‘We plan to raise equity exposure to ₹1,200-1,500 cr in 2-3 quarters’

KS Badri Narayanan

Anjana C Shriram

interview

Amidst challenging investment climate, Ashwani Dhanawat, ED and CIO, Shriram General Insurance Company, says he sees opportunities in Indian equities over the next two-three quarters.

The company plans to scale up its current equity exposure from ₹775 crore to ₹1,200 crore. Edited excerpts:

What is the ratio between equity and debt in your portfolio?

As of November, our debt constitutes 96 per cent of our investment equity. Since we started in 2015, we have primarily been a motor insurer.

More than 90 per cent constitutes of motor; in that, 70 per cent is motor third-party insurance.

Our liability is already upward biased. So, our portfolio, with respect to the debt, is mainly into the government securities or AAA-rated government institutions.

From 2015, we get some funds beyond solvency margin - capitalising into the equity markets.

So currently, my investment book into equity is around ₹775 crore. So, we are raising it up to ₹1,200-1,500 crore.

Given the stiff equity valuation, what is your investment strategy?

Valuations are a little bit stressed now.

Though it has come down a bit, the growth story is quite good. I think the next two quarters will provide us an opportunity to build a complete portfolio of ₹1,200-1,500 crore in equities.

We started with ₹100-crore allocation, and we have been slowly raising it. We have booked some profits and realigned our portfolio too.

This year, shorter-duration maturities were taken into the longer-duration, and the first half of this financial year, we have taken close to ₹20,500 crore into the longer duration securities, considering the interest rates getting softer.

When are you going to scale up the equity from 4 per cent to 10 per cent? Any timeline?

In the next two-three quarters, we plan to scale it up because we see an opportunity.

We see Nifty moving from 23,500 to 25,000 kind of level in the next six months.

Whenever it comes down, we will start scaling up.

Where will you invest in equity segment?

We are more into large-cap stocks.

When we completely allocate our equity, we would allocate about ₹150-200 crore into the small- and mid-cap segment.

How are you adopting AI in your operations like underwriting risks?

We see a lot of scope, changes coming into the insurance sector. While underwriting risks, we use an operating ratio model, which is AI-based completely.

On the basis of the data we collect such as the location, vehicle, make, model, etc, the discounts and commissions are given.

So we maintain our operating ratio at which the product is profitable.

How do you view 2025 in terms of debt and equity?

From the debt perspective, it looks positive because the growth is slowing down.

With respect to equity, the risk that we are seeing is that a new administration will come in the US; recently we heard about reciprocal taxes.

With respect to what happened previously - where the immigration policy was changed and IT companies got hit, this time IT companies are quite ready with respect to the same.

What will happen to the tariffs is yet to be seen, because we already have trade deficit.

If you see in terms of liquidity on all these three fronts, we are getting some liquidity problems — dollar is rising, capital outflows and deficit is also rising.

How it pans out going forward with the Trump administration is important; there will be four policies from the US that will have an impact on the global economic front — tariff, deregulation, immigration policy and tax cuts in the US.

There are many new players coming into general insurance. How challenging will it be?

It is looking more challenging because everybody wants to work in a limited space. When insurance companies start giving their services to rural India, then things will start improving.

Right now, the management cost is quite high - around 30 per cent of the overall premium that we collect.

I think with these kind of platforms, management cost will come down, and the service standards will improve, and also new products are being launched. A lot of innovation is coming on.

Any plans of listing?

Listing plans are there. I think two, three years down the line.

Any expectations or wishlist from the Budget?

The GST should come down with respect to health insurance, because health insurance is not a cost GST. It won’t come under Budget.

I feel Insurance Amendment Bill will be passed in the Budget session, and the new Motor Vehicle Amendment Bill is also pending.

There will be four policies from the US that will have an impact on the global economic front

Ashwani Dhanawat ED and CIO, Shriram General Insurance Company