Overseas travel policies a losing biz for PSU insurers

Public general insurers, especially United India Insurance, recorded high loss ratio in overseas travel policies in 2018-19 against their private counterparts.

The aggregate incurred claims ratio of public sector insurers in overseas travel was 122 per cent in the last fiscal, while the private general insurers recorded 53 per cent claims ratio and standalone health insurance companies 36 per cent.

Claims ratio is the percentage of claims costs incurred in relation to premiums earned.

Among public insurers, United India Insurance registered the highest claims ratio of 314 per cent for a net earned premium of Rs 6.75 lakh, the company made claims valued Rs 21.19 crore. This pertains only to its individual business as it did not do any business in group insurance schemes.

Among other PSU insurers, New India recorded a loss ratio of 66 per cent, National 51 per cent and Oriental Insurance 48 per cent.

Private insurers generally had comfortable loss ratios barring a few. Chola MS registered 114 per cent claims ratio by earning a premium of Rs

2.46 crore against claims of Rs 2.77 crore. ICICI Lombard earned aggregate premium of Rs

117.56 crore against claims of Rs 56.86 crore48 per cent loss ratio. Bajaj Allianz recorded

29 per cent loss ratio, Bharti AXA 87 per cent, Tata AIG 62 per cent, Future Generali 42 per cent, Reliance 39 per cent and HDFC ERGO 37 per cent.

Among standalone health insurance companies Apollo Munich's claims ratio stood at 60 per cent and that of

Religare at 21 per cent.

The insurers earned a total net premium of Rs 626.39 crore in overseas travel.

As far as domestic travel is concerned, the net earned premium stood at Rs 114 crore as only a few private general insurers were active in the space. These included Acko, GoDigit, ICICI Lombard, Reliance and Tata AIG. Apart from Religare Health Insurance, none of the standalone health insurers and the public general insurers did any business in domestic travel.

The total loss ratio the insurers stood at comfortable 14 per cent. of a