Good afternoon, everyone, and thank you for joining the New India Assurance Company Limited conference call to discuss our financial and operational performance for the second quarter and first half of the financial year 25-26. I am Girija Subramaniam, Chairman cum Managing Director, and I'm joined by my colleagues, Executive Directors Mrs.

Smita Srivastava and Mrs. Kasturi Sengupta, our General Managers, and our Chief Financial Officer.

We deeply appreciate your continued trust and confidence in our company. We want to start by reaffirming our fundamental institutional strength.

We have consistently been designated by the IRDAI as a Domestic Systemically Important Insurer, D-SII, underscoring our crucial role in the Indian financial system. Furthermore, we maintain our highest possible domestic credit rating of CRISIL AAA/Stable and a strong AM Best financial strength rating of B++ Good.

These ratings are a testament to our financial stability and capacity to honor all policyholder obligations globally. The New India Assurance Company Limited stands today honoring a corporate legacy that spans over 106 years, conceptualized by Sir Dorabji Tata in 1919.

We have played a pivotal role in shaping India's general insurance landscape. Our market-leading position is sustained by our extensive pan-India network and operations across 25 countries, ensuring we remain the largest non-life insurer in the country by gross direct premium and a key contributor to the nation's financial resilience.

The first half of FY26 has been a period of significant achievement and resilience for New India Assurance. I am pleased to report that our gross written premium reached ₹23,875 crores, reflecting a healthy year-on-year growth of 11.5%.

Crucially, our domestic premium growth surpassed the industry rate, enabling us to expand our market share from 12.60% to 13.75%. This momentum was primarily fueled by robust performance across our health, property, and miscellaneous segments.

This sustained market leadership demonstrates the strength of our underwriting approach and distribution network. Despite the strong top-line performance, the operating environment was certainly dynamic.

We faced an unusually prolonged monsoon season and several localized flood events, which naturally placed pressure both on our motor and property portfolios. Furthermore, we instituted a necessary one-time provision for wage revision arrears and corresponding adjustment to employee benefit liabilities during this period.

As expected, this provision temporarily impacted our underwriting margins and combined ratio. However, our strategic focus on prudent underwriting and, critically, the exceptional performance of our investment portfolio allowed us to effectively mitigate these pressures.

Our robust investment income, supported by diligent portfolio management, more than offset the impact of the one-time provision and the elevated claims from natural events. Consequently, we delivered a phenomenal result on the bottom line, a 57.7% increase in profit after tax for the half-year.

This performance underscores the fundamental stability and financial strength of our company. Our solvency ratio remains robust at 1.79 times, comfortably above the regulatory requirement.

Our balance sheet continues to strengthen, reflecting overall improvements in net worth and general reserves. This balanced performance, achieving aggressive growth while navigating significant challenges and boosting our net profitability, is a testament to the hard work and dedication of every employee, or as we call them, New Indians.

We remain confident in our strategy of pursuing growth with profit. We are committed to continuous improvement in our underwriting discipline, operational efficiency, and digital initiatives to ensure an even better performance in the period ahead, and we are strategically focused on driving underwriting excellence to compliment our investment income.

Financial performance summary, H1 FY26: The gross written premium global stand at ₹23,875 crores in H1 FY26 as compared to ₹21,408 crores in H1 FY25. Net premiums earned global reported at ₹18,768 crores in H1 FY26 as compared to ₹17,028 crores in H1 FY25.

Net profit after tax stands at ₹454 crores in H1 FY26 as compared to ₹288 crores in H1 FY25. Now coming to the important ratios for H1 FY26, they are reported as follows: net incurred claim ratio of 104.22%, commission ratio 9.36% of net written premium compared to 9.41% in H1 FY25, expense ratio 13.64% of net premium income compared to 11.67% in H1 FY25, combined ratio 127.21% compared to 120% in H1 FY25, solvency ratio 1.79 times as compared to 1.81 times in H1 FY25, and ROE ratio 4.18%.

With this, I come to the conclusion of my opening remarks and invite our General Manager, Finance, Mrs. Mary Abraham to provide a detailed overview of our financial performance.

