Unseasonal rains and hailstorms are likely to result in insurance claims to the tune of Rs 100 crore for crop losses, Agriculture Insurance Company (AIC) said today.
"We are currently busy assessing claims out of the damaged crops due to unseasonal rains. We estimate the claims may exceed Rs 100 crore," Rajeev Chaudhary, General Manager, AIC, a specialised crop insurer, told PTI.
Uttar Pradesh may top the list of states when it comes to crop insurance claims, Chaudhary said, adding that AIC has exposure to only 13 districts in the Bundelkhand region and is staring at claims of Rs 25 crore from the state.
He said for 2014-15, the company has already settled Rs 5,167.58 crore in claims and underwritten Rs 2,750 crore in premium.
For AIC, Madhya Pradesh topped the chart in claim settlement during 2014-15 and the company had to pay Rs 2,000 crore in this state alone. It was followed by Tamil Nadu (Rs 800 crore), Andhra Pradesh (Rs 400 crore) and Uttar Pradesh (Rs 270 crore).
Largest private sector general insurer ICICI Lombard had an underwritten premium of around Rs 500 crore during 2014-15, according to a senior company official.
"We had around Rs 500 crore underwritten premium during 2014-15. Our loss ratio under the crop insurance segment in 2013-14 was at 100 per cent," ICICI Lombard's chief for underwriting and claims, Sanjay Datta said.
On claims due to unseasonal rains, Datta said first the state governments would assess the losses and then the claim settlement would start.
"The exercise is yet to be completed and hence we are unable to know the quantum of losses under the segment which was caused by the recent unseasonal rains," Datta said.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently asked insurers to settle claims arising out of crop losses pro-actively.
States like Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana have been hit by unseasonal rains and are expecting losses in crops like wheat, jowar, rapeseed and mustard, pulses and gram.
Datta said at present, losses to the crops during Rabi 2014-15 can be estimated only on the basis of preliminary reports received by the insurer's regional offices from state governments.
"This is the time when crop cutting experiments (CCE) are conducted, so only after CCE reports, the estimation of claims can be made," he added.
