Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the 3Q FY2022-2023 Earnings Conference Call of Bajaj Finserv Limited, hosted by JM Financial. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touch-tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Sameer Bhise from JM Financial. Thank you and over to you, sir.
Thank you, [audio distortion]. Good morning everyone, and welcome to the 3 Q 2023 earnings conference call of Bajaj Finserv. I would like to take this opportunity to thank the management of Bajaj Finserv for allowing us to hold this call for yet another quarter. From the management team, we have Mr. S. Sreenivasan, our CFO of Bajaj Finserv, Mr. Tapan Singhel, CEO Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, Mr. Tarun Chugh, CEO Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, and CFOs, Mr. Ramandeep Sahni from Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, and Mr. Bharat Kalsi, CFO of Bajaj Allianz Life. We will open the call with opening comments from Sreenivasan, sir, and we'll move to Q&A. Over to you, sir. Thank you so much.
Thank you. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the conference call to discuss the results of Bajaj Finserv Limited for Q3 of FY 2022-2023. Before I get into the performance, let me just make some standard hygiene announcements. As before, in this call, we will largely be concentrating on the consolidated results as well as the results of our insurance operations through Bajaj Allianz General Insurance and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, BAGIC and BALIC, respectively, and rare material, the standalone results of our company, BFS. Bajaj Finance Limited, which is another major subsidiary of ours, has already had its conference call. However, if there are any high-level questions on BFS, we'll be glad to take that as well. We will not be taking any questions on the status of Allianz's stake in our insurance company.
The status has remained the same as at the end of the previous quarter, and there is no change there. Any statements that may look like forward-looking statements are just estimates and do not constitute an assurance or indication of any future performance result. Brief remark on Ind AS. As required by regulation, BFS prepares its financials in compliance with Indian Accounting Standards or Ind AS. The insurance companies are not yet covered under Ind AS. They have prepared the Ind AS financials only for the purpose of consolidation. Accordingly, for BAGIC and BALIC, the standalone numbers reported in our investor presentation, and which will be discussed below, are based on the non-Ind AS accounting standards or Indian GAAP as applicable to insurance companies. Our results, the messages accompanying the results and our investor presentation has been uploaded on our website yesterday.
Let me now come to the performance for Q3 FY 2023 and the nine months of FY 2023 where relevant. Let me start with BAGIC. For the quarter, BAGIC reported a growth of 38.6% in GDPI, against the private sector growth of 22.3% and the industry growth of 18.5%. Even if we exclude the center-driven volatile businesses, basically crop and time and health businesses, BAGIC has grown at a healthy 12.8%. For nine months, it is 14.6%. In the intensely competitive motor segment, BAGIC has been selective, seeking to grow in composed with profitability. To add some more detail, the growth in GDPI was attributable to retail and group health, which grew at 11.2% and 41.2% respectively.
Commercial lines, fire, engineering, marine and liability at 14.9% and overseas medical, which is travel insurance at 44%. Overall, in Q3 FY 2023, BAGIC had a motor growth of 6%. The two-wheeler segment grew 24%, while the four-wheeler segment grew 8% and the CV segment de-grew by 5%. Specifically, BAGIC chose to give up business in larger cities where price competition was more intense. The growth in commercial lines was aided by BAGIC's strong bank insurance network and multi-line agency channel, supported by strong underwriting and large reinsurance capacity for covering large risks. BAGIC continued its robust performance across retail, commercial and industrial risk categories. Fire and marine segments continued their growth momentum. Engineering and liability lines have also shown strong growth, continuing their momentum from the previous quarter.
Overall, commercial lines continue to do well with Q3 FY 2023 and nine months FY 2023 growth of 14.9% and 15.2% respectively. Against the industry growth of just 8.3% and 14.4%. Health insurance performance has improved in Q3 as compared to previous quarters over FY 2023. Overseas medical or travel insurance continued its momentum growing at 44% while BAGIC growth in Retail Health at 11.2% was better than the overall market, which is private-public players of 10.1%. In group health, BAGIC witnessed strong growth of 41.2% in Q3 FY 2022, whereas industry, private and public players of 30.6%.
For the industry, overall Retail Health growth, including Standalone Health Insurance, it first improved by 2.4% in Q2, then it has further improved by 3.4% in Q3 due to better selection of business and normalization of aberrations such as high Motor Own Damage loss ratios. If you recall, in Q1, when we had a fairly spike in our loss ratios, we had said that we will be taking corrective action to bring down the loss ratios. Typically, in a General Insurance business, these take 6-9 months to play out because the existing book will continue to have higher losses, while the new book will be returned with stronger underwriting. The results of that are already visible.
For Q3 FY 2023, the loss ratio stood at 72.1% as against 69.6% of Q3 FY 2022. The increase was attributable to high inflation in motor and health segments, partially offset by lower commercial claims. Moreover, BAGIC has also taken an additional net impact of INR 9 crores on account of the adverse court order with respect to the Osmanabad Kharif 2020 crop season. At this stage, we do not have any information which makes us to believe that there's any further provision is required in respect of the Kharif 2020 crop season. The combined ratio for Q3 FY 2023 stood at 100.3% versus 98.9% in Q3 FY 2022. Nevertheless, higher frequency in motor and health ex-COVID and the impact of inflation cost are expected to remain.
BAGIC will monitor these developments closely and endeavor to initiate corrective actions as required. In a market where most companies are reporting large underwriting losses, this result, we believe, displays BAGIC's commitment to a balanced and profitable growth on the back of strong underwriting and selection. The profit after tax was INR 278 crores in Q3 FY 2023 and INR 1,026 crores in nine months FY 2023. The AUM grew by 8% to INR 25,977 crores for the nine months ended 31st December 2022. The lower PAT are mainly attributable to higher combined ratio and lower realized gains on investments. Clearly, the realized gains on investments quarter-on-quarter can be volatile, and this quarter it was a bit lower than the same quarter of last year.
In summary, it was a quarter with strong external headwinds in the form of price competition in Motor segment, and BAGIC has chosen to hold its own with a satisfactory combined ratio. I will move to Life Insurance next. Overall, the Life Insurance industry saw momentum pick up in Q3 after a muted Q2. During the quarter, while few private players saw slowdown in their growth as compared to the previous year, BALIC continued its month-on-month growth trajectory and reported an industry-beating individual rated premium growth of 22% against the industry and private players' growth of 12% and 16% respectively. Similarly, in the nine months of FY 2023, BALIC's IRNB or individual rated new business grew 38% as against the industry growth of 16%, private players' growth of 19%.
In fact, in the nine months of FY 2023, BALIC was the second fastest growing life insurer among the top ten private players on the IRNB basis. On a three-year CAGR of 35% on IRNB basis, BALIC remains the fastest growing life insurer in the industry. This compares with the pre-COVID base. BALIC improved its market share of IRNB from 6.4% to 7.4% among private players in the nine months. Total number of policies for BALIC also grew 24% to INR 1.52 lakh in Q3 FY 2023. For nine months, the growth was 33%. As of 31st December, the nine months ended 31st December, we have issued INR 4.09 lakh new business policies.
Overall, IRNB mix for Q3 stood at PAR 19%, non-PAR savings 37%, term 4%, annuity 7%, and unit 33%. As we mentioned before, BAGIC's primary differentiator in the market is balance. A balance across products, a balance across distribution, and a balance between profitable growth and profitability. Most lines, including PAR, non-PAR savings, term, annuity and unit have shown growth in absolute terms. The business mix changes reflects relative differences in growth, and hence are not a matter we are concerned about in the short run. During the quarter, growth was driven by all our main channels, with agency, institutional business, and BAGIC direct growing at 28%, 18%, and 15% respectively.
Further point I would like to highlight here is the strong year-on-year increase in persistency across vintages, especially in the later buckets, where 49-month persistency increased by 4% to 63% and 65-month persistency improved by a further 3% to 49%. As a result of the actions taken on persistency over the last few years, our renewal book is looking quite solid, and we were able to record a 30% growth in renewal premiums in Q3 FY 2023. New business value net of expense overrun, the key metric of profitability, increased by 38% from INR 152 crore in Q3 FY 2022 to INR 210 crore in Q3 FY 2023.
For the nine months ended 31st December 2022, the NBV was INR 535 crore as against INR 314 crore for the nine months ended 31st December 2021. This is a growth of 71% in the nine months. BAGIC's PAT for Q3 FY 2023, that is the profit after tax, de-grew by 8% to INR 81 crore as against INR 88 crore in the Q3 FY 2022, mainly on account of the higher new business sale, given the higher growth in new business, and it was partially offset by lower first claim. Last year, we had a few reserving for COVID claims. Overall, a relatively strong quarter for BAGIC. Finally, both insurance companies are financially among the most solvent. BAGIC with 529% solvency and BALIC with 373%.
They are both well poised to weather any external adversity. All our businesses are further augmented by digital capabilities, which along with greater digital acceptance by customers, should we hope help create a foundation to deliver a strong performance in the last quarter of FY 2023. Both BAGIC and BALIC have seen an increase in the utilization of digital properties by customers and intermediaries. Further details regarding BAGIC and BALIC digital capability are covered in the investor deck uploaded on the website. I would urge everybody to go through the same in detail. Coming to our Lending businesses, BFL and BHFL. BFL already had its investor call, and we will only broadly touch upon BFL results.
Both Q3 and nine months of FY 2023 were excellent for BFL as the company delivered on all its long-term financial guidance metrics, AUM and profit growth, return on assets, return on equity, as well as gross and net NPA. The return on assets on an annualized basis is about 5.4% now. Continuing on its growth story, BFL acquired 31.4 lakh or 3.14 million new customers in Q3 and 84.8 lakh new customers in nine months of FY 2022. Building on this customer franchise, the number of new loans booked in Q3 FY 2023 increased to 7.84 million or 78.4 lakh as against 7.44 million in Q3 FY 2022.
The company's diversified business model has enabled it to record strong AUM growth as seen from the total AUM standing at INR 2,30,842 crore on 31st December 2022 as against just INR 1,81,250 crore on 31st December 2021. BFL continues to maintain a management overlay provision of INR 1,000 crore at a consolidated level for COVID and other unexpected contingencies. The gross and net NPA continue to be under control, with the gross NPA for BFL at being 1.14% and 0.41% respectively. BFL ended the quarter with a profit after tax of INR 2,973 crore on a consolidated basis, which was 40% higher than the same quarter of the previous year.
The capital adequacy continues to be strong and stood at 25.14%, out of which the Tier 1 capital stood at 23.3%. One of the strong performers in the quarter was the Bajaj Housing Finance, the 100% mortgage subsidiary of BFL. It continues to do well. The AUM grew by 33% to INR 65,581 crore as at 31st December 2022 from INR 49,203 crore. Profit after tax grew by 81% to INR 334 crore in Q3 FY 2023 as against just INR 185 crore in Q3 FY22. For the nine months ended FY... December 31st, the profit after tax grew 87% to INR 956 crore. The capital adequacy ratio is fairly comfortable at 23%.
The GNPA and NNPA continue to be under control at 0.23% and 0.10%. In summary, a very strong quarter for both BFL and BHFL. Consequently, the BFL's consolidated results reflected an all-time high quarterly profits. I'll give you some update on our newer companies, which is Bajaj Finserv Direct or Bajaj Markets and Bajaj Finserv Health or e-BH as we call it. During Q3 FY 2023, Bajaj Markets has attracted about INR 84 lakh consumers on its digital platform, of which about INR 2 lakh became customers. This is as against INR 80 lakh and INR 2 lakh customers in Q2 FY 2023. BFSD Lending, the lending of Bajaj Markets, unsecured and secured, both BFL and partnerships, the disbursement for the quarter stood at INR 1,175 crore as against INR 1,052 crore in Q2 FY 2023.
It also sourced 62,000 cards in Q3 FY 2023 as against 61,000 cards in Q2. In Q3 FY 2023, Bajaj Markets reported total income of INR 104 crores. This is the revenue that they have earned, was just INR 66 crores in Q3 of FY 2022. For the nine months ended 31st December, the revenue was INR 278 crores. Coming to Bajaj Finserv Health, during Q3 FY 2023, Bajaj Finserv Health carried out 9.1 lakh health transactions, having 3.9 lakh+ monthly active users. For the quarter, e-BH had 9.74 lakh paying users, with 3.1 lakh users having renewable products. e-BH is also managing OPD benefits for over 250 employers, covering 2.2 lakh+ members under its managed care services.
At the same time, e-BH is powering Health Prime Rider product, which is sold along with BAGIC. It's a BAGIC product, which offers OPD, teleconsultation and various other non-hospitalization benefits. I'm glad to say that this product, which was launched in January of 2022, has already crossed 10 lakh members or 1 million. The company is now building wellness benefits as well as fitness, dietitian, mental health, and going forward over the next two years, we will see stronger focus on those areas, moving away from illness to wellness. In Q3 of FY 2023, [e-BH] reported total income of INR 45 crore versus INR 28 crore in Q3 of FY 2022. For the nine months, the total revenue was INR 117 crore versus INR 60 crore in nine months of FY 2022. Now a brief on our consolidated financial results.
The details of which are in our press release. Consolidated total income, 23% increase to INR 21,755 crore. Consolidated profit after tax, 42% increase to INR 1,782 crore. For the nine months ended, the consolidated total income was up 18% at INR 58,447 crore, and consolidated profit after tax was 45% higher at INR 4,648 crore. Under Ind AS, the insurance subsidiaries have chosen to hold a part of their equity securities portfolio fair value through profit and loss account. What this means is that the unrealized mark to market gains on investments included in consolidated profit tends to be volatile. Although they are unrealized, we still need to make a provision in the books. On account of this there are being MTM impacts.
We tend to call this out separately so that investors can make an appropriate judgment about the core results. If one were to exclude the volatile impact of MTM losses and gains, the core profit after tax would have increased by 34% in Q3 of FY 2023 and 57% in the nine months. This, in short, is a brief on the results for Q3 of FY 2023 and I will now invite questions from the participants. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question- and- answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on the touch- tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Avinash from Emkay Global Financial Services. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. good morning. a few questions. first one, I would like to understand on BAGIC, I mean, how is the commercial lines pricing environment, particularly post there was kind of, I guess, a circular guideline by IIB that says that the reinsurance or I mean, like the led price, you know, for reinsurers got set a kind of a floor. I mean, in a way, it sort of opens the door for competition as far as floor pricing is commercial lines are concerned. Post that, I mean, how is sort of a commercial line pricing environment over in this space? One. second on BAGIC.
On the group side of business, particularly if I see on the protection, if you can help us understand, I mean, the kind of, slight decline in, you know, premiums, is it coming from the GPI or credit line? I mean, is it volume or pricing led? Also on the fund management side, of course, that business is not profitable. What is sort of, driving this sort of product you are, you know, like many others are also seeing some business or rather doing less business on the group fund management side? That's two. Lastly one would be, on your, you know, hedging strategy. Of course, you have, FRA and partly paid bonds.
I mean, how is the sort of a supply of part paid bonds and what sort of a comfort you have, like, what is your comfort in terms of the corporates, the name of corporates where you can sort of subscribe to part paid bonds and all. Thanks. These are my three questions.
Yeah. Thank you. I will just summarize the three questions. The first question was for BAGIC, where you want to know about commercial lines pricing because of the removal of the Insurance Institute, IIB cap, or a floor on pricing. The second question was to BAGIC on the protection side, with a focus on group protection as well, and what are we doing on the fund management side. Lastly, you wanted a view on the FRA. I'll just pass it on to Tapan first to take the question on BAGIC, and thereafter Tarun will handle the question on BAGIC.
Yeah. Last one was on partly paid bonds. Okay, thanks.
Oh, okay. Fine.
Thank you, Sreeni. Let's understand what was this IIB rate to begin with, no? GIC, our national reinsurer, had put an underwriting guideline, you know, in terms of what to accept in its books. It said that the average claims, which is part of IIB, you can get the data from IIB, is what the minimum it will accept in terms of the reinsurance fee. It is not that there are other reinsurers in the market who were free to write the risk at anything. Everybody had their underwriting norms. I think it was GIC underwriting norm in which they said this is what they'll be looking for.
What as the regulations you mentioned is that you cannot put in a non-specific like this in terms of linking it to some part of it. Fundamentally, what was increased in the norm was that good risk would also have to be priced, you know, if you've got a lower strata, they cannot go and get benefit of it. With this coming in, there would be underwriting norms in which better risk may actually get better discounts, and the earlier times also the worse of risk can be priced more aggressively. It is also underwriting a non-super setup by GIC, not something which is set up by everybody across the industry as the tools are made out to be.
As I, right, mentioned earlier that, other reinsurers do not have, you know, these kind of, norms to show there. The pricing will actually in my view, let's see how the future holds up. For good risk, obviously the pricing would get much better. For risks which are not so good it will get not so good. It has been something since the day just two years back, that's how the pricing used to happen. I do not see a very huge shift in terms of, fall in prices. There would be some, fall in price because the good risks will be written at a much better price. That will be there.
As long as something had to be catastrophic in nature in terms of the way the prices would behave, will tumble down completely. I don't see that happening.
Okay. Okay.
Okay. Yeah. Tarun here on BALIC. The first question is around protection. I'll basically bifurcate this into two parts. One is credit life and group protection, and the other is on the retail side. On the group side, we've had a very kind of a sedate first nine months, largely because the partners we've been working with haven't really grown much. It's a unique situation that the partners who contribute to a significant % of credit life haven't really themselves grown. You know, market has grown faster in credit life. On the retail side, where a lot of our focus has been, we've grown quite well, I would say.
If I just talk about the number of customers we've added, we had a 68% growth in terms of the number of customers we added on the retail protection. The second question was, and that's quite healthy and quite as per the strategy that we had. In terms of the price, that was the second question. Pricing in credit life and group term life, which is the employer-employee, has now stabilized to group term life particularly has stabilized to pre-COVID levels. Credit life, the prices have stabilized as well. In retail protection also, whatever price hikes we have done, we're mostly done with and it's stabilized there as well. On the fund management side, I presume you're asking about the group employer-employee funds.
It's not a very big focused business for us because the bottom line from that isn't really significant. Still having said that, it's a profitable business for us. We expect that to grow with every deal that keeps coming in the market. It's a very lumpy business, difficult to forecast. Typically, it's very responsive to the pay hikes that we see in the market because gradually in superannuation the contributions get linked to that. It is a line of business, but like I said, it's not something that we expect to really focus on too much. On the FRA, that is the third question. I've I'm asking Bharat to just respond to you.
Thank you. Thank you, Tarun. Thank you for the question. The question was more one is on the partly paid bond supply side as well as on the overall FRA. I think FRA is, as you are aware, that it's an established practice, and we continue to follow that practice to hedge our portfolio. As far as partly paid bonds are concerned, we are already invested into few top corporates only. As a process, you are right to a good extent that the supply side on the partly paid bond is less. What we are trying to do is that we are trying to go to the first class or the category A manufacturing companies in terms of if they are okay to issue a partly paid bond.
