The Life Insurance Corporation of India and some public sector general insurers are expected to maintain dominant position in the coming years even in the liberalised scenario, but private players too have enough business potential, ICRA said in a research report.

"India is poised to experience major changes as insurers operate in an increasingly. deregulated and liberalized environment. However, despite liberalisation, PSUs are expected to maintain dominant positions in foreseeable

future," ICRA Information, Grading & Research Service (INGRES) report on insurance said.

However, ICRA pointed out that market share of LIC and the four PSU general insurers declined in the last fiscal.

LIC market share, which was 99.46 per cent in terms of total premium income at in 2001-02, stood at 91.2 per cent till February 2003. LIC's share might be slightly higher during the entire 2002-03 as 33 per cent of the premiums are collected in the month of March.

Private life insurers mainly ICICI Prudential Life, Max New York Life, Birla Sun Life, HDFC Standard Life and others cornered 8.8 per cent of the total premium income.

The private players mopped up 9.5 per cent of the total premium from individual businesses and 4.0 per cent of group insurance schemes in the first 11 months.

In the case of general insurance industry, private players increased their share to 9.5 per cent till February 2003 from 3.8 per cent in 2001-02.

New India Assurance holds the dominant position with 27.9 per cent, while United India Insurance has 21.7 per cent, National Insurance 20.7 per cent and Oriental Insurance 20.3 per cent.

New India's share declined from 34.4 per cent in 2001-02, while that of United India was 22.9 per cent, National Insurance 20.3 per cent and Oriental Insurance 20.4 per cent.

Of the private players, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance leads the race with 2.1 per cent market share till February 2003, followed by Tata AIG with 1.6 per cent, Iffco Tokio and ICICI Lombard with 1.5 per cent each, Reliance General 1.4 per cent and Royal Sundaram with 1.3 per cent.

The private players mainly concentrated on fire insurance, which accounted for 31.5 per cent of the gross premium income till February.

Motor insurance contributed 27.9 per cent of the total premium of private players while engineering insurance amounted to 9.4 per cent, health 6.3 per cent and marine 6.0 per cent.