National Insurance CMD V. Ramaswamy in Calcutta on Friday. Picture by Kishor Roy Chowdhury

Calcutta, Aug. 17: National Insurance Company plans to set up a third-party administrator service company and a subsidiary for the health insurance business, as part a business recast exercise.

The insurer has appointed PriceWaterhouseCoopers as the consultant and IIM Calcutta as the adviser for the initiative.

“Internally, we have some plans regarding the areas we want to enter. But we have appointed a consultant and an adviser to evaluate and suggest ways in which we can go about the matter,” said V. Ramaswamy while announcing the financial results of the company here today.

“It has not been decided when PwC will submit its report. But we will soon announce our plans after consulting with PwC and IIMC,” he added.

The public sector insurer has posted a net profit of Rs 421 crore and a premium income of Rs 3,827.12 crore in 2006-07. In 2005-06, the company suffered a loss of Rs 114.64 crore.

Buoyed by the earnings, the company has announced an 83.61 per cent dividend to the government.

In the first quarter of the current financial year, National Insurance has underwritten a gross premium of Rs 1,048.66 crore, an 8.1 per cent growth over the previous corresponding period. “We are targeting a total premium income of Rs 4,600 crore in 2007-08,” Ramaswamy said.

To achieve this 22 per cent growth in business during the current financial year, National Insurance will focus on selling more retail policies such as insurance to households, shopkeepers, health and vehicles. NIC’s retail push will come from its agents and bancassurance tie-ups.

“We will recruit 14,000 to 15,000 agents before March next year to increase our field strength to 100,000 from 86,000 now,” Ramaswamy said. “In bancassurance, we have tie-ups with 23 banks, the highest in the country. We will observe September as the month of bancassurance,” he added.

During the month, we will launch tailor-made health insurance plans for the customers of our partner banks.

“The premium on these plans will be much lower than that paid by a customer if he/she comes directly to us,” he said.

The company will focus on health insurance during the current financial year, according to Ramaswamy.