According to a study, In the industry of General Insurance, Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company has become the fastest player..

The company has posted GWP(Gross Written Premium) of Rs 526 Crores for the period of April-December 2008,

The Company has surpassed previous year's (2007-08) GWP of Rs. 522 crore within 9 months of this year. In a statement on Friday, the company said it has posted a premium growth of 36 % (YTD), the highest in the industry.

Its market share has increased from 1.85% in March 2008 to 2.31% in November 2008.
Chola MS managing director S S Gopalarathnam said, this quarter's result is a testimony to its resilience.

The first non-life insurance company to set up shop in India was the Triton Insurance Company of Calcutta.

1. In 1907, the Indian Mercantile Insurance ltd was the first Indian Company that started its operation.
2. The New India Assurance Company was incorporated in 1919.
3. In 1972, the non-life insurance business in India was nationalized with effect from 1st January 1973.

General Insurance Corporation of India (GIC) was formed as a single holding company with four sub Companies:
1. The National Insurance Co. Ltd
2. The Oriental insurance Co. Ltd
3. The United India Insurance Co. Ltd
4. The New India Assurance Co. Ltd

The latest update from the Non-Life Insurance sector has confirmed that the once profitable Fire Insurance Business has now turned into a loss making unit for most Private players in the General Insurance sector.

The Economic Times reported that the scenario might be so bad that two of the players are looking for fresh infusion of funds to stay afloat and promoter of another is contemplating a complete sell-out.

So what went wrong? Most industry experts say that the agressive undercutting and sudden reduction in prices is to be blamed for this. This has led to a reduction in the percentage contribution of Fire Insurance in the overall protfolio's of Private Insurers.

Govt owned general Insurance companies are losing market share and the Pvt players are gaining speed in terms of market share in general life insurance business.This happening due to free pricing policy in this sector where the private players are more aggressive then State owned players.

The slower growth among state-owned companies has resulted in ICICI Lombard displacing public sector Oriental Insurance to become the fourth-largest insurer in India.

Just read an article in the latest issue of Outlook titled "The Vanishing Middle"- which went on to talk about how intermediaries are being threatened with shrinking margins and new technology.
It covered three basic sectors:
- DSAs in banking sector
- TPAs in General Insurance
- Travel Agents

With around 5000 people, TPAs are probably the smallest of the lot (the article puts the DSA number at 35,000 and travel agents at 150,000). But interestingly all these 5000 are employed by 23 odd TPAs who currently have the IRDA license.

The various arguments in favor of a possible demise of this category of players were: