In FY15, general insurance industry had clocked a premium income of Rs 84,715 crore.
The growth this fiscal was driven by motor and health insurance segments, which are traditionally the largest segments for the industry.
The four public sector players notched up a premium income of Rs 47,717 crore, while 18 private players garnered Rs 39,701 crore and the two specialised operators netted Rs 4,830 crore and health insurers added up with Rs 4,153 crore, a General Insurance Council data showed.
"We have achieved total premium of Rs 96,400 crore in FY16, falling short of our ambitious target of Rs 1 lakh crore by a small margin," General Insurance Council general secretary R Chandrasekaran told PTI.
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Blaming the late arrival of the relaxed norms on credit line insurance from the regulator Irdai, which issued the norms in February. He, however, maintained that taking into account inward (reinsurance) business, the industry has already crossed gross written premium of Rs 1 lakh crore-mark.
"We are targeting a total premium collection at Rs 20,500 crore in the current fiscal as against Rs 18,300 crore in FY16," he added.
At New India, which is the largest player, the ratio
between retail and corporate conventional products stands at 65:35, he said.
Srinivasan expressed hope that the current fiscal will be better than the last year due to increase in premia in segments, like fire and engineering and third-party motor cover.
"Secondly, we believe FY17 should be a catastrophe-free year as we had to pay Rs 500 crore in claims due to the Chennai floods last year," he said.
The Jan Suraksha Bima Yojana has contributed to the growth of personal accident insurance at New India, apart from creating awareness in the industry, he said.
National Insurance has closed the year with a total premium of Rs 12,000 crore and is targeting to close the current fiscal at Rs 14,000 crore, National Insurance chairman and managing director K Sanath Kumar said.
ICICI Lombard chief of underwriting and claims Sanjay Datta said: "In case the infrastructure sector does well, then the engineering segment is set to see a better growth in the current fiscal."
"Yes, Jan Suraksha Bima Yojana has picked up well. Though the low-ticket segment didn't help much in getting premium income, still it did help get bigger coverage in the personal accident line," he said.