ICICI Lombard General Insurance Company Limited (ICICIGI) Earnings Call Transcript & Summary

Mr. Uday Chitale.

Hi, good afternoon. I'm Uday Chitale, attending this AGM from my office in Mumbai. I am Independent Director and Chairperson of the Board Nomination and Remuneration Committee.

Ved Prakash Chaturvedi.

Good afternoon. I am Ved Prakash Chaturvedi, Independent Director, attending this AGM from my residence in Mumbai.

Mr. Murali Sivaraman.

Good afternoon. I'm Murali Sivaraman, Independent Director, attending this AGM from my residence in Mumbai.

Mr. Sandeep Batra.

[Technical Difficulty] non-Executive non-independent director, attending this AGM from ICICI Bank's office in Mumbai.

Mr. Rakesh Jha. [Technical Difficulty]

I'm Sanjeev Mantri, Executive Director, attending this AGM from ICICI Lombard office in Mumbai. Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. Apart from the Board of Directors, we also have Mr. Gopal Balachandran, Chief Financial Officer and Chief Risk Officer; and Mr. Vikas Mehra, our Company Secretary of the company attending this meeting from this [Technical Difficulty] conference. And Mr. R. Suryanarayanan, Partner, [indiscernible] Chartered Accountants, the joint statutory auditors of the company, have joined this AGM from their respective locations. Mr. [ Anupam ], designated Partner [indiscernible] and Associates LLP, Secretary and auditor of the company [Technical Difficulty] Company Secretary scrutinizer of this AGM has also joined this AGM from her respective location. I sincerely thank all the shareholders of the company who have joined this meeting through VC from OAVM. The company has made necessary arrangements to ensure participation of members at this meeting through VC OAVM and to enable them to vote on the resolutions set forth in the notice electronically. Trust all of you have referred the general instructions for e-Voting and participation in this meeting. In case members face any difficulty, they may reach out on the help line given on Page 15 of the notice [Technical Difficulty] both of proxies by VC OAVM facility for appointment of proxies by members was not admissible, and hence, the company has not provided proxy forms to these members and did not maintain proxy register. The statutory registers, other relevant documents and the annual certificate of implementation of employee stock options scheme from practicing company secretaries of the company are made available electronically for inspection by the members during the AGM and NSDL e-Voting system. Coming to the business of the meeting, with your permission [Technical Difficulty] 2013, only the qualifications, obligations or adverse remarks of the auditors on financial transactions, all matters required to be read out at the meeting of the shareholders. The joint statutory auditor's report on the financial statements and the Secretarial audit report for the financial year ended March 31, 2022, do not contain any qualifications, observations or adverse remarks. Accordingly, the said reports are not required to be read at this meeting. For the benefit of the shareholders, we have arranged for an audio-visual [Technical Difficulty] [Presentation]

