Mumbai, Feb 25:

Liberty Videocon General Insurance Company, a joint venture between Videocon Industries and Liberty Citystate Holdings, today started its operations and is hopeful of collecting a premium of Rs 120 crore in the first year, a top company official said.

The company, which has an initial capital of Rs 320 crore, has products in the fire, engineering and motor segments as of now and has already applied for approval before IRDA for products in the retail line of businesses like personal accident and health.

Liberty Videocon becomes the 27th general insurer in the market.

We will begin our operations in seven cities initially and scale it up going ahead. We are hopeful of collecting a premium of around Rs 120 crore in the first year of operations, Chief Executive Roopam Asthana told reporters here.

The company hopes to break even in the next five to six years, he said.

Referring to starting of business in the commercial segment first, Asthana said the company would like to have a good product mix in order to diversify its risk.

We want to have a business mix of 50:50 in commercial and retail lines of businesses, he said, adding it will concentrate on SMEs in the first phase.

The company also plans to hire around 320 people by the end of 2013 along with taking around 1,000 agents on board.

Liberty Videocon General Insurance is a joint venture between Videocon Industries and Boston, US-based Liberty Holdings in which Videocon holds 74 per cent stake and the rest is held by the US partner.

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Liberty Videocon insurance eyes Rs 120 cr biz in first year