ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. is the largest private sector general insurance company in India with a Gross Written Premium (GWP) over as of March 2011. The company issued over 56 lakh policies and settled over 81 lakh claims and has a claim disposal ratio of 99% of total reported claims. ICICI Lombard GIC Ltd. is a 74:26 joint venture between ICICI Bank Limited, India’s second largest bank and Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited, a Canada based USD 30 billion diversified financial services company. The company has a strength of 4,264 employees working in 300 branches across India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

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Background of Formation

ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited was incorporated on
October 30, 2000 and is a 74:26 joint venture between ICICI Bank Limited;
India’s second largest bank with USD 75 billion in assets and Fairfax
Financial Holdings Limited; a Canada based USD 27 billion diversified
financial services company engaged in general insurance, reinsurance,
insurance claims management and investment management.

ICICI Lombard obtained regulatory approval to undertake General
Insurance business on August 3, 2001 from the Insurance Regulatory and
Development Authority (‘IRDA’) and has also obtained its certificate of
renewal of registration.

History of ICICI Bank

ICICI Bank Limited is the second largest financial services company in
India. Headquartered in Mumbai, it offers a wide range of banking products
and financial services to corporate and retail customers through a variety
of delivery channels and through its specialised subsidiaries in the areas of
investment banking, life and non-life insurance, venture capital and asset
management. The Bank has a network of 2,533 branches and 6,601 ATMs
in India, and has a presence in 19 countries, including India.

ICICI Bank was established in 1994 by the Industrial Credit and Investment
Corporation of India, an Indian financial institution, as a wholly owned
subsidiary. The parent company was formed in 1955 as a joint-venture of
the World Bank, India's public-sector banks and public-sector insurance
companies to provide project financing to Indian industry. The bank
was initially known as the Industrial Credit and Investment Corporation of
India Bank, before it changed its name to the abbreviated ICICI Bank. The
parent company was later merged into ICICI Bank.

History of Fairfax Group

Fairfax Financial Holdings Limited is a financial holding company based
in Toronto, Ontario, which is engaged in property, casualty, and life
insurance and reinsurance, investment management, and insurance claims
management. The company operates primarily through several subsidiaries,
including Odyssey Re, Northbridge Financial, Crum & Forster and Zenith
Insurance Company.

Business lines

ICICI Lombard offers a complete spectrum of general insurance products
spread across a variety of product groups

Business Solutions

• Burglary Insurance
• Industrial All Risk
• All Risk Insurance
• Consequential Loss(Fire) Insurance
• Electronic Equipment Insurance
• Fidelity Insurance
• Fire and Special Perils
• Tea Corp Insurance
• Marine export import
• Machinery
• Boiler Insurance
• Inland Transit Insurance
• Aviation

Project Solutions

• Contractors’ All Risk
• Contractors’ Plant & Machinery
• Erection All Risk
• Performance Guarantee

Liability Solutions

• Director’s & Officers Liability
• Event Insurance
• Product Liability
• Public Liability
• Workmen’s Compensation
• Professional Indemnity

Rural Solutions

• Weather Insurance
• Janata Personal Accident
• Tractor
• Farmer’s Package

Personal Solutions

• Health Insurance
• Personal Accident
• Group Health
• Group Personal Accident

Travel Insurance

• Domestic Travel
• Individual Overseas Travel
• Student Overseas Travel
• Senior Citizen Overseas Travel
• Corporate Overseas Travel
• Pravasi Bhartiya Bima Yojana

NRI Solutions

• Parent’s Health Insurance
• Parent’s Travel Insurance
• Home Insurance
• Personal Accident
• Critical Care Insurance
• Motor Insurance

Organisational structure

ICICI Lombard’s organizational structure comprises of four key segments – Corporate solutions group, Financial inclusion solutions group, Retail and Shared services.

The Corporate Solutions Group focuses on large conglomerates, small and medium enterprises, state, central government and government owned enterprises. Areas like fire, marine, engineering, liability solutions, employee group insurance schemes, large-scale health and personal accidents are covered in this group.

