United India Insurance Company announced the appointment of S. Gopakumar as its Director and General Manager with immediate effect. Prior to taking up the new role, Mr. Gopakumar was serving GIC Housing Finance Ltd as its Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, a company statement said.

Mr. Gopakumar began his career with National Insurance Company and has held various responsibilities in his more than three decade

D & O liability insurance in demand from Banks :

With increasing scams, NPA’s in Banking sector there has been a significant rise in the demand for Directors and Officers (D&O) liability cover. Bank officials said that legal expenses incurred for engaging lawyers to defend serving / retired officials and present / former directors are going up in those cases. Hence, the need for enhanced D&O covers. A senior public sector bank official said his bank is planning to increase its D&O cover five-fold to Rs. 100 crore in the backdrop of instances of diversion of loans and frauds by borrowers coming to light in the banking sector.

The premium that we paid for our current D&O cover was less than 1 per cent of the sum insured last year. This year the general insurer said that the premium would go up substantially due to increase in the number of cases that bank officials and directors have got embroiled in loans turning bad. According to the International Risk Management Institute, D&O Liability insurance provides cover to directors and officers for claims made against them while serving on a board of directors and / or as an officer.

In effect, the policies function as “management errors and omissions liability insurance, covering claims resulting from managerial decisions that have adverse financial consequences.

IRDAI asks insurers to cover mental illness :

In a step towards reducing myths and stigma associated with mental illness, IRDAI asked insurers to cover mental illness under medical insurance policy, treating t at part with physical illness.

In a circular, the IRDAI asked insurers to make provision for medical insurance for treatment of mental illness from immediate effect. Insurers today exclude mental illness from medical policies. However, globally companies cover mental illness after initial waiting period of two – three years.

Medical insurance may soon cover dental, infertility fixes :

In what may means more inclusive healthcare policies for patients, the insurance regulator has removed around 10 items, including procedures such as dental, stem cell, infertility and psychiatric treatment, from the list of optional cover for health insurance.

This Insurance and Regulatory Authority of India (IRDA) in a notification recently said in a partial modification of guidelines on standardization of health insurance business some items have been deleted from the list of “items for which optional cover may be offered by insurers”.

These include dental treatment that do not require hospitalization but is widely availed of, hormone replacement therapy, infertility, subfertility, assisted conception procedures, obesity treatment, psychiatric and psychosomatic procedures, corrective surgery for refractive error, treatment of sexuality transmitted diseases, any expense for retro virus or suffered from HIV and AIDs, stem cell implantation etc.

LINK – K INSURANCE BROKER CO. (PVT). LTD

Safecrop group to buy Star Health Insurance :

Safecrop Holdings Pvt. Ltd, a consortium of investors, including West Bengal AIF, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala and Madison Capital, has signed a definitive agreement with the shareholders of Chennai based Star Health & Allied Insurance Company Ltd to acquire their shares. While the company and investors did not disclose