I would like to inform you that pursuant to the Company's Act 2013 read with the relevant rules and SEBI listing regulations, the company has provided an opportunity to all its members to exercise their voting rights through electronic voting, remote e-Voting. For the following items of the business to be transacted at AGM during the period, Tuesday, August 2, 2022, 9 a.m. to Thursday, August 4, 2022, 5 p.m. Members who have not cast their votes earlier [Technical Difficulty]. Now I propose to take up the business of the meeting said action in accordance with the AGM notice. Resolution 1, [indiscernible] Statement that adopt the audited financial statements of the company for the financial year ended March 31, 2022, together with the reports of the Board of Directors and auditor's thereon. 2, to confirm payment of interim dividend of INR 4 per equity share [Technical Difficulty] equity share of the company for the financial year ended March 31, 2022. 4, To appoint a director in place of Mr. Sandeep Batra, this is 03620913, who retires by rotation and being eligible, offers himself for reappointment. 5, to approve remuneration of M/s [indiscernible] LLP Chartered Accountants and MS Chaturvedi & Company Chartered Accountants, joint statutory auditors of the company for FY'23. Special business, 6, appointed Mr. Rakesh Jha [Technical Difficulty] remuneration of Bhargav Dasgupta, [indiscernible] [ 0047728 ] Managing Director and CEO of the company. 8, revision and remuneration of [indiscernible] Agarwal, [indiscernible] [ 03434304 ], full-time director, designated Executive Director Wholesale of the company. 9, revision and remuneration of Mr. Sanjeev Mantri, [indiscernible] [ 07192264 ], whole time Director designated as Executive Director retail of the company. 10, Material-related party transactions for current bank account finances [Audio Gap] as purchased for securities from related parties issued by related or unrelated parties for FY '24. 12, material-related party transaction for sale and securities to related parties issued by related or unrelated parties for FY '24. 13, material-related party transactions for undertaking repurchase repo transactions and other permitted short-term borrowing transactions for FY '24. 14, material-related party transactions for reverse repurchase, reverse repo and other permitted short-term lending transactions for FY '24. All resolutions [Technical Difficulty] Mr. Atul Mehta, partner of Mehta & Mehta, practicing Company Secretaries as the scrutinizer for conducting the e-Voting process in a fair and transparent manner and to scrutinize the votes start to remove e-Voting and e-Voting during the AGM. And to submit the consolidated report for voting -- of voting in compliance with the provisions of the Companies Act 213 and the [ SEMI ] NODI Regulations 2015. Now I would like to invite speaker shareholders who have done their prior registration to speak. Members may give their suggestions or seek clarifications. Only those members who are holding equity shares of the company as on cutoff date for e-Voting that is Friday, July 29, 2022, are invited to participate and speak at the AGM subject to prior registrations. With due respect to other speakers and time, I request each speaker to be brief and restrict their suggestions or comments to 3 minutes on matters as set forth in the notice, annual accounts and operations of the company for FY 2022. To avoid repetition, the answers to all questions will be provided at the end of the Q&A session. I now request the moderator to please go ahead with the Q&A session.

[Operator Instructions] With this, I request the first speaker, Ms. [indiscernible] Patel.

Respective Chairman, eminent Board of Directors, my shareholders and other shareholders on the audio video. Very good afternoon to all of you. I thank our company secretary for this annual report as well as our CFO for a good financial report. I just would like to draw the attention that -- first, I would wish everybody all the very best. Company in -- company has done well, will also do further well. I wish the company and all the employees for giving us good results. Here, I would like to bring out some key points [indiscernible] for the shareholders. So importance is to be given to shareholders at the time of AGM. Board meeting is meant for the directors. So to see the convenience of the directors more and to keep the shareholders at this -- at the time of AGM is not fair. Company secretary is also Compliance Officer. He has to be a link between the shareholders and the Board of Directors. So he has to maintain connection even with the shareholders. If the whole year there is no connection that you see, there is no link or there is even one phone call also from the secretarial department, the whole year around, and at the time of AGM, even then, we don't receive any call from the secretarial department. This is something not good. This AGM is meant for shareholders, as I said before. And it's just essential to the secretarial department at least a few days earlier, say, 5 days or 6 days earlier, should make a call to the shareholders, at least to the speaker shareholders. I don't say to 1000s of shareholders. It is not possible to ring up everybody, but because shareholders are hardly 10 or 15, and it is not impossible to ring them up. If the company secretary has no time, then the people working under him, at least they can ring up. Keep the link, give importance even to shareholders. Many companies have hosted the personal AGM instead of having it on OAVC in that we come across, and we are -- by avoiding the personal AGM, we are doing it on OAVC, no problem, because people from outside Mumbai also can participate in it. It is a very good system. But if it is physical we can tell them that these are the problems we are facing from the secretarial department. If we give them a ring, there is no response coming in from the secretarial department. This is the shabby treatment that shareholders, I'm sure this is not only my complaint. Many shareholders complain like that. And just to your praises or just to hear showering of [Foreign Language], it is not of the venue of the AGM. It can be conducted in some private meetings. But in the AGM, it is only the financials to be discussed and the shareholders must be treated properly and given importance. I don't say the directors should not be there. They are the main people who are steering -- steermen of the ship. But it is the shareholders meeting. It is not the Board meeting. So not even once in a year, if you call, if you keep in touch with the shareholders, it is not good. Have you ever given us or at least to me, have you ever given me a ring? Your secretarial department. What compliance duties have you performed with us. I don't even know who are you or what are, only I read the name in the mail, I come to know that at all. Secondly, computers are not very easily accessible by all the speakers. The senior citizens, it is impossible to go through the computers. Young people can take away the computers, they come home at around 7:00, 7:30. And at night time. And for the senior citizens, it is very difficult. So I request you consider all these points. The balance sheet is already over. 1 year has already completed to discuss about the finances. I have to take out mistakes in the balance sheet or in the profit and loss statements. In the annual report is utterly stupidity as what I feel. So the year ahead is always better to see the year ahead, what is gone is past. But one should realize the mistakes from that and correct one selves for the future. I request humbly that the company takes into, not only ICICI Lombard, but all the ICICI companies should take into consideration that the AGM is meant for the shareholders and not for anyone. Importance must be given to shareholders at the time of AGM. Thank you very much. I hope, the Board of Directors considers this and takes -- secretarial department has to be treated for this. Thank you. All the very best.