This is more at a discussion stage, but we will be very calibrated in terms of taking any credit risk and hence partly paid bond will always remain a one of our key areas of hedging, but it all depends on which kind of a corporates are willing to issue the paid bond.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Great. Yeah. Just on group one management, see if the competition has intensified, I mean particularly from the large incumbent in that segment? Is it the reason why, I mean, sort of, you are or like it is just that okay? Is it, I mean the, that okay spread is compressed by the larger player in that segment?
Yeah. That, that is, that is correct. The incumbents focus has been on this. They are quite good at this and have a very good spread of corporates. Our overall fund management base for group funds remains quite healthy, close to INR 10,000 crore. As a overall portfolio base does make money and this is why we focus really on the bottom line here, but not necessarily significantly growing our top line. We would like to keep profitable business on our books only.
Thank you. Thank you. Very clear. All questions answered. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bhavesh Kanani from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Thank you for taking the question. My question pertains to the health insurance business under Bajaj. The share of Retail Health has been pretty low. Just wanted to, kind of, get your sense on the strategic direction for this business. How do we look at the opportunity there, the profit pool, whether it interests us, and, if so, what can be expected in terms of future growth from this business?
I will ask Tapan to take that.
Thank you, Sreeni. If you look at, I think retail premium, if you look at for industry also, it is not the leading business. We mostly group health, governmental and retail. That is how it is structured at. Coming to Bajaj, in the COVID times, we had gone slow on Retail Health, if you looked at, because it was very uncertain. If you see the losses happening in the health portfolio, it is very high. The price correction are not happening at that speed that I think should be. If you look at it, the market has corrected pricing to a large extent on the Retail Health business, and we also have done some correction on it, as we have mentioned last time, about a couple of years back.
Now if you look at our focus, we have been growing Retail Health. We would remain focused on that. It depends how the market conditions are. COVID was a time of huge uncertainty, and that time we preferred to go slow, compared to the market, simply because it was not very clear as to how the health portfolio would play out. Now if you look at, we are again growing our health portfolio and we are focusing on it.
Any targets or, you know, any roadmap you have in mind of what kind of contribution you would look to get from the Retail Health business?
For us it's actually a very simple strategy. We are very agile. Whatever it looks good to us, we grow that more than the market. What we look is not giving us good returns. We slow down the market. You see in the motor itself, commercial vehicle at one time was giving us good returns. We grew over the market. Now if you look at the commercial vehicle itself is much lower than the market. If the market what we feel is good, we will grow over the market and if we feel that, you know, it's difficult right now, we go below that. We don't try to fix targets and just go for it without looking at how the market behaves. Our response is how the market is behaving.
We're able to keep our motive of keeping very clear. That is one customer obsession. Come up with products which is very customer-centric. I would like to mention that if you look at the product which we have to solve the elderly care issue, the respect product we have for health, which we have set up no, an IoT, a fault detection, a call center and ambulance, emergency ambulance to pick up elderly, something goes wrong from their home and take them to hospital to be treated even before they call us. No, on our own, we get a call from the fault detection to our call center, pick them up. We keep on pushing boundaries for customer excellence. I think I said very first and we heard Sreeni's opening talk.
We came out with OPD also a very strong product in, with collaboration with Bajaj Finserv Health. We keep on pushing boundaries in terms of customer servicing and excellence. That's the first thing that we keep on doing and we'll keep on doing as we progress also. The second thing that our obsession is, as I mentioned to you, that we will grow over the market if we feel the market is conducive and which is there. We don't try to keep targets on it. We observe through the customers, keep in touch with innovative products, that the visual society and also keep on looking at market and keep on doing that. We'll keep on doing that as we progress further.
Okay. That's wonderful to hear. Any sense on where we are in terms of investing for expanding the Retail Health business? Any investments, plans you can share?
If you look at our distribution expand, we are expanding. It's like tier two, tier three. We have clear plan. As we expand distribution, in distribution predominantly there are two, three lines of businesses which one is motor, one is health. You will see this happening, you know, with our expansion of distribution. That is a clear investment that we are going ahead with and which we have been doing consistently.
Last bit, what in your sense is a sustainable ROE for Retail Health business?
Retail health is been an interesting thing and it's a good question. If you look at across industry, currently the profit in the Retail Health portfolio comes from new business. No? Any company which is growing new business aggressively has a lower loss ratio and the old book has a loss ratio which is pretty high. That to me is not a business which is sustainable. All years and all, you know, books should be on a profitable basis. That is the way we look at it. Currently that's what's driven through ROE, which has given a lot of companies to grow fresh very aggressively because that brings their books very good. Probably you look at the loss ratio for third or fourth year of their books, it will not be profitable.
It'll be a combined ratio over 100. Fundamentally, if you look at Retail Health, I think the balance pricing, you know, and the solutioning which comes through is what will give a good ROE. Our obsession has always been to have a combined ratio which should be close to 100 in a market like this. That is what we keep on targeting for all lines of business.
Okay.
Just to add to what Tapan said, while there is a lot of focus on Retail Health, Retail Health, as Tapan pointed out, has the fundamental problem that everybody is depending on new customers coming in or price increases to be able to keep up with the deteriorating loss ratio as the customer profile changes. The group health is an important thing. That is, over years we have been, when we felt the market was more conducive, we have slowed down. When the market is attractive, we have been more aggressive. Whenever we get business on our terms, we take it. Overall in our group health now we are able to operate it very profitably with a combined ratio below 100%. That is also growing at 40%.
Clearly, when we look at the overall health spectrum, it is about how much of the payments that you control, including group and retail. That is an important metric, and BAGIC stands fairly high in the pecking order on that. As the health insurance market evolves, I think both will have an important role to play and the one which because in group health you do have a chance that every year you get to re-underwrite the business, so it's not subject to acquiring new customers only. It is also very service sensitive being an employer-employee benefit. In both of these, BAGIC continues to invest and be strong, and we think that overall health business is doing quite well.
Okay. Thank you for your responses.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Sanket Godha from Spark Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Sreeni, I have a first question to you. Just your view on the composite licensing given how Bajaj Finserv has both life and General Insurance, and where the ownership is common. How do you see this composite license coming out? Whether BALIC will compete with BAGIC on health if they choose to do health. This broader area, what you have on composite licensing. That's the first question. Then I have specific questions on BALIC and BAGIC. If you can respond that, then I can ask other questions.