The Financial Inclusion Solutions Group offers insurance solutions to rural customers with weather, cattle, health and personal accident covers as its vital product segments.

The Retail segment addresses individual customer’s needs with the aid of diverse channels consisting of agents, brokers, bancassurance, tele-sales, direct alliances, worksites and the internet. Health, Home, Motor, Travel and Personal Accident products forms its product portfolio.

The Shared Services segment encompasses areas like underwriting, customer service, technology, operations, reinsurance, broking, finance and accounts, human resources, legal, marketing, administration and fraud control. This segment strives to utilize all potential opportunities to serve the business verticals in its best capacity.

Geographical Spread

ICICI Lombard serves its customers through a network of over 300 branches
in India. The company issued close to 5.6 million policies in 2010-11. The
branch network is a key servicing point for customers and intermediaries.

The branch service structure operates on a hub-and-scan model, replacing a
more traditional hub-and-spoke model, leading to improved productivity and
faster servicing. The sales team does scanning during the issuance of policy
and the parent branch does the processing.

Channels

ICICI Lombard uses a variety of channels for both sales and customer
service, encompassing agents, brokers, bancassurance, tele-sales, direct
alliances, worksites and Internet. This is in addition to the branch network
(mentioned above)

Customers can buy health, motor and travel policies online. They can also
renew policies and create service requests through the website. They can call
various call centres across India for both sales and service issues.

In addition a number of small customer initiatives including call back on call
drop, service request status on SMS, garage and branch locators have been
initiated as part of the idea to reach customers via different channels

Online Policies

ICICI Lombard was among the first companies to make their insurance
products available online in India. ICICI Lombard has web-based systems
to meet all pre and post-policy transactional needs of its customers. One can
compare plans, get quotes, buy, renew and keep a track of their insurance
policies online.
ICICI Lombard offers its customers retail general insurance products online.
These products include Car, Two Wheeler, Health, Travel, Student Travel,
Personal Accident and Home Insurance.

Weather insurance

Pioneered in India by ICICI Lombard in 2003-04, its weather based crop
insurance schemes now covers over 2 million farmers. This is across states
such as Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Tamil Nadu
Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana and Jharkhand. The
Company has insured close to 7.6 million acres of land insuring as many as
30 crop varieties.

The Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS) was launched
by the Ministry of Agriculture, Government of India on a pilot basis in 35
selected districts of India as an alternative to the ongoing National Agricultural
Insurance Scheme (NAIS) from the Rabi 2010-11 season. ICICI Lombardwas the only
private insurer in India to have received a mandate to implement
MNAIS in two districts of Uttaranchal and Madhya Pradesh.

With the introduction of the modified scheme, it is expected that an increased
number of farmers will be able to manage risks in their agriculture production
in a better way and will succeed in stabilising farm income particularly at the
times of crop failure on account of natural calamities.

Inhouse TPA

While ICICI Lombard was not the first company in India to introduce inhouse
TPA’s it was the first to give health insurance customers a choice between in-
house and independent TPAs

Women sericulturists and workers Health Insurance scheme

Women employed in grainages and silk reeling units are exposed to serious health hazards. A scheme providing coverage to women beneficiaries (as the prime insured) has been introduced in an effort to recognize the need for the welfare of women. The comprehensive healthcare assistance covers a wide range of ailments like a substantial provision for outpatient department (OPD) services.

Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Bima Yojana

Across the world, Indian artisans and handicraft makers are well known and these artisans’ communities should be able to access quality healthcare facilities. Keeping this in mind, ICICI Lombard has introduced a leading health insurance initiative for artisans in the country called RGSSBY (Rajiv Gandhi Shilpi Swasthya Bima Yojana).

Telecalling

ICICI Lombard was the first general insurance company in India to start telesales operations due to its inherent profitability. However in recent times, public outburst against pushy and intrusive telecalling in general has led to a reduction in cold calling and the introduction of 'do-not-call' (opt-out) lists similar to the US 'Do Not Call Registry'. ICICI Lombard too has the Do Not Call option and respects the privacy of their customers.

