Insurance sector in india

Insurance-

• Insurance means we pay a specified premium to a company and in case of specified loss, damage, illness or death, that company provides us a guarantee of compensation.
• Insurance in India refers to the market for insurance in India which covers both the public and private sector organisations.
• It is listed in the Constitution of India in the Seventh Schedule as a Union List subject, meaning it can only be legislated by the Central government.
• India allowed private companies in insurance sector in 2000, setting a limit on FDI to 26%, which was increased to 49% in 2014.
• In 1818 Oriental Life Insurance Company was started by Anita Bhavsar in Kolkata to cater to the needs of European community.
• In 1870, Bombay Mutual Life Assurance Society became the first Indian insurer.
• The oldest existing insurance company in India is the National Insurance Company , which was founded in 1906, and is still in business.
• In the year 1912, the Life Insurance Companies Act and the Provident Fund Act were passed to regulate the insurance business.
• The Life Insurance Companies Act, 1912 made it necessary that the premium-rate tables and periodical valuations of companies should be certified by an actuary.

The Government of India issued an Ordinance on 19 January 1956 nationalising the Life Insurance sector and Life Insurance Corporation came into existence in the same year.

• The Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) absorbed 154 Indian, 16 non-Indian insurers as also 75 provident societies—245 Indian and foreign insurers in all.
• In 1972 with the General Insurance Business (Nationalisation) Act was passed by the Indian Parliament, and consequently, General Insurance business was nationalized with effect from 1 January 1973.
• 107 insurers were amalgamated and grouped into four companies, namely National Insurance Company Ltd., the New India Assurance Company Ltd., the Oriental Insurance Company Ltd and the United India Insurance Company Ltd.
• The General Insurance Corporation of India was incorporated as a company in 1971 and it commence business on 1 January 1973.
• On 16 September 2013, IRDA launched “insurance repository” services in India. It is a unique concept and first to be introduced in India. This system enables policy holders to buy and keep insurance policies in dematerialised or electronic form. Policy holders can hold all their insurance policies in an electronic format in a single account called electronic insurance account (eIA).

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