Good afternoon. I would just like to quickly go through the significant figures and the ratios, since madam has already covered quite a lot of the figures.

Just looking at the gross written premium, we have a year-on-year growth of 11.52% as compared to the half-year for the period 24-25. Remarkably, the GDP of the industry, though it grew at only 7.31% for the first half-year up to September 2025, New India's GDP grew at 12.86%.

Looking at the incurred claims ratio, the ICR yes, did go up by 5%, but this was due to a few factors like the multiple floods in North India, where each individual event was not very significant, but where cumulatively they did impact our net. Health claims also increased due to the prolonged monsoon season and the resultant diseases that followed.

Miscellaneous lines of business had some cellular network losses and also banker's indemnity claims. Commission, there was a fall from 9.41% to 9.36% in the half-year of 25-26.

Operating expenses, yes, this increased, but this was mainly because we had made a provision of 1,680 crores towards the arrears regarding wage revision. Though it has not been notified, as a prudent insurer, we have provided for this.

Out of this 1,680, we have taken 1,118 to the revenue account because those pertain to employees who are active, whereas ₹562 crores has been taken to the profit and loss account because they do not directly contribute to the operations of the company. Investment income is significantly higher this half-year, this quarter, and this helped us to mitigate the additional operating expenses that we incurred due to the wage revision.

In fact, removing the impact of the wage revision, the operating expenses have, in fact, come down, and this is because of office optimization through mergers and closures and the negative net addition of employees. Overall, despite the high incurred claims and the provision that we had made, we ended with a profit after tax of 454 crores, which was 57.7% higher than the profit of the half-year 24-25.

Coming to the segment-wise performance: In fire, we had a year-on-year premium increase of 21.32%. Fire did very well.

Did health with a 15.12%, and miscellaneous as well grew by 16.05%. The ICRs, however, as mentioned earlier, were adverse, mainly in fire due to the multiple flood events in North India, as was mentioned earlier.

Health also, the ICR worsened slightly from 103.61% to 105.78%. In miscellaneous, too, there was a worsening of the ICR from 61.11% to 87.72% due to the cellular network claims.

Motor continued to worsen; the ICR continued to worsen. One of the reasons for that was also the premium increase in motor TP, which was long awaited, but has still not come.

Performance of New India with respect to the industry: The general insurance industry grew by 7.32% in the half-year, the financial year 25-26, whereas NIACL's GDP grew by 12.86%, outpacing the industry growth. Our market share has increased from 12.6% to 13.25%.

Growth momentum continued in October '25 with company outpacing the industry growth. Segment-wise market share: In fire, we have a market share of 16.4%, marine our market share is 17.31%, motor 9.63%, health 16.54%, and others 17.4%.

Our overall market share is 13.25%. Yeah.

The distribution mix: Through the agency, we've done 24.4% of premium. Through brokers, it was 37.83%.

Direct, it was 31.01%. Through dealers, 6.19%, and bancassurance.57% of our premium.

These are the main figures. I would now hand it back to our Chairman cum Managing Director.

I think we've given a presentation on the financial performance. Moderator can take it forward from here for the question-and-answer session.

Thank you so much for this opportunity. I have a two question.

Firstly, I have a question regarding the underwriting. The combined ratio indicate that the capital location feel less attractive across the most business line.

Should we expect that the potential premium hike in the health or the motor insurance in the near future, or we expect that the similar underwriting trend may last for a while? Secondly, could you also provide an update on the timeline for IFRS 17 adoption and risk-based capital adoption schedule?

If we assume the IFRS 17 basis, should we expect an improvement in the combined ratio compared to the current disclosure format? Additionally, is there any potential for the stronger solvency capital under the new risk-based capital framework?

Thank you. Thank you for the question.

I think on the underwriting part, looking at the combined ratio, you are wanting to know whether there would be a potential premium hike in health and motor because of the way the books have performed. I would like to tell you that suddenly there won't be hike out in such a small period of time.

