Private insurance companies fared poorly in terms of settlement of death claims in 2012-13 as compared to state-owned LIC, says sectoral regulator IRDA.
“The claim settlement ratio of LIC was better than that of the private life insurers,” Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority said in its annual report.
Life Insurance Corporation posted claim settlement ratio of 97.73 % last fiscal, as compared to 97.42 % in 2011-12.
For private insurers, the settlement ratio had gone down to 88.65 % in 2012-13, as compared to 89.34 % during the previous year, IRDA said.
It further revealed that private sector insurance firms have been rejecting about 8 % of the claims as against 1.12 % by the LIC.
According to Irda, there were 3.47 % claims sought from private insurance companies were pending at the end of the year. The similar figure for LIC was 1.04 %.
There are about two dozen private life insurance firms in India and the larger ones include ICICI Prudential Life, HDFC Standard Life and Reliance Life.
The life insurance industry recorded a premium income of over Rs. 2.87 lakh crore during 2012-13, up 0.05 per cent over the previous fiscal.
While private sector insurers posted 6.87 per cent decline in premium income, LIC recorded 2.92 per cent growth in 2012-13 compared to the previous fiscal.
Sabyasachi Paul has been associated with equity research and advisory on equity markets in India for over 9 years & currently heads the equity research desk of Eastern Financiers Ltd, Kolkata.He also manages a portfolio on the online platform Kristal. Find link to the strategy named ‘The Tortoise’