Tag Archives: business

Insurance Revenue Last Year Doubles to Rs 100 Crore: Report

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Insurance sector has doubled its revenues in fiscal 2023-24 reaching Rs 100.28 crore, compared to Rs 48.74 crore in FY22-23, reports said.

Founded in 2016 by Ankit Agrawal and Ish Babbar, Gurugram-based insurtech platform Insurance Dekho that compares and offers  data on various types of insurance purchases, including motor, health, life, travel, and pet insurance, said in its report. It competes with established players like Acko and Policy Bazaar in India’s growing insurtech sector.

Insurance Dekho has raised a total of Rs 1,742.28 crore over two funding rounds, with its latest Series B round in October 2023 led by MUFG and BNP Paribas Cardif, valuing the company at over Rs 1,000 crore. In April 2023, the platform made strategic acquisitions of IRSS and Verak to expand its footprint.

The company’s financial performance in FY23 showed not only a surge in revenue but also a narrowing of losses. Its net loss reduced to Rs 51.59 crore from Rs 70 crore in FY22. Despite this improvement, Insurance Dekho’s expenses also climbed, reaching Rs 151.88 crore, driven largely by employee benefits, which accounted for over 50% of the total, followed by costs in advertising, finance, and legal services.

The platform’s key financial metrics remained in negative territory, with an EBITDA margin of -44.98% and a Return on Capital Employed (ROCE) of -15.28%, indicating continued challenges in profitability. However, the reduction in losses suggests a path toward greater financial stability as the company scales its operations.

The majority of Insurance Dekho’s shares are held by Amit Jain, who controls over 50%, alongside prominent investors such as West Street and TVS Shriram Growth AIF.

As the insurtech market in India continues to expand, Insurance Dekho’s robust revenue growth and strategic acquisitions position it for further success despite the current hurdles in profitability.

Features of GST

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Goods and Services Tax (GST) is intended to bring transparency and accountability in business transactions along with the ease of doing business and rationalization in tax rates and will not pave the way for financialization of the country.

The foremost benefit of GST is to remove hurdles in inter-State transactions resulting in the setting up of a common market. This make ‘one nation, one tax and one market’ true in the country.Further, in case of inter-State supply, only integrated tax is to be levied while in intra-State supplies, central tax and State tax or Union territory tax is to be levied. Thus, the plethora of taxes being levied by the Centre and the States in the erstwhile regime has been replaced by simpler and more efficient taxation system.

GST will promote business and development by making the taxation structure easy and by eliminating the numerous taxes. The GST laws have been framed in such a manner that a multitude of taxes have been replaced by one tax. The details of the taxes subsumed under GST are as under.

(A) Taxes related to Centre:

i. Central Excise duty
ii. Duties of Excise (Medicinal and Toilet Preparations)
iii. Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance)
iv. Additional Duties of Excise (Textiles and Textile Products)
v. Additional Duties of Customs (commonly known as CVD)
vi. Special Additional Duty of Customs (SAD)
vii. Service Tax
viii. Central Surcharges and Cesses so far as they relate to supply of goods or services.
(B) Taxes related to State

i. State VAT
ii. Central Sales Tax
iii. Luxury Tax
iv. Octroi and Entry Tax (all forms)
v. Entertainment and Amusement Tax (except when levied by the local bodies)
vi. Taxes on advertisements
vii. Purchase Tax
viii. Taxes on lotteries, betting and gambling
ix. State Surcharges and Cesses so far as they relate to supply of goods or services.
GST will improve productivity and easiness of business as the entire nation has been converted into a single market by removal of hurdles to inter-State trade. Further, uniform tax rates along with reduction in the cascading effect of taxation and increased input tax credit utilization in GST would immensely benefit the nation. There is automation of all major business processes viz., registration, payment of tax, return filing, etc.

This was stated by Shri Santosh Kumar Gangwar, Minister of State for Finance in written reply to a question in Lok Sabha today.

Jaishankar Makes Half-Way to Convince China on NSG, Azhar Issues

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External Affairs Secretary Dr. S. Jaishankar’s visit to China at a crucial stage has come as no magic but certainly paved the way, at least by half, to make Beijing see the reason behind India’s demand.

The latest restructured strategic dialogue with Chinese counterpart Executive Vice Minister Mr. Zhang Yesui besides the State Counsellor Mr. Yang Jiechi and Foreign Minister Mr. Wang Yi, yielded response on several issues short of India’s demand on terrorism.

Other areas included Afghanistan, multilateral diplomacy including counter-terrorism and also bilateral relations as well as the nuclear issues.

Jaishankar summed up his visit as useful in conveying to the Chinese side “our priorities and concerns and also gaining from them an appreciation of their understanding of the world situation and in what manner we could work together,” which in non-diplomatic terms means some sort of status-quo will continue in India-China relations and that no one should expect any wonders to take place.

On Wednesday, it was a five-hour-long talks sharing views on international issues. China shared its insights and perspectives. What is the common point for both was international trade barriers which may pose equal threat to both Asian giants.

Both agreed that the international situation is in flux and both India and China probably could do one thing together which is a more stable, substantive, forward looking India-China relationship which would inject a greater amount of predictability into the international system, he said.

“On the NSG issue the Chinese side underlined that they were open to India’s application for membership but they had their view of procedures and processes and these were somewhat different from where we are at the moment and where we think most of the group is at the moment,” said Jaishankar summing up his talks.

On UN sanctions on Masood Azhar, India explained the rationale and sought support on its concerns about Masood Azhar’s activities.

Essentially the visit yielded no progress on thorny issues but on business front, there is a common sense of threat from trade barriers and unstable global system, unleashed by President Donald Trump in the US.