I think motor we are using our strategies on the field to ensure that we pick up the right risks that we want to write in the right segments so that the ICR will then reflect the quality of the risks that we've picked up. We expect that since this is an ongoing process and we have been trying this out for the last two quarters, the ICR basically is a result of the URR provisioning that has been done on a premium, which is on the earned premium basis.

Basically this is also reflection of the previous year and this year's business that we have underwritten, and therefore this is not the right reflection of the way the business is going. Normally, by the end of the fourth quarter we get to know the right actual ICRs that the portfolio has.

Since we are undergoing some kind of strategic changes in terms of what risk we want to write, therefore in motor you are not able to gauge, since the

Yeah. In motor, it's basically a strategy that we are following and we'll have to wait and watch for the next two quarters before we decide to make any drastic changes.

On health, basically on the group, we are already correcting rates across the last whole year, last two years in fact, and this journey is continuing at this point of time. The increase in ICR is basically because of the extended monsoon season this time with increased hospitalizations on account of dengue and other infectious diseases.

Therefore the ICR has been high. Otherwise, the premium hike on the group business is already there, and on the retail we have got a table normally of premium that we charge and we normally do not in fact increase that very frequently.

We see that this trend in ICR, the correct ICR reflection will be there by the end of the year, and we're quite sure that we will be improving in the trends with respect to last year. As regards the second question on the timeline for IFRS 17 adoption, the timeline determined by the regulator is it will be implemented in toto from 1st April '27, and during the year 26-27 we'll be having a parallel run along with our current accounting system and obviously in order to determine that this software and other aspects that we are adopting they go smooth, this one-year gap is given for us to see that we do a parallel run.

From 1st April '27, we are mandated to go live on this IFRS 17. Our Actuary, Mr.

Sharad Ramnarayanan, will explain a little bit more on this.

Regarding your question on the combined ratio under IFRS 17, of course, the way the results are drawn where you get credit for the investment income in the operating results, there will be an improvement in the combined ratio equivalent of IFRS 17, to speak. Right now, we are not in a position to tell you exactly how much it will be, but there will definitely be an improvement in the equivalent combined ratio, I can say.

Coming to RBC, that is also the regulator has to notify. We are yet to hear from them, but they are actually collecting data on the various different kind of models that they have rolled out from.

First quantitative impact study is done, and second one is also been submitted. The final version once it comes and when they will roll it out, it is for the regulator to notify.

We do expect RBC to be rolled out shortly. In terms of impact, of course, it will be until the final version is out, it will be too early to say.

For the kind of assets service the company is having, we don't foresee any kind of solvency strain because of RBC.

That's very clear. Thank you so much for the detailed explanation.

Good afternoon, everyone. Am I audible?

Yes. Hello?

Yes, you're audible, Mr. Rahul.

Yeah. Thank you.

My first question is could you walk us through the key drivers behind the year-on-year movement in the net profit during the quarter? Hello?

Yes. Do you want us to do?

I just wanted to know the key drivers behind the year-on-year movement happened in the net profit during this quarter. The net profit during the quarter this quarter has been impacted because of provisioning for one-time provisioning for the wage revision of our employees, which is to the tune of 1,680 crores.

In this in this quarter, this is a one-time exceptional provisioning wherein we are doing a wage revision arrears provisioning, which is effective from 1st August '22 to 32 to date till the time of the notification. Basically the amount that has been provisioned, 1,680 crores, is on account of that.

Out of this, around 562 crores is taken to the profit and loss account because this relates to provisioning on account of retired employees who are no more in active service and who don't contribute to the business of the community. The rest of 1 1,118 crores is taken to the revenue account, and therefore it impacts both the combined operating ratio as well as the profit before tax.

In this quarter, this was this is one of the this is a major factor that has impacted our results. Otherwise, if you see the last year's if you see the last year's The ICR gets impacted because of the So one of the reasons why So the ICRs have gone up in this quarter because of, as I told you, in health, because of increase in incidence of infectious diseases as well as increased hospitalization on account of that.

In in case of motor, the third-party rates have not increased. This has been the case for many quarters now, and this quarter again the ICR has gone up because of increased because of TP premiums not being sufficient.

