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Deferring merger of three public-sector General-Insurance companies not good

Deferring merger of three public-sector General-Insurance companies not good – Public-sector companies should follow private-sector Insurance-companies to bring new schemes with collaboration of public-sector banks

 

It refers to Union Cabinet on 09.07.2020 deferring merger of three out of four General-Insurance companies which was announced in the Union Budget of 2018-19 and 2019-20. The three General Insurance companies which were proposed to be merged are continuing showing losses for several years with global rating agency downgrading rating of these loss making public-sector companies. If pre-planned merger of public-sector banks could be affected from 01.04.2020 even during lockdown, there should be no reason to defer merger of public-sector Insurance-companies to reduce unnecessary overheads like on rents, advertisements and pay-perks of top management. It may be recalled that even public-sector Life Insurance Corporation of India came into existence as one single unit on 01.09.1956 merging all about 245 private entities.

Presently many public-sector banks have collaborated with private-sector Insurance-companies for providing single-window service for banking and insurance. This wrong practice should be replaced by promoting public-sector LIC of India and public-sector General Insurance companies All branches of public-sector banks should act as agents for LIC of India and some public-sector General Insurance Company by giving lucrative incentive-points to branch-managers and bank-employees bringing new policies with special insurance-counters opened at select branches of public-sector banks. Public-sector Insurance companies should incorporate innovative insurance-plans like Religare provides wonderful health-insurance plan to customers of Punjab National Bank where family-policies for health-insurance cover persons even above age of 70 years with no restriction on daily room-rent etc like exists in Mediclaim-policies of public-sector companies.

SUBHASH CHANDRA AGRAWAL

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