Our next speaker shareholder is Mr. Santosh Saraf.

[Foreign Language].

Our next shareholder speaker is Mr. Vinod Agarwal.

Respected Chairperson, Lalita Gupte; MD and CEO, Bhargav Dasgupta; our CFO, Gopal Balachandran, and our CS Vikas Mehra. Good afternoon, to everyone. I have voted for all the 14 resolutions for today's meeting. [indiscernible] I noticed that we -- the guidance premium was INR 179.7 billion, which was growth of INR [ 58 billion ], whereas PAT has come down last year to INR [ 12.7 billion ] from the last year this year the PAT was down due to I think, that's mostly due to higher COVID [ claim debt ] that would have come to the company. And because in this health claim, have we -- has there an impact on the premium rising for the health insurance? Last year in the first half, we -- you did less of motor vehicle due to supply chain issues. But in the second half, you didn't ramped up for your motor and business premium. On the health insurance business, what would be the stake? If there are premature claims coming for health which are not anticipated at the time of writing of a policy, that would impact the profitability of the company overall. This is my take on it. And I congratulate the company for all the awards and accolades that the company has got, mentioned on Pages 10 to 13. I don't want to mention that, because they can be easily seen on pages 10 to 13. I also have seen that the company has spent -- used some of the INR 34.25 crores on the CSR activities, which are very large sums. I'm happy about this. And about the final dividend, you have given 2 dividends, one interim of INR 4 and the final dividend of INR 5 which is good. So we would always like to have more dividend. I hope the company will have more profit in this year with lesser amount of COVID claims coming and with even lesser amount of maybe motor vehicle claims. In motor vehicles, I think so the prices of vehicles are going up, so comparatively the vehicle cost will up, some premiums will increase. But when the settlement or a claim would come, that also will be on a higher side, because the vehicle cost itself a little higher. So claiming a claim which comes on a higher cost vehicle would also be a little higher. So what is your take as increasing premiums on vehicles, sir? I wish the company best, signing off. I also thank Reema from the company secretary team. She was very helpful in making me join this meeting.

Mr. Yusuf, request you to unmute yourself.

[Foreign Language] Good afternoon, sir. I'm very thankful to our company secretary team, Mr. Vikas Mehra, who is our company secretary and his teams. And I'm very happy to having the balance sheet, it is very heavy and very colorful, would on Page #11 Page #10, 11, 12, we have won many awards. We have general insurance award won, Indian corporate governance [ achievement ] award. Asia's most trusted brand, General [indiscernible] Insurance. Annual report of page 262. [Foreign Language] we are in an insurance business. [Foreign Language] around we have declared 2 dividend. Final dividend of INR 5, interim dividend of INR 4, which makes to INR 9. and I want to thank Reema madam, she is very hard working man, sir. [Foreign Language] This is my humble request. And our company secretary, madam. [Foreign Language] This was how our company excellent. [Foreign Language] How our company will we celebrate 25th year? Whether we can expect a bonus from you? Sir, I will sing a song. [Foreign Language] Sir, I would like to know, as you mentioned, on front end, football player is playing. This is how our company is going up. I like the presentation of Vikas, [Foreign Language] Page 38 -- 39, how we are creating the customer [Foreign Language] I'm very happy to be part of the excellent company. I don't have words to say. I'm very happy and very happy of this company. Once more, I thank Vikas, Reema madam, and the full team for giving me a balance sheet.

Our next speaker shareholder is Ms. Prakashini Shenoy.