These two reasons. In fire, there has been an sporadic events of cat losses across the country wherein the cat losses have have caused huge losses to small establishments and businesses, which did not get recovered under our reinsurance program.

The entire losses on account of these cat losses, which are around seven or eight in number, have been absorbed by our net account and with without any reinsurance support, and that has also contributed highly to the ICRs. Now, the first two quarters of any year normally are exposed to these kind of losses because it the the rainy season and the affected seasons normally they operate during this period of April to September.

This time there has been extended rains, as you know. It has gone even into November.

Therefore, the the impact is a little bit more. The second the third and the fourth quarter of any year normally they they balance out the ICRs of the previous two quarters, and we expect this year also to be nothing different.

It will balance out, and we expect a better result in the progressive quarters. Having said that, the growth that the company has shown in the last two quarters has been phenomenal, and we have outpaced the industry.

The industry grew at 7.85, and we grew at 13 we grew at 13.45%. I think we have beaten the industry, and I think to this in in in all lines.

Despite this huge provisioning for wage revision, we are still have an underwriting we we still have a profit after tax as well as a profit before tax with positive numbers. We also maintained our solvency almost at the levels of that was there earlier, at 1.81 which was earlier, now it is at 1.79 times, which is a very small dent compared to the huge provisioning that we've had to do for this wage revision.

All in all, I believe the the the story that we have to tell for the last two years has been phenomenal, and it it just shows the resilience and robust financial stability of New India that we're able to, to meet such kind of shocks, such kind of huge exposures, and still show very, very sound results for our for people who invest in us, for people for our insurers, for all our stakeholders, that this company remains strong despite these kind of, very strong winds blowing against us. Does this answer your question?

Yes, ma'am. Thank you.

Another question I have. How is the digital transformation journey progressing, and which are the areas seeing the highest adoption?

The digital transformation journey is going very well. We have a huge focus on the digital transformation in our company.

We have initiated several steps towards automation of routine and standard processes using artificial intelligence tools like optical character recognition, intelligent character recognition. Optical character recognition project is far ahead, and we are in the test stage, and this is already being used, in fact, by the motor digital service providers.

This is going to enhance the TAT of claims on motor to a large extent. The intelligent character recognition, which converts the handwritten documents into machine-readable format, will take some time.

It is still that we are trying out certain softwares and testing them on our claims. Once we get a complete proof of concept from our vendor and able to do a lot of testing around this, we'll be deploying this.

I think this will be a game changer for us. Since we are having an increased trust in retail as a segment, I think this is going to be helping us to reduce our claim processing time significantly and allow us to go digital both on the underwriting, the accounting, as well as on the claim side.

Now in another effort, the company has onboarded fintechs and insurtech startups for advanced data analytics so that we are able to take informed calls on and regarding product pricing and risk analysis on price-sensitive lines like motor, like health, retail. This is something we want to do so that we're able to pick policies and pick risks at the right price, and we are able to bring in huge savings to the company and reduce costs.

The company is in the process also of finalizing a vendor for the fraud, waste, and abuse control and using algorithm tools to analyze fraudulent transactions and detect anomalies for saving insurance fraud costs, which will significantly save us from paying fraudulent claims. This is going to help us in a big way in the health underwriting, mainly in the health and motor areas.

The company has in place already digital platforms, WhatsApp and AI-powered chatbots offering 24/7 self-service options for policy management, claims filing, and customer support in eight languages. This reduces need for extensive human intervention, lowering administrative costs and customer acquisition costs while increasing customer retention and customer delight.

We are in the process of optimizing UI for customer portal and app to ensure that customer interface is user-friendly and reduces the acquisition cost considerably. With the digitization, the printing cost, storage cost, operational costs in managing huge office spaces is expected to go down, and also the travel cost for spot surveys in case of digital claims that can be easily done by using these automation tools.

We expect that with all these initiatives that we're doing will bring down the costs for the company as well as increase customer delight in a big way, as well as reduce the claims TAT around most of our retail segments. Now I think this should have answered most of your queries.

