Many of the private insurance firms have made profits of 50 to 70%, as a difference between gross premium collected and insurance claims paid, in the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana after it was launched in 2016. The profits have been raked in from government revenues that were transferred directly to the firms apart from premiums that have been collected from farmers.
At present, the scheme is being implemented in the country by 13 private sector firms along with all five state-owned insurance companies including the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited. However, while private firms have raked in huge profits, those in the public sector have doled out almost all the premium collected by them towards insurance claims. The Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited, which controls the major share of the crop insurance market, has been able to make a profit of approximately 17%.
As per provisional figures (insurance claims for the year 2019-20 had not been finalised at the time that the Committee collected the data), in the period 2016-20, the Agriculture Insurance Company of India Limited had paid out claims of Rs 26,874.60 crores from the gross premium of Rs 32,429 crores that it had received. The profit of state-
— source newsclick.in | Ayaskant Das | 22 Aug 2021