I'm Prakashini Ganesha Shenoy from Bombay. Respective honorable Chairperson; Mrs. Lalita Gupte, other dignitaries from the Board and my fellow shareholders, good afternoon to all of you. I have review the annual report, colorful, transparent, informative, knowledgeable and contains all the information set for the corporate governance. I thank Mr. Vikas Mehra for the same. I should not forget to thank Ms. Reema for phoning me and given me this connection today without which I wouldn't be in a position to speak. So once again thanks to Mr. Vikas and Reema. The Chairman had given a beautiful note about the company and its working. I'm glad to know that our company stands second largest insurance company in India, congratulations, keep it up. I'm happy to note that the company has robust performance during the year. Keep it up. I'm thankful to the Board for recommending dividend during the financial year '21-'22. On the outset, I congratulate the management for getting number of awards during the year. This shows the hard work and sincerity of each and every staff. I'm very happy to note that the company has done outstanding work in the field of CSR activities during the year. I have few -- Madam, I have a few questions. My question number one, any new policy introduced this year? Number two, any group insurance policy? Number three, what is the profitability of the company during the year? Number four, are we planning to progress towards digital future? Number five, how many claims specifically during the year? I wish the company good luck for a bright future and pray God that the profit of the company shall reach the peak in due course. Madam, I support all the resolutions put forth in today's meeting.

Our next speaker shareholder is Mr. [indiscernible] Bania.

[Technical Difficulty].

[Technical Difficulty] Your internet is not stable.

[Technical Difficulty].

Request you to come in at a network area and speak. We are unable to hear you clearly.

[Technical Difficulty].

We move to the next speaker shareholder, Mr. Umashankar Vijayvaidya.

Hello. Am I audible?

Yes, sir, you are audible. Please proceed.

So thanks for allowing me to attend this meeting. And this is addressed to Lalita Gupte. Thanks. I believe the Governance Center of ICICI honored and practiced here [Technical Difficulty]. Am I audible and I'm not able to see you. Are people able to see me?

Yes. You are audible and visible. Please proceed.

So there are a lot of things which I wish that ICICI Lombard governance has to work in that direction, which is completely missing from the last AGM, which I've missed. And last AGM Chairperson agreed to address those issues. So first of the issue is that, if you open up the last AGM MoM, I've raised the issue regarding independent director, the merger [Technical Difficulty] Bharti AXA Life Insurance and a lot of other issues. And I place that [Technical Difficulty] the things are not being addressed. And no one has come back with the meeting being arranged, come back with the clarifications, nothing has happened. So I believe the corporate governance is completely missing and which is highlighted by [indiscernible]. And last, the Board of Governance, the Board Committee Chairman of the meeting has assured me, including last meeting itself, that people will reach me out within a couple of days. For last one year, I'm waiting for that reach. And even Bhargav is aware of this. And I want even Vikas, who is supposed to be the custodian of our interests and the Board of Directors and the AGM regulations, which are being passed and the MoM, which has been agreed in the AGM are need to be respected, which I found is currently missing. So I want the answer right now from Lalita, and the e-mail ID of your independent directors and you, so that we can give this complaint. And what is the action being taken against Mr. Vikas Arora, the company secretary of ICICI Lombard, because we have already lost the trust. Because he is just trying to suppress the voice of the minority stakeholders as well as giving a wrong impression, the wrong picture to the Board as well as to us. So what is the action which is being initiated. I just want to know from Bhargav as well as from Lalita and then from the Board.

We will move to the next speaker shareholder, [Technical Difficulty].

Am I audible? And am I visible also?

Yes, you are visible.