Should I give some more examples? Yes.

No, it's noted, ma'am. Just I have a last question, are there any new products or the renewal plan under the new IRDAI reforms?

Yes. New India, as a proven leader in the market, we have actually this year introduced many new products in the market.

As you might be aware, we have had two different verticals within the company this year. One is for serving this MSME sector, which is a focus area for us.

For this, we have come out with focused products that address SME sector as well as women entrepreneurs also who are into this sector in a big way. For this, we have extensively partnered with news agencies and media agencies to ensure that we bring in awareness among these communities for need for insurance protection.

We are going at all lengths to ensure that we cover the huge, yawning gap of 90% uninsured units among the SMEs. This is one big area I think which we intend to cover by this SME product, which covers not only the property and assets, but also the business interruption, the PA, the workmen's compensation, and several other aspects with many more add-ons that we could offer, including cyber, for these kind of enterprises.

Now there is one more big first that New India bought in this year and which we believe is going to bring in a revolution of sorts in the insurance industry in the near future, and that is the Nishchit Suraksha product, which is a parametric product which allows us to pick up a huge groups of insureds and insure them against weather-related perils for which there is a reliable data vetted by the government, which is maintained by a third party, which is vetted and recognized by the government so that we ensure that the trigger that is there because of a weather-related event is absolutely very authenticated by a third-party agency. On the happening of the trigger, then we sort of pay the claim to the policyholders, direct benefit transfer to their bank account within hours or within days as compared to the normal way of assessment, which takes days and several days to give.

This is expected to bring in a revolution of sorts in the way insurance is looked at in this market, and there is going to be a lot of our informal sector, like the casual laborers, maybe the gig workers who are normally not looked at very safe for insurance, to get protected under this product, and we're going to bring in financial inclusion by way of this product in a big way. Governments and related entities are looking at this product with a lot of interest, and we expect that in the near future people will buy this product and we'll have many people covered under this product.

This is one more first which New India has done. Another one that we did recently was to give a business interruption cover on the occurrence of a pandemic, which is the first time such a cover is being given in the country.

That when we had COVID, many shops without any fire or burglary or any such incident, suffered heavy losses simply because they couldn't operate. That is called business interruption loss, and this will be covered by this particular product that we've come out with.

We've done it with one of the leading malls in Bombay, and we will continue to hope to get more such interest from related entities for this cover. This is something that will help in the case of another pandemic if at all it were to happen in the near future.

These are three things which New India has got. There's one more that is happening, but which I cannot talk about since we haven't introduced it in the market.

These three we already introduced, and I think no other company in India has introduced so many products in a single year. Thank you, ma'am.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, and thank you for a nice presentation and for taking my call. I have a three questions on topics, I'll just quickly go through it.

The first question, we had a question about crop insurance. Since crop insurance is a significant market opportunity we see, and there's a growing expectation, and we think there might be some expectations for a company's financial social responsibility by developing this agricultural insurance and crop insurance underwriting in India.

Could you share us the reasons or the company's stance behind underwriting the crop insurance and whether there are any plans to reconsider such underwriting segment in the future? Then my second question is on the company's risk management practices.

Given the current underwriting stance and the profitability of the company, could you please update us on if there's any major changes on your excess of loss, the reinsurance XOL arrangements in this year, and if you have any strategies or thresholds being implemented going forward to enhance your risk management strategy? That's my second question.

The third question is about capital gains, very briefly. Do you have any specific targets for capital gains amount in this quarter and in the year?

We would like to understand this for projecting the company's future profit generation capabilities. Thank you.

Yeah. Thank you so much for your question.

Regarding the first one, the crop insurance, yeah, I totally agree that it's a social responsibility of the of the company to be participating in the crop insurance scheme. Having said that, crop insurance being a very specific line requires a lot of feet on the floor and, and people who can attend to this to these as a field job, and you need a specific field force only to attend to crop.

