Four non-life insurers to be headless by Feb

Four public sector non-life insurance companies including General Insurance Corporation (GIC) will become headless by February 2005. As many as 20 general managers from the public sector non-life companies were interviewed for the four posts.

National Insurance, United India Insurance, Oriental Insurance and GIC will all see their chairman and managing directors retire latest by February 2005.

While V Jaganathan, chairman and managing director of United India has already retired on October 31, H S Wadhwa, the present chairman and managing director of Kolkata based National Insurance will lay his office on December 31.

S L Mohan, chairman and managing director, Oriental Insurance will also retire on January 31 while PC Ghosh, the chairman of GIC will have served his full term by February 28. The interview for the top slots was held sometime back in Mumbai and Y P Chopra from National Insurance turned out to be the senior most among the 20 interviewed.

Second in seniority was R K Joshi from GIC. B Chakroborty from United India Insurance was third in the list followed by Srinivasan K K from New India Assurance.

Sources close to the development said that recruitment for the top slot was generally done on seniority basis.

P K Mor, from GIC, Garg M K and Ramadoss M both from New India fared in the list after Srinivasan K K. The talk in official circles is that R K Joshi, B Chakroborty, Garg M K and Ramadoss M were the top contenders for the post.

The scheme of affairs at GIC was a little different because, there is no managing director at GIC after P B Ramanujam retired. Sources at GIC said that the ministry was thinking of abolishing the post of MD at the reinsurance company and merging it with the chairman's post after P C Ghosh retires.

Previously there were two managing directors at GIC, one MDs post was abolished last year and the second MDs post will also be abolished next year.