No. Broadly, see this is just a proposal now to change the acts empowering IRDAI to create subclasses of business and to offer licenses differentiated basis for people who want to do only certain class of business or more than one class of business. I believe that is now being under discussion with a large group of stakeholders, we'll have to wait and see the final contours before we take a call. At this stage we cannot comment on whether it is a good thing or a bad thing. Clearly, prima facie it looks like there are benefits of cost by sharing of branches and sharing of people. At the operating level, at the risk level, I mean, they two are completely different businesses. It's not necessarily that just by combining the two you actually get a superior business.
There is accumulation of risk across, say, health and life, for example. When a person falls sick and later on the person dies, you end up paying much more than when a person, the two are done by two independent companies. There are pros and cons broadly, but we are studying this in detail, and we are studying practices across the globe. In some countries, life and health are together. In some countries like U.S., health companies are independent. In some companies, some countries like India, health has traditionally been a forte of the non-life companies. There are multiple models, and we will be studying all that and taking a view if and when it becomes law.
Okay. Okay, sir. That, that's useful. On now, the question which I have is that if I look at the third quarter growth, the Axis Bank as a channel has grown lower than the company average only for the third quarter. Just wanted to understand that now the market share story in Axis is almost over and the growth will be more in line with the channel growth. Then also just wanted to understand that whether you are seeing some kind of a pressure with respect to deposit mobilization target by the bank and that is getting reflected in bank channel growth. Because overall the bank channel growth has been lower compared to the company average.
That's on Axis and bank channels. The second point which I wanted to ask is that we had a pressure in deferred annuity business in second quarter. We see the same pressure continuing in the third quarter too. Anything to read there? Because the other companies, larger companies have also launched that particular product. Is it because of the competition or something to do or some other reason which is leading to that slowdown in the deferred annuity? These are questions on BALIC. I have one question on BAGIC which I'll ask.
Yeah. I think I'll pass it on to Tarun. The one question was on bank insurance and Axis and is there a slowdown in growth and what is the way forward. Second question was whether the deferred annuity business growth was because of competition or was it a deliberate strategy of the company?
Yes.
Sanket, thanks for the questions. The question specifically on Axis, we've maintained our market share, in Axis, despite not being, you know, having any equity stake from there. I think it's, that will continue. We expect our market share to hover around the current levels. In terms of the fact that whether the growth, will mellow down, yes, it will grow as per the growth now of the bank and productivities that we're able to get. Of course, we always keep pursuing other white spaces where we can help the bank grow its, third-party income business, and that, work will always be on. That is what will decide the growth of Axis in the future.
This quarter particularly was the quarter in which the base effect kind of annulled itself, and hence particularly in December that came back to play. As far as the deferred annuity is concerned, I know you're talking about the pressure, but honestly, as far as we are concerned, we are the market leaders. We were the first ones to come up with a deferred annuity. There is a lot of residual memory about that in the market. We wanted to balance out our product mix, the quarter before and that pressure of balancing out is now absolutely out of the window so it's not a problem at all and we will be, we're back in doing as much as we possibly can in the annuity business.
It's already growing at a healthy rate. It's grown almost by 45% over the last nine months. I think it's, it's back in action there. It's grown far better than the entire company. I think that's not an issue. The market recognizes who was the innovator and we will keep getting that benefit and we will be innovating further in this product.
Got it. Yeah.
I would say-
Yeah.
I think in the last two years you must have seen that Bajaj has expanded its bank insurance portfolio. We have IDFC First, we have City Union Bank, we have DBS. Now we have added Punjab National Bank, we have added J&K Bank. Typically, these are bank insurance business take some time to seep in, maybe a year or two. We have started building a more diversified bank insurance portfolio, and that effort will continue over the next few years.
Got it. Perfect. The last one on the Bajaj General. Motor TP loss ratio, what we look at, I mean, we think third quarter it has improved compared to what it was in first half. 82% seems to be still on the higher side compared to what we have reported in the historical past. I just wanted to understand that, given the competition is not reporting these kind of numbers, do we see a relief happening in fourth quarter or in subsequent year, maybe because of our conservatism?
Second if Motor Vehicle Act benefits given the Madras High Court judgment has come, if we bake in that benefit, what is the likely improvement you can expect to happen in Motor TP loss ratio or overall combined ratio for the company?
Before I pass it on to Tapan or Raman, let me just highlight that Motor TP loss ratios quarter-on-quarter can be volatile. Historically, we have published our triangles and you can see that we are generally reasonably conservative in our provisioning without being excessively prudent, and we will continue that strategy. We do not comment on what competitors are doing as a rule, although we track them and we know some of the numbers with greater detail we study from their public disclosures. I think by end of the year you will have a clearer picture. We as a rule do not do big reversals end of the year normally, unless there is an actuarial reason to do so, or actually as we build in enough margins for adverse deviation, we build in enough provisions for inflation in claims.
We also build in provisions for any changes due to regulations such as the Motor T.P. Act and any developments thereafter. I'll just hand it over to the management of Bajaj to add any other points they feel relevant.
Thank you, Sreeni. I think you covered it. If you look at it, and it's a very relevant question. When you look at the overall combined ratio and you look at the reserving, then you get a very good comfort that as a company we are very well reserved. In spite of reserving very well, our combined ratio is also among the best in the industry. That is the first statement that, you know, should clearly come out from the question that you've asked. Coming to the point that why is it like this? See the health inflation, the claim inflation that we see in TP and then the COVID times lot of courts were shut down. We're not very sure in terms of how the number of cases, you know, which are coming will play out.
Obviously we have to keep all that provisioning to perspective. One was inflationary impact, second was impact of court closure in the COVID times and how would these things start coming out and that's what we have no kept it also the trend that we see in terms of the loss ratios. It's a full science in terms of how the reserving would be done. At no point in time we want to be in a scenario where we would be under reserved. It's better that, you know, we take care of our reserving by taking into all parameters and studying it well. If the court cases that you're talking about, if it becomes a trend, then obviously that long tail TP becomes a short tail, which has two impacts.
One impact will be in terms of your reserving. It actually, you know, becomes more clear because short tail you don't have this weightage of a long tail prediction as to how it's going to go, which I think will bring the results in terms of a lot of clarity of how the loss ratios will move. That is a good part. The other part will be impact on the reserves that companies have for investment, you know, that will start coming down. While you do this calculation, you should also see that perspective that in a short tail thing a lot of money which companies have is the third party, you know, money which is there with them. That starts coming down. That's a very interesting play which should happen.