This is something that New India right now the human resources that are present are are found wanting even to cater to the current level of work and the growth that we have, and therefore putting so many people exclusively for crop is something which right now the company is finding it difficult to do. Having said that, since we have a parametric product now in place, we will definitely consider doing crop on a parametric product basis on by which we do not need to deploy so many people on the floor, and this could be done with more efficiency and more authentic, or authenticity at our end.

Definitely we will be contributing to the social responsibility of the country in a much more authentic way. Now with regards to risk management policies of the company, the policy the risk management department of the company is very strong on its risk management policies as regards the we have got our own risk mapping and our our our, the exposure to big major risks and, and review of these risks at frequent intervals.

With regards to the reinsurance purchases, the XOL arrangements are reviewed every year. This year also the XOL arrangements were reviewed before purchase, and and we have done a lot of changes to the structure, and we've had a increased and improved structure with us for reinsurance this year.

In fact, we moved to a multi-year contract on the layer one and layer two of our cat XOL purchase, and which we got at a very good price efficiency. The point is that at the bottom, since we are a company in in operations for 106 years, there is a level of, net retention on basis a retention a level of retention beyond which reinsurers themselves are not willing to give us the cover.

For this net retention part, when we have to retain it to our net account, we we cover this by way of the by the way of the cat XOL. The absolute net is something that for which we are we have to actually, think this year for whether we need to buy some aggregate XOL cover, because the number of cat losses that we've had and the extended monsoons have caused us a few losses this year, and we'll be reviewing the cover again this year to see whether we need to buy something else at the bottom.

I think last year also some such, effort was made, but then the price that is that the price discovery that happened did not encourage us to go further into that road. This year anyway, since we are paying a, heavy price for so many cats, sporadic events, I think we'll have to look into this part again, and we'll be seriously giving it a look.

The last part is about maintaining the profit profitability of the company, looking at the way as I already told you that that, the growth has been phenomenal. The the risk selection has been has been tested this time because we have moved out in motor from segments that we didn't want to write, and we have not been writing them.

The ICR that you see is because of the URR and the earned premium impact that is there, and the ICRs, the ICRs, the claim issues also reflect the a part of the last year's, premium that we have written, and therefore the ICR is very high. Having said that, this year's I think as the quarters go by, you will see a marked improvement in in the performance of the company across all segments.

Since I believe we have seen the, the last of the cats, sporadic events this year, possibly we could expect a couple next quarters to be a little bit more reasonable on, on such kind of surprises, and we would see better results coming forward.

Capital gains.

Capital gains. Last one.

Capital gains equity, what she had asked for.

Upon market opportunity, yeah. Even as far as our normal routine is concerned, we use the equity market very efficiently.

Depending on the kind of volatility that is there in the market, the opportunities that the market presents, we will be utilizing the market dynamics to the benefit of New India. On the investment front also, I'm sure we'll perform better like we have done excellently in quarter two, and it has helped us to tide over this wage revision provisioning.

In future, I'm sure that we will continue to do that and we'll get best yield for New India out of the funds we have. Does this answer your query?

Thank you so much.

Actually the reduction in GST was something that the insurance industry, non-life, has been asking from the ministry for a very long time because the health premiums being already high because of the claims that have been seen across age groups in the last few years, mainly because of hospitals not being regulated. Because of that, claims have been pouring in into the health sector.

We have been asking for this reduction in GST, at least for the senior citizens group, because it will help them pay the premiums in a more affordable way. Now the Finance Ministry has agreed for an entire waiver of 18% on all the retail insurance covers for health, and we welcome this, and we have actually given the entire benefit to customer.

The hit for this to our account would be around 100 crores because we've not distributed this to any of our agents. Have been only for eight days in September.

The other companies have passed on part of this to the agents, but since already our agents are not as highly paid or highly remunerated as the private sector, we thought it was not proper to punish them for this GST waiver, and therefore we have taken it to our account. We believe that this gesture has gone very well with the public, and we've seen a lot of interest around our products.

We hope to see a lot of growth. Our retail element of the health is just 20%, and it's our long-term target to see that it goes up to 50% of our book, and immediate target in the near term to be around 30% of our book.

