ALMOST A THIRD OF CARS ON INDIAN ROADS UNINSURED, INSURERS CLAIM

Between 30% and 35% of cars and more than two-thirds of motorcycles being driven on Indian roads do not have any form of insurance, according to G Srinivasan, chairman of state-owned New India Assurance. He said that this constituted "a challenge to society", because "victims of accidents caused by these vehicles do not get adequate compensation". Insurers believe that there are a large number of fake policies in circulation, ostensibly issued by big-name insurers but in fact just copies that are good enough to fool a cursory inspection by police. Mr Srinivasan said that uninsured vehicles were just one of the structural issues faced by the non-life industry when it came to writing third-party business. Another problem was that premiums were fixed, but court awards tended to go up with inflation. Madhukar Sinha, head of underwriting at privately owned insurer Tata AIG, gave a lower estimate of the number of uninsured cars on the road. He told Times of India that "in our estimates, around 20% to 25% of cars are uninsured and in two-wheelers the uninsured vehicles are likely to be around 50%. He also noted that "in two-wheelers, the renewals of first year policies are as low as 25%". Mr Sinha said that there were discussions on the possibility of long-term policies, but conceded that this was difficult because it was hard to predict inflation levels over more than a year.