We will still wait and watch how it plays out. I think very good for the customers. It will eliminate lot of, you know, frauds, and it also will ensure speedy justice. From a customer perspective, it is very good. We welcome this if it happens. I hope I've been able to answer your question.
Yes. you have. Thanks. That's it from my side.
Yeah. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Harit Shah from ASK Investment Managers. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Good morning to all of you. Two questions.
On the Life Insurance, that's more a suggestion. On the Life Insurance, if you provide complete EVOP walk on a quarterly basis, while not many do that, it will give a much better insight into the evolution of the character of the business and how the past and the present we can coordinate little better, when that data is available. In absence of that, the data doesn't really become complete in itself. That was on Life Insurance. On General Insurance, when we see over the period of time, that the character of the industry is much more focused on growth rather than growth along with profit and capital efficiency, how does it impact you as a player?
Either it affects your growth or it affects your capital efficiency if you have to mimic the way industry is doing. In which way the evolution of the character of the General Insurance industry, has an impact on the way you will perform. Just wanted to get the thoughts on this.
Yeah. Harit, I will take it first half before passing on to the insurance company management. The first question, I'll take the General Insurance question first. I think globally in General Insurance, if you see, there are two types of players. People who seek to grow market share, and they define market share as gross written premium. There are a few companies, maybe not more than the top decile or top two deciles of companies, which actually deliver double-digit ROEs on a sustainable basis. Most green GI companies we have seen, I think last few years we have seen many disruptors entering the market, but you see the combined business they have written in terms of premium, whether it is in U.S. or China, is a very small proportion of the market. Right now it will be even 1% of the market.
Clearly this is a business which is long term. Quarter-on-quarter and year-on-year, there can be volatility on claims, which is exposed to very large act of God risks. Therefore, what our approach has always been to follow what is prudent, underwrite well, select business well. In terms of certain businesses, especially asset-based businesses like motor, pricing can play a big role because most of the young companies start with writing motor business. They're the easiest to write and sell, which I think at some point they run out of capital. The point is, do we want to acquire customers knowing fully well that we will lose money or do we want to write business where we see a visibility of profit? It is possible that some businesses may not deliver profit in the first year.
If we see that over three, four years we have a sustainable business to be delivered there of a reasonable scale, then we would go for that. I think the company has a very detailed long-term planning and AOP process. It's very dynamic. What you do today and select or deselect may change maybe six months down the line if the market conditions change, as some people withdraw or some people get more aggressive. It is that. In terms of expansion, I think Tapan can explain in greater detail what the company plans to do. This is largely my question. On the life, yes, we have been started disclosing the EV and not the EC walk in greater detail quarter-on-quarter basis. We're also showing the 12-month rolling EV just for information.
The reason we do that is because while the life business is very seasonal, with a large amount of business being written in Q4 and to some extent in Q3, but the first two quarters are generally very tepid. At the same time, the fixed expenses are spread throughout the year. Quarter on quarter EV will not be probably a good measure or give an indication as to where the year might end at, because in the last quarter pretty much there are no expenses. Expense overruns are very well under control. That is the reason. Well, if it is useful, we will consider publishing that from next year. We will discuss internally and take a call on that. We will do whatever the market is doing and therefore we will align with that.
Now I'll pass it on to Tapan and then to Bharat or Tarun to take the question.
Thank you for the question. Thank you, Sreeni. I think you gave a very balanced answer in terms of how should we. If you look at our philosophy from the very beginning has been it's a balanced growth, and we would be among the large companies. Having done this also, we have sustained this over so many years. It has never been a year in which everything is very comfortable in terms of the market behaving perfectly well for you to grow and up. If you see for us, this is normal business. I don't think that we worry about the market behavior in terms of sacrificing the profits for growth. I think it doesn't worry us because we have seen this for many years.
What we are obsessed about and what is our philosophy is what we continue to maintain. As I said, our philosophy is that we should be one of the most customer-centric companies in the country. We should be one of the best claim settlers in the country. If you look at our record, with close to 13 crore customers and, with close to, you know, the ratio as per IRDAI website consistently for quarters together for over a decade, if you see then you see our philosophy remains the same, that, service the customer very well
Innovate with the best in the market, come up with very customer-centric products, and be focused about growing business, but in a balanced way where you don't lose sight that the balance sheet gets so upset that you really cannot sustain a company to which is there. We are building a company for hundreds of years. We're not building a company for short-term basis. In that, I think the market conduct or behavior, which to us is not comfortable, has no impact on our strategy and thinking. We continue doing so. We continue investing into reaching deeper roots into the country. Another obsession is that today, if I divide by number of customers to the total population of country, we will be present in about one in four households.
How can we reach every household, going forward in the country? How can we serve every Indian is what our philosophy is. These are our philosophies. When you look at our philosophies, they're very long-term philosophy. They're not very short-term or in a, in the next quarter philosophy that we have. We will continue maintaining our strategy aligned to a long-term philosophy, which is what. To answer your question in short, our market will always be behaving a certain way, and it's perfectly fine. I think that is why it's interesting for us to look at our business and continue with, but not losing sight of our philosophies of how do we want to build businesses. Thank you for the question.
Yeah. In short, what we are seeing is adverse or, inferior behavior of some of the players in the industry, will not cause a damage to our long-term and long-term growth.
No, sir. We should not worry about, you know, how others behave. It's about personal life also, it's about business also. I think our obsession should be how we behave, you know, what kind of character ethics that we have and how we do keep on building on it. The market will keep on changing. It'll keep on behaving a different manner. I don't think we should be very worried about how the market behaves.
Great to know that. Because at times you develop a concern whether in the quest for, you know, competitive behavior, will it alter the way we want to pursue the things that are. On EVOP walk, idea was not merely to get a quarter-to-quarter insight. It is basically to get insight into how the company is doing the business over a period of time, and therefore correlate past to the present and basically, see how the future is shaping up. It's more from that perspective that when you have a series of data points over the period of time, you get a fair judgment as to how the company is using its own insights, appropriately.
The other question was, if we look at last few years, can for Life Insurance as well as General Insurance, can we say one or two things that we feel when we reflect, either we could have done better or faster, both in life and General Insurance?
[audio distortion], can you repeat that? Was there a question?
Sorry.
Oh, was there a question at the end?
That was the question, that if we reflect over last few years.
Yeah.