I think these targets will more or less be able to achieve in the next few quarters because of this gesture. We expect that overall around 100 100-crore hit to the book because of this input tax credit not being available to us.

Okay. The follow-up to that is in terms of your distribution cost, do you see any change in the distribution cost because of this change in GST in the third and fourth quarter?

Second thing is, if you look at your overall distribution mix, 30% is in-house, rest is outsourced. What is the difference in the cost as a percentage of your overall business between the in-house distribution of 30% and the balance 70%, which is through agents and brokers and others?

Yeah. He had to complete his question, Mr.

Ramesh. The follow-up to that question was regarding the distribution cost.

As a result of the change in the GST reduction to nil, how do you see that impacting your overall distribution cost? Because the distributors also face the same impact, right?

How do you see that impacting your distribution cost as a percentage of your business? The second thought is in your distribution mix, 30% is in-house, rest is through brokers and agents.

How does this mix impact your overall cost as a percentage of revenue between the in-house distribution as well as through third-party distribution? Actually, as I've told you that we have waived that 18% GST wherein we've given it completely to the customer.

The input tax credit we are not able to avail, which we have taken it to our P&L. We have not disturbed the agents and we will not be charging it to them in the third and fourth quarter as well.

It will continue to be entirely to us, and I think it's going to impact the company positively because the agents have seen a renewed sense of trust and understanding with the company, and I think this will get us more growth on the retail side. In terms of your distribution mix, as I asked, between that in-house distribution and third-party distribution, what is the difference in the percentage distribution cost as a percentage of revenue between these two channels?

You mean in-house, what do you mean in-house? In-house is direct.

Direct there is no cost, because we do it ourselves. Yeah.

When an agency is there, you have to give the agency commission. For broker, we have to give brokerage.

For the direct and bancassurance, of course we have corporate commissions, but direct is absolutely nil commission. The entire 9.5% of distribution cost is for third-party distribution.

Okay. One last thought.

In terms of your operating expenses for the second first half, if you remove that 1,186 crores of arrears paid on wage revision, you're actually seeing a YoY decline. This lower operating expense in absolute terms in rupee value, is that kind of something which you can assume as a run rate for the third and fourth quarter?

Which means your overall full-year operating costs would possibly be showing a decline. Is that kind of a trajectory?

Yes. There is a decline in operating ratio if you remove the 1,680 crores of provisioning, and that is because there's been a concerted effort.

We have been closing certain offices in the country because they are redundant and they do not cater to much of customers, and there used to be two, three offices in the same area which would cater to the same customers, and in order to make the most efficient use of human resource as well as space, we had taken a board decision to close some of them, and that has also reduced the cost to a large extent. Basically we have done well on the operating ratio bit of it, but which has been camouflaged because of this one-time big provisioning we had to do for the This operating ratio will it be sustainable let's say in FY27 as well, if you see this reduced run rate?

It will, because offices have been closed forever. Obviously the expense that we got rid of has been done forever.

It will continue. Thank you very much, and wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Thank you all once again for your insightful participation and questions today. Before we conclude, I would like to leave you with the key message from our H1 FY26 performance.

New India Assurance delivered strong and resilient growth, recording 11.5% increase in GWP and a remarkable 57.7% rise in profit after tax. This was achieved despite the one-time wage revision provision and elevated weather-related claims.

Our investment portfolio continued to perform exceptionally well and significantly supported the bottom line. The company remains financially robust with a healthy solvency ratio of 1.79 times.

Thank you very much for joining us today. As we approach the new year, we extend our warm wishes to you and your families for a safe, peaceful, and fulfilling year ahead.

The management team and I remain fully committed to strengthening operational excellence. During the first half of the year, we continued to apply firm underwriting discipline with particular attention to segments where loss ratios were temporarily elevated, including health and property.

We also maintained our focus on enhancing process efficiency through digital and technology-driven improvements, supporting better claims management and wider distribution enablement. These ongoing efforts reflect our continued emphasis on balanced growth and underwriting discipline.

Thank you once again for your time and engagement. We look forward to staying connected, wishing you and your families a wonderful start to the new year.