Okay. Thanks Chairperson Madam Lalita Gupte, other Board members and my fellow shareholders. Sir, I'm [indiscernible] from Bombay. I hope you all are safe and fine at your respective ends. Madam since, this is the third meeting in a row when we cannot meet and greet physically each other. And we are meeting over video conference. My humble request to all the Board members to kindly see that next year, if everything goes well, we can meet physically and greet each other. When all the buses and trains are overcrowded, marriage functions are overcrowded, why we can't initiate physical meetings? That is my humble request to you. Secondly, I would like to congratulate our CS team for doing excellent work as far as Investor Relations is concerned. Mr. Vikas Mehra, Madam Reema Chindwani, she was very kind to help us out. And frequently, she was calling us for to attend this meeting. Thank you, Madam and Vikas. I have annual report in my hand, excellent presentation of annual report with all corporate governance and disclosures followed. And it consists every minute details about the balance sheet, company future, past and present. Many congratulations CS team for doing a wonderful job, and which can avoid many questions. I also would like to congratulate our printer, who have consumed -- conceptualized this eco-friendly papers of this annual reports, Mrs. [indiscernible], he's also very good job done. Now madam, to begin with, I also liked Page #4, wherein, a concept is given that reporting period, scope, everything is very good, which every other company should follow on Page 4. On Page 7, our -- madam, what is claims settled under all 7 categories and especially during the COVID time? We have 7 verticals of business. And any more verticals we would like to add here, I would like to know? And I also liked our company's customer-centric approach very good. On Page 8 and 9, going through the financials. Excellent all-around performance under the circumstances and economic challenge. However, our investment assets has gone down, even solvency ratio has gone down, that's very good. And return on average equity is also gone down. Madam, we can avoid using terms as billions and millions rather we can use crores and lakhs if possible. That would ease for reading. And I would like to congratulate management for getting 22 awards under different categories. Superlative performance under your guidance and capability. You are leading from the front. And truly I can see women empowerment in this company. So I would like to congratulate the company and total management team for adopting natural capital, which I read on Page 15, and you are doing good initiatives to improve health environment and ecosystem, very good. And last question, I would like to have on what is the post-COVID situation of the company? And what do you foresee top line and bottom line this year? Thank you for patiently hearing. And I support all the resolutions strongly. And once again, I thank our CS team, Vikas Mehra, and Reema Chindwani. Thank you.

[indiscernible].

There are multiple issues raised by Mr. [indiscernible], which are not being called.

So let me again come back. So before I could complete my speaker as seventh, you people have muted me. I strongly object this behavior from the company secretary team, and let the Board tell me what is the action they are taking right now against the company secretary. Because I have given multiple complaints against company secretary, which are not being addressed. And this is the expectation was not there that you will stop me from speaking. You are suppressing the voice of the minority stakeholder, which is not going to be tolerated. Please mind. The Board [indiscernible] and Board Chairman, please let me know what is the action you are taking against the company secretary and also against Mr. Bhargav. Because we have addressed these things to Mr. Bhargav multiple times, and we have got no response, nor -- neither we got the e-mail IDs or the contact details of the independent directors to take care of the things, which will escalate to the further things. Chairman -- Chairperson, Mrs. Lalita, please let me know your e-mail ID also, so that I can escalate to you. And this is not the expected behavior from and this is against corporate governance, which you people say we are following the corporate governance, which has not been practiced in the last 1.5 years. On multiple instances, Mr. Vikas has tried to -- the company secretary tried to suppress the voice. And this, given the misinterpretation to Mr. Bhargav and Mr. Bhargav, after multiple escalations has not acted against Mr. Company Secretary or against our request to honor those things, which was agreed again in the AGM also. And in this AGM also, I don't know how this people has muted me when I was speaking to and allowed the other speakers. So it is the clear instance on Mr. Vikas that these people have acted clearly on this. So let Lalita tell me what is the action you are taking against Mr. Bhargav, the Company Secretary and the secretarial team right now. There is complete lack of transparency, there is complete lack of Independent Director being put in those systems without due diligence and these [indiscernible]. And there is a related party transactions which are happening, which are totally against any governance. So Lalita, please let me know what is your answer to this. I'm waiting for your answer. The last AGM, these people agreed and nobody reach out. After multiple escalations to Mr. Bhargav even, Vikas Khanna -- Vikas, the company secretary also. He was least bothered and misrepresenting the same facts and figures.

Mr. Umesh, we have not muted you. We have shifted to the next speaker after your speech.

[Technical Difficulty] have not completed and you are suggesting, and there is no apology from your side. Is this the behavior -- accepted behavior in this conference? So when we are talking to directly to the Director, the Board Chairman, Chairperson of the meeting, why you're interrupting them? The chairperson, please let me know what happened to my complaint last year. I have not got any response from Mr. Bhargav also, Bhargav Dasgupta is being escalated multiple times about the team. I have not got a response. I want now independent directors' e-mail ID's and phone numbers also.

Mr. Umesh.