What are one or two things both for Life Insurance as well as General Insurance, in our opinion, we could have done faster or better?
Okay. If you ask me, I think, [audio distortion] I will answer that question. I think in General Insurance, I think we have done. Well, I'll say what was done, what we have done exceptionally well and what we haven't or where we could have done better. What we have done exceptionally well is our very strong bank insurance tie-ups. We have more than 240 partners. Most of the bank insurance business is commercial, and we have been growing those lines much better than the market. We believe in the long run, commercial lines are a very important component of a P&C portfolio. They give both property and casualty business, as you say, and it also gives you large exposure to MSME and SME business, which otherwise is very difficult or very expensive to acquire. That is one definite plus point.
Secondly is the overall balance of the portfolio. We have not shied away from any line of business, any distribution channel. We are fairly strong players in bank insurance. We have a strong multi-line agency network. We are one of the strongest OEM tie-ups for new cars. We also have a strong presence in B2E-commerce-led businesses. We do small ticket mass business. We do large ticket corporate business. We have outstanding reinsurance network as we believe. Therefore, these are some of the very good things which have been drivers of profitability. What we could have done better, in my view, is that, yes, there could have been a little bit more traction on Retail Health.
We still are not very clear about the profitability model for Retail Health because it does not generate float, and you have to operate at about 92%-93% combined ratio in order to be able to deliver a superior ROE. That at the moment is not available in the market, and it is an aging portfolio. The price is, while not controlled, is still subject to approval by the regulators, and there is a big sourcing impact there. In terms of health, as I explained before, we have done exceptionally well in group health business, which today is delivering a combined ratio of below 100 and growing at more than 40% in this quarter. Overall health, both group plus retail, we become one of larger players in the market.
As long as we are the strongest player over time, we should be able to demand better terms from hospitals. At the moment in India, the insured use of hospitals is much less than the non-insured use, and therefore insured companies tend to pay much higher than what individuals pay for the same claim. That has been our experience. If you look at even COVID, the average COVID claim was about INR 115,000 for the market. This is as per the IRDAI complete statistics of the market. At the same time, the non-COVID claims are hardly INR 60,000-INR 70,000. This includes your cancer and cardiology and all. Clearly there has been some aberration because of that. It is an area where we are now investing.
We are now looking at continuously look at profit pools and the larger cities we believe is over. Competition is so intense that we need to use our financial strength, our balance sheets and our ability, our customer service to be able to expand our business into tier three, tier four towns. There are lot of regulatory changes which may enable us to do that in terms of a single composite limit for expenses. There are going to be some digital properties like Bima Sugam, Bima Wahak. We already are present in many of those markets through crop insurance, through CSBs and our rural and other outreach businesses. We think this wind of intense price competition will correct itself over time. In the meantime, we have to continue to do what is good.
One good thing feature of ours is that even the last four years, our share of the industry's profit continues to be very strong. We probably deliver more than 30%-35% of the industry's profit even today. That is very important for us. Our solvency is very strong. Today, Bajaj itself has a surplus capital of more than INR 5,000 crores, they are looking to increase dividends as we go along. I would say Retail Health is an area where we want to focus and rebuild. The other areas commercial insurance is something where we want to maintain our strength, corporate and commercial businesses. On motor business, we want to be cautious and focus more on two-wheelers and select parts of commercial vehicle business and older private cars.
In terms of life business, I think pretty much everything has worked. We have used our surplus capital to good effect to build an industry-beating performance over the last three years. We have gone from a negative margin after overruns to a significantly positive margin. Our NBD has been growing for the last four years much faster than our premium, which itself was growing significantly above the market. We have built a strong proprietary sales platform. We have, our agency is now delivering double-digit margins. In terms of bank insurance, where we had practically nothing to speak of five years ago, we have now a set of partners. Clearly, what we could have done better is probably on the term life, which is a high profit product. We could have probably done better.
Unfortunately, COVID took us back, but that is just a reason for not doing it. We could have done it maybe two years before or later. Now the company has a defined focus, as Tarun explained, on pushing the percentage of term into the total. There are a lot of risks associated with term, especially writing whole of life and long-term businesses because there is always the pressure of underpricing and then the claims hit you after a number of years. We have very strong reason to believe that a reasonable traction can be obtained on term which can alter those margins. In terms of balance, we have done remarkably well. In terms of building more tires on the institutional side, like bank insurance, it is still work in progress, and we can do far.
I don't know whether we could have done it faster, but definitely we will continue to focus on that. Third, we need to improve the efficiency of operations where we believe there are some pockets where we can further increase the efficiency and deliver a better result. Lastly, this is how we see it unless Tarun and Tapan want to add something to it.
Sure, sure.
Thank you.
I think you've done a very good summary, so perfectly fine.
I agree. I'll, I will give answer as well. Thank you, Bharat.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nidhesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, on General Insurance, we have been doing 20% ROE in the past. Now, the competitive intensity I understand is quite intense in the motor segment. Probably because of that, the ROEs have now dipped to 15%-16% for nine months. In your experience, sir, for how long this competitive intensity is likely to remain intense? Consequently, when do we see ROE trajectory improving to 20% level that we used to see in the past?
I will take that question first up. I think 20% is a number. I would not really say it is competitive pressure that has reduced the profitability. I think we have had two years of COVID claims in which Bajaj did very well to have a very lower percentage of exposure to COVID claims than their overall market share in retail and group health. Now I think as the market came back, there has been what is called a sort of pent-up demand, or in terms of cars on the road are at all-time high. The risk of driving has increased substantially. The non-COVID health inflation has caught up quite a bit. There is that one time effect in this year that you have seen in terms of claims, as we explained very well in Q1.
This obviously cannot sustain, we did increase price just before COVID as part of our normal actuarial increases. We believe some of the other competitors will now be forced to look at price increases with what is reported in the press. As they increase the prices, that will also stabilize. Therefore, I do not feel that if this year is 15 and next year is 20. See, this is a very volatile business. Globally, if you see nobody makes consistent ROEs in this business unless they give up growth or, I mean, there's no such profit school available. It is a market which follows what is called the underwriting cycle. The underwriting cycle globally is very well known of a period of high prices and then losses mounting, and then prices, hardening and therefore companies soften on growth.
