General Insurance

This study empirically and comparatively analyses the insurance companies and commercials banks' investment portfolios and their contributions to economic growth in Nigeria. The study covers the period from 1996 to 2011. The secondary data collected for the study were presented in tables and graphs. A multiple linear regression method was adopted to test the research hypotheses. An ex-post facto research design was adopted in the study. The findings were that there is a positive but no significant relationship between government securities, stock of bond, real estate and mortgage, policy and other loans, cash deposits, bills of exchange of insurance companies and economic growth in Nigeria. This implies that investment portfolios of insurance companies do not contribute significantly to economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. Also, there is a significant relationship between ordinary shares, preference shares, debentures, subsidiaries, other investments, total investments of commercial banks and economic growth in Nigeria. This implies that investment portfolios of commercial banks do contribute significantly to economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. Recommendations were that insurance companies in Nigeria should increase their investments on government securities, real estate and mortgage, policy and other loans, as well as cash at hand and deposits for more feasible contribution to the economic growth in Nigeria. Also, commercial banks in Nigeria should also channel their investment efforts on other subsidiaries and debentures for more realistic contribution to the economic growth in Nigeria among others.

In India General Insurance or Non-life insurance market is one of the emerging, dynamic and rapidly growing sector existing for protecting the personal and social security needs of people.  During 2017-18 General Insurance sector has seventeen percent rise in gross written premiums compared to the previous year.  General insurance sector has a pivotal role in the socio economic development of every nation but it is seen that in rural area the coverage of general insurance is not much flourished and neglected from all its benefits because of the low coverage. To maintain the social security in the rural area IRDA has timely intervention and as a result of the same various innovative and attractive measures in the form of various products affordable to the lower socio economic strata of the society. This study is based on primary data pertaining to the  quality of the services of general insurance in the rural areas of Northern Kerala, a small state in India.  Data collected from eighty randomly selected respondents through a questionnaire and methodological framing has also done in an appropriate manner. The main objective of this study is to examine whether the insurers potentially utilise the opportunities of the rural market in order to fill the gap o protecting the social security needs of the rural people.

Agriculture sector in India faces the risk of loss due to draughts, floods and other natural calamities and thereby it is imperative to protect farmers form any kind of loss and enable them to maintain their financial position for the next crop season. Agriculture and allied activities are of the most important sectors of Indian economy and accounts for nearly 16% of India's gross domestic product (GDP) and provides employment to about half of the workforce of the country. Realizing the importance of agriculture sector various schemes have been launched by government since independence in the interest of farmers of the country. The recently launched scheme is the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojna (PMFBY), which is a kind of a "One nation-One scheme" launched in the year 2016. PMFBY provides a widespread insurance cover against failure of the crops and helps in stabilizing the income of the insured farmers. The present paper is an attempt to study the conceptual framework of the scheme and identifying the benefits of PMFBY in the country. It is a kind of descriptive research highlighting the peculiarities of the scheme and its prospective effects in the betterment of Indian farmers.

ABSTRACT
The correlation between CAR insurance and minimizing potential risks on project constructions.

By
Tania Agustin Eka Putri

Construction Project tends to cause various complex risks , therefore a risk management to minimize any potential risks / hazards during the construction period is needed. One of the alternative ways to decrease those potential risk is by buying Contractor All Risk Insurance. It is an engineering insurance product from General Insurance Company especially in Indonesia.
This research/ study aims to find out the indicators that can be used by contractors in buying Contractor All Risk (CAR) insurance, to find potential risks that can be reduced while buying Contractor All Risk (CAR), and to understand the correlation between CAR insurance and minimizing potential risks on project constructions.
Total sample in this research is 20 Construction Companies around Jakarta. The method used in data Collection is Likert Scale questionnaire that consists of 1 Latent Eksogen Variable ( X Variable) and 1 Endogen Variable ( Y Variable) that provide 7 indicators and 23 questions in total. In analyzing data, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) LISREL 8.80. Program is also used to conduct the research/ study even further.
At last, this research describes and shows that the result of Second Order Construct for R² (Koefisien Determination) for each equation correlation / straight line concludes that CAR contributes 72.54% in minimizing potential risk / hazard on the project.

