Shriram General on a hiring spree, eyes uninsured vehicles for more business  

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Vehicle insurance dominates Shriram General Insurance Company’s portfolio today accounting for 91 per cent of its gross written premium of about ₹3,700 crore. 

Even as it is working towards reducing the proportion of motor insurance in its overall business mix to 85 per cent, by stepping into crop, health and MSME sectors, the insurer is eyeing the vast uninsured vehicle population for more business. 

About 47 per cent of the vehicles plying on Indian roads are uninsured, most of them being two-wheelers and three-wheelers.  

However, “tracking the vehicles is very difficult,” observes Anil Aggarwal, MD & CEO of the company. He wants the government to tighten the screws on uninsured vehicles. “After all, the government stands to gain by getting more in terms of GST revenue,” Aggarwal told journalists on Tuesday. 

The company, through the General Insurance Council, has given many suggestions to the government, such as making insurance mandatory for filling fuel and passing through toll plazas, but Aggarwal admitted that implementing these could be fraught with difficulties.  

Hiring spree 

He said in the current year, the company would hire about 400 people, adding to its employee base of 4,150 and raise the strength of its ‘financial advisors’ (insurance agents) to 90,000 from 76,000 now. This is part of its broader plan to have 200,000 financial advisors in about 5 years. 

Aggarwal said the insurance regulator, IRDAI, had recently changed a rule, permitting insurance to tweak the wordings of policies issued to MSMEs, as opposed to regulation-templated policies. Now an insurer may issue a policy covering only, for example, fire. With this liberty, Shriram General is tapping the vast MSME market for business. Similarly, thanks to a new ‘stop-loss clause’ that limits the exposure of insurance companies, Shriram General is now keen on writing crop policies. Furthermore, the company took a small step into health insurance and wrote 5,000 policies last year. “Building on this momentum, we are preparing to introduce Arogya Sanjeevani (a standardised policy launched by IRDAI), to enhance our health portfolio,” Aggarwal said. 

In the quarter ended June 2024, Shriram General’s gross written premium was ₹733 crore, 31 per cent higher than ₹560 crore in the corresponding quarter of last year. It made a net profit of ₹114 crore, compared with ₹98 crore previously, growing 17 per cent. 

Asked if the company would come out with an IPO, Aggarwal said, “in about 2-3 years.”