Guwahati, May 12: SBI General Insurance Company Limited (SBIGICL), a joint venture between State Bank of India and Insurance Australia Group (IAG), which started operations in 2010, has achieved 50 per cent growth in the region in the last financial year, Pushan Mahapatra, the company's managing director and chief executive officer, said today.
In Assam, the company has branches in Guwahati, Jorhat and Silchar, and one each in Meghalaya and Nagaland. SBIGICL has over 350 branches and around 332 insurance agents in the state.
For SBIGICL, in Assam, motor insurance accounts for 38 per cent, health 22 per cent, fire 21 per cent and personal accident insurance contributes to 18 per cent of the total premium, which amounted to Rs 62.85 crore in the 2016- 17 financial year.
Mahapatra said, "Having studied in Tezpur and living in these parts for several years, I have an emotional link with the region. While the company is doing well here, a large section of the people has no access to insurance facilities in remote parts of the Northeast as well as in rest of the country. We must take insurance to people who need it the most, those who are vulnerable in terms of household, motor and medical calamities. The cost of medical treatment is increasing and sometimes a family is ruined while meeting the medical expenses arising out of some major disease."
"We want to increase our presence here and offer a varied portfolio of insurance products customised to suit both the personal and business needs of our customers. We have customised health plans for well-informed customers and simple health insurance policies suited for first-time buyers of health insurance in the smaller towns and cities. We are also organising awareness camps in villages about products like crop insurance. By conducting camps in schools, students are being made aware of insurance at early age. General insurance penetration in the country is less than 1 per cent, while it is around 60 to 70 per cent in developed countries. We are trying to bridge this gap," added Mahapatra.
