphasis on growth in segments other than Motor and Health where competitive intensity is high.

Parametric insurance refers to losses arising out of calamities including heavy rainfall, high speed wind and flood/drought. Unlike traditional insurance policies, the payout in case of parametric insurance products depends upon triggering of pre-defined parameters, thus allowing for quicker claim settlement.

“Parametric insurance is a use and file product, which is allowed by the regulator IRDAI. We have got it already registered on IRDAI so the product is ready and can be used across both retail and business groups. We are ready to launch the product with that in a big way by this month end,” said Subramanian.

Subramanian said the parametric insurance product would mostly cover climate-related uncertainties, which affects daily livelihood, employment generation, and so on.

“Climate change affects so many things. So normally, this kind of parametric covers are based on thresholds. Once the threshold is breached, the claim is paid,” she said.

The threshold, she said, is measured by publicly available data, like IMD declarations and the claim settlement in such policies is climate driven

There will be also further impetus on risk management initiatives and steps to improve the global credit rating of the company.

For the FY 25, NIA has has achieved an all-time high gross written premium (GWP) of Rs 43,618 crore , reflecting a growth of 3.86 per cent  despite challenging market conditions.

However, increase in Motor TP loss ratio has offset the benefits of lower loss ratio in other portfolios. Non Motor TP incurred claim ratio(ICR) has reduced by 3.4 per cent YoY primarily driven by improvement in Health segment.

Shares of the company settled at Rs 181.25, up 1.31 per cent from previous closing level on BSE.