In terms of the reinsurance market, you find a lot of companies going under as well. The market corrects itself and comes back. It's completely different from the investment cycle or a business cycle. This is the beauty of the insurance business, and therefore the cycle has to play itself out. In a retail market where new competitors are entering, obviously price competition will be felt in the easy to sell businesses, and therefore one has to look for alternatives and turn up those lines in a more profitable manner and build the right skills, capabilities and risk management. Our endeavor is to do that. I cannot say that we have reached where we want to, but it is work in progress. Through our long range planning and annual operating plan process, we continue to improve.
Substantial improvements are being made in digital outreach to customers in terms of digital experience on claims, and we will see as we go along. We also are now focusing a lot on loyalty in General Insurance. A very fickle General Insurance customers globally are very fickle that the best service does not necessarily mean the best loyalty. The best combination of service and price and engagement will deliver that. That project you will see will evolve over the next two, three years in a more meaningful manner to all our premium customers.
There's a follow-up. Are we seeing any signs on price hardening and the cycle correcting, over the next 12 months, 18 months, or still there are no signs?
[Tapan]
Thank you, Sreeni. I think that we have to wait and watch, no. If you again look at the industry overall and take it to year 2007 when pre-pricing happened for most lines of businesses, in that time the industry has been operating at a combined ratio which is not very good, I would say, for 16, 17 years. As I mentioned earlier, I think that there would be like images, there will be cycles, but it has to somewhere settle down. Will it happen in the next 12 months? I cannot comment on that because we have to wait and watch how it goes.
Depending on the appetite of people or the capital that they have, the strategy of, you know, how they would like to behave in the market, it will be difficult for us to predict in terms of how the market will behave in terms of price correction in the next 6-12 months.
Sure. Sure, sure. Secondly, on Life Insurance, we have seen pretty robust growth in retail protection, in this quarter, while peers are not able to show growth. What has, what we have done differently, so that which has led to such fast growth? How is the growth outlook in retail protection for FY 2024 for us?
Yeah. Yeah, we've grown faster than peers, and I think we shall continue do that. I think you should expect that as a bare minimum from BALIC. What has really worked for us is really the way our agency and the direct channel has critically ramped up. Of course, in institutional business, the scale-up has been happening for a few years. That's really helping. Going forward, we also have protection, retail protection, which has become a strong part of our direction to move ahead with to be more and more prominent. I think that's where we want to really make a difference.
The good thing is that, underlying all of this growth, I think the big thing which is not getting picked up show up in ROE, number of policy growths that we've had. I think that was the one question I was asking about nine months back. It was something we wanted to correct, and that was the one thing we wanted to correct. While a lot of insurance companies, Life Insurance companies are focusing on increasing per ticket size, we maintain a robust ticket size per policy. Scale of customers, the number of customers we add is something which is critical. At the same time, keeping our ticket size growing with inflation. That is what is more and more to expect of us in the future as well.
Sure. Lastly, there's two common questions for both companies. One is commission regulations is, commission is expected to be deregulated for both General Insurance and Life Insurance next year. Do you see any implications for our business because of that? Lastly, Bajaj Finance has come out with long range strategy where they've shown aspiration of over five years. Do you have plans to share similar long range strategy for Life Insurance and General Insurance business?
Tapan, would you like to take that first?
Yeah. Thank you, Sreeni. I think it's a good move in terms of deregulation of commissions. Typically if you look at when this commission regulations were established, to an era in which the only distribution was agency. Now you have different distribution, like to banker, to direct, to web, some would require more commission, some would require more expenses to be had, and that should be left to the companies to decide how to play out within the expense of management limit. I think that's a very progressive move by the regulator, and it is going to benefit in terms of establishing different modes of distribution and putting it together. I don't see it as a major impact coming through in terms of our strategic alliance.
I think it's a very progressive step, and we welcome that going forward. Your second question was on?
On the long range strategy. Five-year strategy which,
Yeah, sure.
I think, Bajaj Finserv as a holding group, we along with Finserv, we engage in setting up AOP lately for all the group companies. I think that's a phenomena that we do it together. Whether to disclose or not, that's a call we can take later. But to give you an assurance that every company in Bajaj Finserv group company has this long range plan and AOP which they'll be establishing every year. It's a process which is now set up getting this on.
Answer your question.
Yes, yes. That's it. On Life Insurance, do you expect any impact because of commission regulation?
See, I think, quite well answered by Tapan already. I think the only added bit to all of this in the EOM guideline which doesn't seem to catch people's eye is the positive, which while capping the EOM very much to the current limits, the there is a proviso in the new EOM guidelines. Let's see how they come out, but that said, there's a proviso there, where any reduction in EOM, a portion of it has to result in benefits going to the customer. I think this is something that most people miss out on. I think this is a very forward-looking step that IRDAI has taken.
It's not that something you want to give extra to the distributor or for that matter even the company would want to keep, but IRDAI is insisting that a part of that has to go to the customer. I think all of that, enveloped is a pretty positive, progressive movement from IRDAI. It'll help the Life Insurance sector as well.
If I can just add to what Tapan Singhel and Tarun Chugh said, what will happen with the expense cap is that let's say there are people who come into the market and they want to gain market share. Today, they spend a lot on expenses and try to gain market share and whatever that is easier to sell first, and then they graduate onto more complex businesses. This is typically the strategy of any company whether it's in life or GI. Now, with the expenses being capped, they get some leeway for the first five years, but thereafter, they will have to then focus on good underwriting. Which means that the only way they can take market share away is not by spending more money, but it is by taking more losses.
Either you underprice or take higher claim ratio or take higher guarantees or whatever, depending on the type of business. That is a recipe for disaster because that is like saying that a bank will take market share by taking a lot of credit losses but by keeping its OpEx under control. I don't think any financing institution can work like that. Similarly in insurance, it cannot be like that. Ultimately, whatever the limit is, the companies have to spend a big portion of that in customer service, in managing grievances, in managing third-party quotes. Depending on the business, there are a variety of things that they need to do. Therefore, this will in the long run support businesses building good brands over long run, building quality business, focusing on customer value and customer service and customer engagement.
This is broadly the theme. In the short run, there will be a lot of disruptors and tailwinds, and we are sure to see that we tackle them properly.
Sure. Thank you sir for your answer. Thank you. That's it from my side.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, due to time constraints, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Sameer Bhise for closing comments.
Thank you everyone, for joining this call today. Big thanks to the management of Bajaj Finserv Limited for giving us this opportunity to host the call, the identity call here. Thank you so much.
Thank you all. Thank you, JM.
Thank you Tapan, Tarun, Raman and Bharat. Thanks.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your line.