Key word :  contractor all risk insurance, risk, construction project

Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk meneliti peran sistem informasi dalam menunjang jalannya kegiatan usaha pada perusahaan asuransi kerugian dalam penjualan polis serta kinerja karyawan dalam perusahaan. penelitian ini diketahui bahwa sistem informasi yang digunakan untuk karyawan merupakan system dari pengembangan co-sourching, dimana untuk pengembangan system dengan mengunakan co-sourching masih terdapat kekurangan. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode deskriptif kualitatif dan penelitian perpustakaan, Hasil dari penelitian ini menunjukkan bahwa sistem informasi yang disediakan untuk pelanggan telah berjalan dengan baik, karena dapat mempermudah pemegang polis / tertanggung dalam melakukan pembayaran, sampai dengan pengajuan klaim asuransi. Sedangkan untuk menunjang kinerja karyawan, diperlukan adanya perbaikan agar karyawan dapat bekerja dengan efektif dan efisien.

The aim of the study is to examine the private motor car insured's cross selling viability on dwelling house and personal accident insurance policies in Sri Lankan non-life insurance industry. There are 15 general insurance companies after the segregation regulation while three companies still operating as composite insurers,accounting 55.3 billion rupees of growth written premium and industry has grown by 3.66% in general insurance in 2014.Insurance Board of Sri Lanka has planned to strengthen the non viable insurance companies by segregating the life and non-life business from 2015.All the general insurance companies' portfolio dominated by motor insurance, which is the highest loss line class among general product classes as 76.48%. Cross selling non motor products to motor insurance policies became an essential requirement for general insurance companies because this will improve combined performance ratio.The study was carried out using a range of qualitative and quantitative methods consisting questionnaires, using randomly selected 250 insurance advisors and in-depth interviews with 25 senior managers from 18 insurance companies with secondary data.The study revealed that cross selling direct antecedents namely cross selling self efficacy, motivation and role clarity were valid predictors of cross selling sales performance and there was a positive impact by those variables. Out of the study managers were also perceived that cross selling is an idle strategy for develop the new business in general insurance industry to face future challenges. Industry should initiate non motor insurance products introduction into sales advisors' job induction with structured training programmes. Further a proper reward system with a valued incentive system must be implemented to the sales advisors for a better development of the general insurance industry.

The insurance companies have to ensure quality products at a competitive price. Companies can
lower the price of the product by reducing the cost. Their survival depends upon their policy-holders. The
policy-holders become confident of not losing much when an accident or uncertainty takes place. On the
report of the insured about an accident the company officials send surveyors to assess the loss caused to
the policy-holders. However, as several of the insurance providers are international companies having
made their presence felt in several countries, the service provided by them is a reflection of the experience
gained by them across the globe, and in that sense, the findings may be generalised to a great extent.

In India’s License Raj, with the permit to produce sulubuloxine in his wife Sneha’s hand, Gautam Prabhu thought of a tie-up with a business house with the license as his share of the capital. But then, Global Facilitators, the grandiose lobbying firm of his dreams, would be a non-starter, after all. So he racked his brains as to how to retain his lien on the license and yet make his ‘deals facilitating’ dream a reality. It was at that juncture at a stag party, that he met Ranjit Palit, the Branch Manager of the Oriental Fire and General Insurance Company. When he was reasonably high, Palit came to articulate the genesis of the arson that plagued the general insurance business. With the common denominator being utmost good faith, he articulated that insuring others’ properties was like entrusting one’s wife to another’s safe keeping. While misplaced trust in the former could occasion a fraudulent claim, in case of the latter, it might lead to an alien paternity. Thus, the breach of warranty in both would leave behind the unwanted in the end. 
Blaming it all upon the Loss Assessors, Palit reserved his choicest expletives for them all. He thought they were but a bunch of self-serving nincompoops with weak moral fibers. They were all superficial to the core sorely lacking the needed skills to separate the wheat from the chaff. Wouldn’t that let the bluffing claimants to take this mindless lot for a smooth ride of exaggeration? And lazy as they were with their assignments, they were all alacrity when it came to criticizing their colleagues’ work.
What was worse, he averred, with right inducements, they could be easily made to look the other way, even in the case of apparently untenable claims. With such Loss Assessors around, it was little wonder that the insurers might go under one day. As though to appear balanced, even after consuming a pint, Palit conceded to the presence of black sheep on the underwriting side of the fence as well. It was such who form a ‘nexus of loot’ with the insured and the Loss Assessors, he concluded.

