Domestic private ITI Reinsurance gets Irdai okay for ops

Regulator Irdai has granted the certificate of registration to ITI Reinsurance, which will be the first domestic private sector reinsurer, according to a senior company official. Last week, Irdai had granted R3 approvals to five global reinsurers to set up their branches in the country.

They include US-based reinsurer Reinsurance Group of America (RGA), Munich Re and Hannover from Germany, Swiss Re from Switzerland and French reinsurance major Scor.

Irdai had also granted the R2 approval to another global reinsurer XL Catlin and the London-based specialized reinsurer Lloyd's and R1 approval to Gen Re (part of Berkshire Hathaway of Warren Buffet).

ITI Re is controlled by Sudhir Valia-promoted Fortune Financial Services.

"We have been granted R3 approval by Irdai. We have already brought in a substantial part of the required capital of Rs 500 crore to kick off operations and the balance amount will be brought in by March," ITI Re chief operating officer R Raghavan said on Friday.

"To begin with, we will focus on general insurance and later on we will start reinsuring life insurance," he said, adding "we will begin with 2,000 staff."  The state-owned GIC Re is the only reinsurance company in the country today. The reinsurance market is estimated to be at around $2.5 billion.