NIC all set to float IPO in Q4

On July,6,2017, National Insurance Company (NIC), a Kolkata headquartered and state owned general insurance company, has approached the government for the approval to come up with the Initial public offer (IPO) by the end of the current fiscal year.

Before coming up with an IPO, NIC has cleaned up their last financial year balance sheet which resulted an improvement in the solvency margin from 1.26 to 1.90 times which is above the insurance regulatory requirement of 1.5 times.

In spite of this, NIC has also posted a net profit of Rs 49 crore for the fiscal 2016-17 which is lower than the previous fiscal year net profit of Rs 151 crore. However, its net worth improved from Rs 8,764 crore to Rs 9,544 crore in FY17, shows a rise of 9 per cent. The company’s total premium rose 18.83 per cent to Rs 14,283 crore in FY17 and by the current fiscal year, the company is looking at achieving Rs 16,000 crore premium. Also, the underwriting loss of NIC remained flat at Rs 3,680 crore as compared to Rs 3,633 crore last year.

NIC focus was to bring down the motor and health insurance business to 72 per cent (the sectoral standard) from 77 per cent. Also, NIC is looking at achieving Rs 2000 crore in this fiscal on the crop insurance scheme and had already sold premia worth Rs 840 crore.