Kotak Mahindra Bank to fully own non-life insurance company

Kotak Mahindra Bank will became the first bank to get the Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) permission to set up a wholly-owned non-life insurance company. RBI guidelines allow a bank to hold a maximum 50% in an insurance joint venture. However, the central bank had allowed some exceptions to this rule, which include State Bank of India and ICICI Bank. In both these partnerships, the banks hold 74% while the balance 26% is held by a foreign partner.



Kotak General Insurance will be the 29th non-life company in the country. The last non-life insurer to get permission from the regulator was Cigna TTK — a health insurance company. The last company to set up a full-fledged general insurance business was Liberty Videocon General Insurance. The general insurance business in India is currently a Rs 77,000-crore premium per annum industry and is growing at a healthy rate of 17%. It provides a cover of close to Rs 1,000 lakh crore

Kotak already has a life insurance company called Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Insurance Ltd, in association with South Africa-based Old Mutual Public Ltd Co.

List of Insurance Companies in India