Motor, health ins will gradually get costlier****

NEW DELHI, Apr 11 (livemint): Insurance regulator Irda Monday said that policy holders will gradually have to pay more for motor, health and other general insurance covers as costs would go up due to companies setting aside higher funds for claim settlements. "I think the demand and supply position in the non-life industry will be such that prices should harden and I expect to see evidence of that in the course of next few years. And I would like to make it even harder as we go along," Irda (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority) chairman J. Harinarayan said. Harinarayan, who was speaking at the Ficci National Conference on Insurance, said the non-life insurance companies would need to bring in changes in marketing, pricing and modes of claim settlement to become profitable. "Because of the requirement of increase in provisioning, there will be a reduction in capacity and because of that there will be a hardening of prices," Harinarayan added. The Irda has already proposed to increase provisioning requirement for insurers providing motor insurance covers.