How big is the general insurance market in India? What kind of growth rates has it been witnessing?
This year the market was somewhere close to Rs 15,000 crore, roughly $3 billion. The sector has been growing steadily between 10 and 12 per cent. The private sector players have been witnessing much better growth rates for obvious reasons. The private sector would command about 9.5 to 10 per cent of the market and I would say that it has been a rather good start for us because, to reach a figure of 10 per cent of the overall industry in other liberalised markets has taken much longer. Which is a more preferred route of selling general insurance – is it the agency route or bancassurance model? Traditionally, in India general insurance was more bought than sold. General insurance was purchased because it was compulsory to do so. With the private sector coming in, general insurance policies are now being sold and every player is looking all possible channels to sell their products. Globally, bancassurance has been successful in certain countries like UK and France but has had a mixed run