There occurred a fire mishap in the farmhouse belonging to a gentleman of leisure, which in due course engulfed the neighborhood nursery. Among the properties destroyed in the fire or damaged during the fire-fighting operations were a large number of garden plants, in both premises, which have been insured, coincidentally, with the same underwriting office. For uniformity in loss analysis and equanimity in assessment, the underwriters chose to entrust the survey assignments of both the claims to a single surveyor. Whereas the loss assessment with regard to the other damaged properties should pose no problem, as there are precepts and precedents to follow, the question of providing indemnity in respect of plants, to the respective insured's, calls for a deeper contemplation on part of the surveyor concerned. The fire policy unequivocally states that…….. "the company will pay to the insured, the value of the property at the time of the happening of its destruction or the amount of such damage, or at its option reinstate or replace such property or part thereof." What, in effect, is value? It is as per the Concise Oxford Dictionary, the ability of a thing to serve a purpose or cause an effect. What, then, is the value of the damaged plant to the respective insured's? To the landlord of the farmhouse, their value lies in the aesthetics they provide to the environs and the emotional feeling he derives from gardening them. However, to the nursery owner, the plants have an altogether different value, primarily mundane, in that they are the means by which he and his family get their livelihood from, through their sale, though he too may exult in their joyous presence. Thus, the value of the plants, property of similar nature, going by their ability to serve a purpose or cause an effect, is uniquely different to their respective owners. If one were to arrive at the amount of compensation, a cost of production mode, it would involve the cost of planting nascent seedlings or saplings, of the same or similar varieties, of the damaged plants, capping it up with an allowance for such of the expenses on gardening, like the cost of manure and watering charges, that have to be incurred, till they would have grown into plants of the destroyed description as at the time of the outbreak of fire. For the landlord, after he, in due course, psychologically overcomes his gloom, these seedlings and saplings, progressively create agreeable scenery, though different from the previous one, that too enlivens his environs, and thus would under the circumstances, apparently restore to him the value the damaged property hold for him. Thus the amount of compensation based on cost of production mode could fairly indemnify him for his material loss.

Abstract: This paper determines a set of marketing, financial and operational variables to predict benchmark financial strength of general insurance firms in India. It incorporates qualitative inputs from practicing managers and industry experts before carrying out quantitative modeling and analysis. We collect, compile and analyze the key financial, operational and business data of eight Indian insurance firms. The NAIC IRIS ratios method was used to obtain an initial risk classification. Linear regression and logit techniques ...

This study empirically and comparatively analyses the insurance companies and commercials banks' investment portfolios and their contributions to economic growth in Nigeria. The study covers the period from 1996 to 2011. The secondary data collected for the study were presented in tables and graphs. A multiple linear regression method was adopted to test the research hypotheses. An ex-post facto research design was adopted in the study. The findings were that there is a positive but no significant relationship between government securities, stock of bond, real estate and mortgage, policy and other loans, cash deposits, bills of exchange of insurance companies and economic growth in Nigeria. This implies that investment portfolios of insurance companies do not contribute significantly to economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. Also, there is a significant relationship between ordinary shares, preference shares, debentures, subsidiaries, other investments, total investments of commercial banks and economic growth in Nigeria. This implies that investment portfolios of commercial banks do contribute significantly to economic growth in Nigeria within the period under study. Recommendations were that insurance companies in Nigeria should increase their investments on government securities, real estate and mortgage, policy and other loans, as well as cash at hand and deposits for more feasible contribution to the economic growth in Nigeria. Also, commercial banks in Nigeria should also channel their investment efforts on other subsidiaries and debentures for more realistic contribution to the economic growth in Nigeria among others.

