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Insurance opportunity in India: Munich Re

Posted On: Aug. 9, 2007 12:00 AM CST

MUNICH, Germany— India's overall insurance market will increase to some €100 billion in 10 years, nearly five times its current volume, according to Munich Reinsurance Co.

The growth will be driven by rising demand from India's burgeoning middle class, improvement and expansion of the country's infrastructure, and the resultant higher levels of insurance penetration, which are still low compared with other emerging economies, the reinsurer said in a statement Thursday.

Private-sector companies have been present in India's primary insurance market since 2000, almost exclusively in the form of joint ventures with foreign partners, Munich Re noted. These companies hold a maximum of 26% of the share capital, the current participation threshold for foreign investors. However, this limitation restricts capacity to write risks in the booming market, the reinsurer said.

"A central task of politicians and industry will be to ensure the inflow of sufficient foreign capital to safeguard India's phenomenal growth and increasing concentration of values and to cover the related economic risks," Munich Re said in its statement.