Insurance cos paid Rs 262 cr as claims towards Mumbai attacks

"In 2009-10, Rs 212 crore were (paid) towards further on-account payments made for the losses arising from the terrorist attack on November 26, 2008 at Mumbai," Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) said in its annual report 2009-10.

An amount of Rs 50 crore had already been settled in fiscal 2008-09. Insurers expect the total claims to touch Rs 500 crore.

"The loss to the pool (corpus set up by insurers) from this incident is at present estimated at Rs 500 crore including the on-account payments made so far," the report said.

Luxury hotels Taj Mahal Palace and Oberoi Trident were among the places targeted by terrorists on November 26, 2008, in a co-ordinated attack across Mumbai that killed over 200 people and left the hotels damaged and burnt.

The Terror Pool was set up in 2002 and members contribute 100 per cent of terror risk insurance premium to the corpus, which is shared among pool members to settle claims.
During 2009-10, the total premium ceded to the terrorism pool was Rs 306 crore and claims paid were Rs 214 crore.

The pool's premium in the previous year was Rs 223 crore with claims paid at Rs 50.67 crore.

The pool is protected by an excess of loss reinsurance programme, and loss in excess of Rs 150 crore are recovered from the reinsurers.

GIC and New India insurance have maximum share of 19.61 per cent each in the corpus, followed by United India at 12.86 per cent.