India P/C Business Now Enters Growth Phase

[JEast]

Not necessarily a hard market, but the p/c business is growing.

 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/personal-finance/insurance/insurance-news/Insurance-Non-life-business-now-enters-growth-phase/articleshow/6745302.cms

 

More with respect to Fairfax is the when/if parliament increases FDI from 26% to 49% for potential increase in ICICI Lombard.  Some small progress on that front.

 

http://www.livemint.com/2010/10/25232415/Sebi-clears-IPO-norms-for-insu.html?h=B

 

 

Cheers

JEast

[JEast]

A trickle of a little more progress on the FDI restrictions.

Mr Ahluwalia said the debate on opening of the insurance sector had been initiated through a Parliamentary process and India should raise its investment cap in the sector to 49 per cent from the current 26 per cent.

 

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/12/07/stories/2010120750910500.htm

 

 

Cheers

JEast

[Guest longinvestor]

A trickle of a little more progress on the FDI restrictions.

Mr Ahluwalia said the debate on opening of the insurance sector had been initiated through a Parliamentary process and India should raise its investment cap in the sector to 49 per cent from the current 26 per cent.

http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/12/07/stories/2010120750910500.htm

Cheers

JEast

The single biggest investment opportunity for FFH, Prem cannot hide his excitement about this in his recent public presentations.

ICICI Lombard insurance is heavily marketed in India (telephone poles included!)

 

 

[rohitc99]

I have bought insurance from icici lombard in the past as a resident. ICICI is known for high decibel marketing and is an aggressive company which has expanded rapidly in the last 10+ yrs

however on the downside this company has lax standards - atleast in their other divisions. As a resident, i had approached icici home loans (mortage company) and they are willing to write a high mortage with minimum documentation. This is in comparison to some of the other companies in india which have much stricter standard.

 

Maybe one cannot extend this to their icici lombard division, but the culture is the same. The life insurance division, which i think is a different division from lombard, is also lax in their standard (they require much lesser medical tests and are more lax overall).

 

i hope the same culture does not pervade the icici lombard division

 

[Guest longinvestor]

Maybe one cannot extend this to their icici lombard division, but the culture is the same. The life insurance division, which i think is a different division from lombard, is also lax in their standard (they require much lesser medical tests and are more lax overall).

i hope the same culture does not pervade the icici lombard division

While I don't know how Lombard is as I don't do business with them, they did have a booth at the FFH AGM in Toronto last year.Prem mentioned this when he spoke, having their subsidiaries present at the AGM.

 

I spoke with Lombard about one esoteric property insurance...CATTLE...which they are involved in. Interesting mention there of embedded IC chips under the cow's skin which makes them traceable via GPS. Now, I don't know all that goes on here but Lombard does not have to worry about disappearing cow scams, cows anyway live a full life in India:-) That was very interesting.

 

You are correct, they are aggressive marketers, even their annual report/letter to shareholders came across tall on marketing spin. Maybe Prem with a 49% ownership, can tone them down a bit. He can show them how to write those, has about 25 years on that!

[Uccmal]

Folks, Dont confuse cultures.  You may find that what you consider to be aggressive marketing is normal in another culture.   

[netnet]

Aggressive marketing is not a problem, lax underwriting is!

[rohitc99]

Folks, Dont confuse cultures.  You may find that what you consider to be aggressive marketing is normal in another culture.   

 

Uccmal

aggresive marketing in case of icici is not an issue. ICICI has a long history in india. It was a DFI (development financial instution) - short form for a government institution which the politicians used to provide capital to favored business groups. this was prior to 1990.

 

the government sold off most of the holdings and ICICI has minimal government involvement now. they grew very rapidly in the 90s based on a combination of good customer service and aggressive marketing and cleaned up the non performing loan mess. however the bank has always been focused on size and scale.

 

i was happy to buy life insurance and mortage from them as they did not require much in terms of documentation and their standards were not too stringent..compared to some of the other banks which were more particular about the requirements. ofcourse i sold off my stock in the bank . a lot of my friends had similar experience.

 

the caveat in my experience is that this was prior to 2005. maybe the bank has become conservative and has better underwriting standards in the lombard division