"Last fiscal, our premium income grew by around 9 per cent. It may be around 15 per cent this fiscal," Tata AIG General Insurance's CEO and Managing Director Gaurav D Garg said.
Tata AIG had generated Rs 882.93 crore premium income where motor insurance contributed 25 per cent followed by personal accident, health and travel segments putting 20 per cent together. The commercial segment shared the rest 55 per cent. Garg expects the industry growth would be below 10 per cent this fiscal compared to around 9 per cent in 2008-09.
During the current fiscal, Tata AIG General Insurance would focus on segments like motor, small business, health, rural and retail segments for growth.
"These segments have high-growth potentials and we want to focus on these areas to bolster growth," Garg said, adding Tata-AIG would either expand the existing product baskets or launch new products in these areas during the current fiscal.
In addition to the recently launched eight add-on covers, the firm aims to clock around 10 per cent growth in the motor insurance sector in FY 2010 and would come out with three more such covers, subject to regulatory approval.
In the SME domain, the company expects to launch "more and more" industry-specific variants to cover hotels, schools, restaurants and kirana shops among others in addition to the existing six to seven variants.
Currently health insurance may not be a remarkable area for Tata AIG having only two to three products, but the company is in the process of securing approvals from Insurance and Regulatory and Development Authority for four new products in this area that it plans to launch under the "wellness platform".
To bring in a large section of people from rural area, the company plans to launch some health products under a micro -insurance scheme and is preparing to sought IRDA approval for that.For the retail sector, it plans to expand its distribution reach and enter into direct distribution to promote and sell its "Plus Products".
These are special covers designed to take care of the daily worries of individuals that provide insurance coverage during incidents like losing a wallet, losing identity documents, credit card misuse and others, he said.
Garg said Tata AIG has also received the IRDA nod to launch a vertical to address the high-networth individuals.
The company would make a soft launch of the vertical in Mumbai shortly and then in phased manner throughout India.
The company also intends to increase the number for branch offices to 72 from 42 now and number of agents to over 3,000 from 2,000 in the current fiscal.
"These will be opened in Tier-III and Tier-IV cities," Garg said.
Tata AIG General Insurance has Rs 300 crore paid-up capital and Rs 450 crore authorised capital.
As on December 31, 2008, it had solvency ratio of 1.88, compared to the regulatory requirement of 1.50.
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