MUMBAI: Employee unions of four state-owned non-life insurers have called for a merger of all these companies and form a single general insurance behemoth to strengthen their market share and become more profitable.

At present, there are four state-owned non-life insurance companies - New India Assurance (Mumbai), National Insurance (Kolkata), United India Insurance (Chennai) and Oriental Insurance (New Delhi). All these four companies have a cumulative asset base of Rs 1,02,000 crore (Rs 1.02 trillion), reserves of Rs 15,000 crore (Rs 150 billion) and capital of Rs 550 crore (Rs 5.5 billion).

The demand was made at a meeting of a delegation of Bharatiya Vima Kamgar Sena (BVKS), the umbrella body representing the unions from all these four insurers, which had called on Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in New Delhi earlier this month.

The delegation, which met the Finance Minister on August 6 to oppose the 49 per cent FDI proposal, was led by two Shiv Sena MPs Anilbhau Desai and Sanjay Raut from Mumbai.

RAED MORE: Indians Top Investors In Dubai's Real Estate Market