Awards and recognition

ICICI Lombard has won a number of awards and recognitions over the time of
its existence.

The company continues to be recognised for its high quality service and
customer focus at various forums. This year too the company was recognised
for its efforts in customer satisfaction, IT and branding initiatives. CNBC
AWAAZ recognises and rewards those brands that millions of Indians have
chosen to buy, to try, to experience and to own. It rewarded ICICI Lombard
the “Most Preferred General Insurance Brand” award for the year 2010.
The CNBC AWAAZ Consumer Awards are based on an exhaustive study
conducted by AC Nielsen Company involving a national survey of 4000
people across 20 cities.

ICICI Lombard also won the award of “World Business Leader in Insurance
category” presented by World Confederation of Business, which is bestowed
on corporate houses for business excellence in recognition for consistently
achieving excellence in their chosen fields.

CMO Council awarded The Master Brand Award 2010 to ICICI Lombard.
Master Brand Award is conferred upon those brands, which appeal to a large
set of consumers from across categories while constantly keeping in mind a
consumer-centric approach. The award recognises the branding initiatives by
ICICI Lombard, which have enabled the company to build strong brand equity
and acquire greater consumer mindshare.

ICICI Lombard was also conferred ‘The Customer and Brand Loyalty Award’
for the third time in a row. Loyalty Summit is one of the single largest brand
and customer loyalty events in Asia and is a forum that focuses on the latest
issues, developments, and solutions that concern customers. ICICI Lombard
received this award for its customer centric approach in service delivery in the
General Insurance category.

The company’s IT initiatives were recognised by NASSCOM – CNBC,

and were honoured with the IT user Award 2010 for Best Technology
Implementation in the Insurance Sector. The award recognises the
implementation of Rural Point of Service (RPOS), an innovative solution,
which has enabled ICICI Lombard to extend health coverage to a large
number of underprivileged families across various states, while achieving
service excellence and reduced turnaround time (TAT) and operational cost.

World Brand Congress recently adjudged ICICI Lombard’s Save Money Motor
Insurance campaign the Best Marketing Campaign in terms of increased
brand visibility, customer reach and the use of diverse media to reach out to
the target audience, which enabled the company to spread brand awareness
and capitalise on brand equity.

Ratings

ICRA (an Associate of Moody's Investors Service) has assigned an iAAA
rating indicating highest claims paying ability to
ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited. The rating indicates a
fundamentally strong position. Prospect of meeting policyholder obligations
is the best. The rating takes into consideration ICICI Lombard’s strong
parentage, the high growth prospects for the general insurance business
in the country, ICICI Lombard’s strong capitalisation level, its prudent
underwriting and reinsurance strategy, and its satisfactory underwriting
performance.

In addition, sister concerns of ICICI Lombard also have strong ratings in the
international market.

A.M. Best Co.. has affirmed the financial strength rating of A (Excellent) and
issuer credit rating of "a" to First Capital Insurance Limited (First Capital)
(Singapore). The outlook for both ratings is stable.

A.M. Best Co. has affirmed the financial strength rating (FSR) of A (Excellent)
and issuer credit ratings (ICR) of “a” of Odyssey Reinsurance Group (Odyssey
Re) (Wilmington, DE) and its members, including
Odyssey America Reinsurance Corporation
Hudson Insurance Company
Hudson Specialty Insurance Company
Newline Insurance Company Limited
The outlook for all ratings is stable.

Loan Shield

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) asked ICICI
Lombard General Insurance in 2005 to stop marketing its Loan Shield
policy. It is a credit guarantee product for banks and it covers banks against
borrowers default. The reason for default could be personal accidents, accidental disability, critical illness or death up to the age 50.

In a communiqué, the IRDA asked ICICI Lombard General Insurance not to
issue the policy as it was of the view that `death' would be under the ambit of
life insurance companies.

External links

• Mutual Fund Expert ICICI Lombard General Insurance Advisor Website
• PolicyDeal.IN ICICI Lombard General Insurance Advisor Website