Valley trend: More and more queue up for insurance cover

While the National Insurance Company, New India Assurance Company, United India, Oriental and Bajaj Allianz are involved in general insurance, Life India Insurance, Bajaj Allianz, ICICI Lombard and MET Life are providing life insurance. Ramesh Koul, senior divisional manager, National Insurance Company, said the prevailing situation had forced people to seek insurance cover. ‘‘Fire and motor insurance policies have seen a surge in the past one decade, fire policies being particularly popular among our clients,’’ he said.

With a premium base of Rs 16 crore, it is a major player, perhaps having earned the people’s trust after it paid Rs 10 crore (other companies doled out Rs 15 crore) to the people of Chrar-e-Sharief in 1995, when the entire town was reduced to ashes in an exchange of fire between militants and security forces.

Similarly the United India Insurance Company has reaped its dividends for having paid Rs 2 crore to the shopkeepers and residents of Sopore town in 1992 after a gun battle. The company collects premia worth Rs 15 crore now, a far cry from the Rs 50 lakh in 1990. Senior manager Mohammad Sultan Janwari, who heads a branch in rural Sopore, said the number of policies went up sharply in the early 1990s. ‘‘After the massive fires in Sopore and Handwara, the number of fire policies shot up by 50 per cent.’’

It is not as if the people and the insurance companies have discovered each other only recently.

Life Insurance Corporation, for instance, has been operational in the Valley since 1970. But militancy took a sharp toll on its business from 1989 to 1995, and only now has it turned the corner. If it surpassed its target of Rs 23 crore by over Rs 6 crore in 2004, this year, it has—with three more months of business to go—bagged Rs 23 crore of its targeted Rs 37 crore.

The private insurers too are doing well. Bajaj Allianz set up shop in 2002. Starting from scratch, in three years it has managed to win the confidence of three lakh customers pay premia worth Rs 18 crore. Its chief executive, Kamesh Goel, said clients were mostly retail shopkeepers and household policy owners.

Even newcomers, like ICICI Lombard, are happy about the prospects. Despite having started its operations only in May last year, it is upbeat about the future. As branch head Azhar Mirza said, ‘‘Kashmir has a good market for insurance.’’