India’s general insurance business is under a double squeeze of meager premium incomes and mega fire claims outgoes. How it got trapped in such an unenviable position is symbolic of poetic justice.
In the rudimentary stages, indemnity was but the whim of the haughty loss assessor, as his fancy would suggest, that the overawed insurers and the insured alike had to accept like a claim prasad. Though later on, the system had acquired some semblance of balance, yet the irony of inequity, more or less, remained the guiding factor for settling the claims of the small frays that were treated like serfs in the general insurance corridors. More often than not, owing to the insurers’ apathy, the claim processing was tortuous, accompanied by arbitrariness, occasioned by their ignorance or suspicion, and / or both. The hapless insured was hoodwinked to sign on the dotted line of the discharge voucher, or else. Some claim processing officials even went to the extent of maintaining dairies of their misdeeds, of coercive claim reductions, to boast about the savings thus accrued to the company. Just the same, at the same time, it was a red carpet, all the way, for the valued clients, more so when it came to their large losses.
This is the updated edition of my article "The Genesis of Over indemnity" published in  The Insurance Times, May 2001.

Microinsurance (MI) can be an effective complement to existing menus of social protection programs. A flexible and powerful instrument, MI reduces vulnerability and mitigates the negative effects of external shocks on poor households. However, MI programs require well-developed institutional arrangements in order to run in an efficient and effective manner. Such conditions can be difficult to find in low-income countries. Social funds can help bridge this gap, standing as a platform to organize and deliver MI products. This social funds innovations note introduces some of the primary design principles behind MI program development, highlighting cases of best practice, and suggests how social funds can be used to deliver MI services more effectively to poor households.

This paper concerns the application of some type of unsupervised neural networks to the specific actuarial problem of collecting the values of tariff variable into tariff classes. We show how these techniques allow applying partitioning methods of cluster analysis to this specific problem and investigate the possibility of taking advantage of a topological property of Kohonen self-organising maps in order to build tariff classes containing contiguous values of the tariff variable. A numerical application shows the procedure.

In recent years, neural networks have been having a wide range of applications. In particular, the unsupervised neural networks are designed to implement clustering techniques. In this paper we apply a two-stage Kohonen Self-Organising Map to collect the basic classes of one tariff variable in clusters. In this procedure we take advantage of the topology preservation property of the Self-Organising Maps in order to build tariff classes containing contiguous values of the tariff variable.

"This paper determines a set of marketing, financial and operational variables to predict benchmark financial strength of general insurance firms in India. It incorporates qualitative inputs from practising managers and industry experts before carrying out quantitaive modeling and analysis. 
We collect, compile and analyse the key financial, operational and business data of eight Indian insurance firms. The NAIC IRIS ratios method was used to obtain an initial risk classification. Linear regression and logit techniques were thereafter applied to estimate the significant factors (direction-wise and magnitude-wise) which influence insurer solvency.
The results suggest that the factors that most significantly influence Indian non-life insurers are lines of business, the firm’s market share, the premium growth rate, the underwriting performance and the claims incurred. Further, the factors which have the strongest effect are market share, change in inflation rate, firm size, lines of business and claims incurred. The paper provides insurers with easy-to-use operational and marketing indicators to benchmark their solvency risk. It will lead to competitive goal setting for continuous improvement. Estimation of appropriate market/economic parameters can be a useful input for regulators.
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