So the chairperson, I need an answer now. What happened to my complaint last -- in last AGM, which you people all agreed. And people are like Vikas is not ready to share the MoM of the meeting also -- of the AGM, which is against any law of the land or since this is against a law of the land. He has violated the law of the land, what is the action being initiated against the Company Secretary for suppressing the voice of the shareholders. And why I need to wait for one-and-a-half-year to get an answer from you guys after escalating to Mr. Bhargav. I don't know what dummy people you bring on this meeting also, which I have seen multiple dummy people you are allowing the time for [Foreign Language] also.

Thank you. With this, we move to the last speaker shareholder of today, Ms. Rekha Shaha.

Hello, can you hear me?

Madam, you are audible. Please proceed.

Thank you, ma'am. [Foreign Language] This is my humble request for you. [Foreign Language] Respected Chairperson, ma'am, Board of Directors, and my fellow members, good afternoon to all of you. Myself, Rekha Shaha from Mumbai. First of all, I'm very thankful to our company secretary, Vikas, and Reema for sending the AGM notice well in time, which is full of knowledge, facts and figures in place. Thank you, ma'am, for explaining us about the company. Congratulations for excellent work ma'am. Now I thank the God that he shower his blessings upon you. Ma'am, our Company Secretary, Vikas, and Reema, always answered all my calls and have cleared my all my doubts. Once again, thank you so much, Vikas and Reema. I've had many questions to ask you, but they are all covered with the previous speakers, but there are only two questions. At the outset, I congratulate management and its team for the result and recognition received by the company. Under the Lombard employee stock option granted on April 22, 2022, at what price we added it and quality? My second question is, in order to expand our distribution network, what initiatives are taken? Thanks on the dividend ma'am. So I would like to say, I strongly support all the resolutions for today's meeting and my best wishes always with our company and its prosperity.

With this, we will now Mr. [indiscernible] Bhasania, who was not able to speak earlier.

Can you hear me now?

Yes, you're audible.

I'm [indiscernible] from Mumbai. I would like to know why you didn't do physical meeting. Nowadays many companies are holding physical meetings. And I welcome Mr. Rakesh Jha as a Director. And also, I welcome Mr. Sandeep Batra's resolution. I thank Mr. Vikas Mehra for allowing me to speak at the meeting. This is mainly second AGM. In 3 years, we will be celebrating silver jubilee. So how do you propose to celebrate silver jubilee? You have to plan well in advance. Q1 income has increased compared to Q4 of last year. Our operating profit has become 1/3 of Q4 profit. So what is the reason for that? And the AGM is not the forum for personal grievances. Personal grievances have to be sorted out outside the AGM. Thank you very much and all the best for the future.

And with this, we have completed the speaker session. I now hand it back to the chairperson to conduct the further proceedings of the AGM.

Now I request Mr. Bhargav Dasgupta, Managing Director and CEO, to respond to the queries raised by the shareholders.

Thank you, Chairperson. And thank you all the speakers -- shareholders for raising the questions. I think [Technical Difficulty] talked about, Mr. Parekh talked about and I think Mr. Rekha also talked about in terms of the positive experience that we've had with Reema and Vikas, the company secretary. Thank you for the feedback. We will obviously be able to see what we can do to improve. I'll get into the specific questions that individually, each one of you have asked. Mr. Patel, your suggestion on a bit more engagement with the company secretary team particular during the year is well taken. We will see what we can do. We will -- I believe we'll try to reach out, but obviously, we'll try to [Technical Difficulty] in terms of the market position. So if you can look at our market position post the acquisition of Bharti AXA business that we acquired during the last year, we have moved from a number 4 company in the industry to number 2. So we are now the second biggest company in the industry. We've been #1 in the private sector for a long, long time, but now overall we are #2, just behind New India. In terms of market share, we are about 8.1% market share at the end of the year. You had a very valid point about the male-female ratio and you have advised to reduce the gap, point absolutely taken. We have roughly about [Technical Difficulty] we hope that over the next year, we will demonstrate that outcome. There are targets that we taken internally, there is a review that happens with the Board. So this is a very important agenda even for us, but thank you for pointing that out. You had a lot of questions around, I think, the area of sustainability. You talked about rain water harvesting. We actually practice that in our corporate office. Our branches, we are looking at wherever we can, we don't use -- we are looking at improving the consumption of [Technical Difficulty] offices we've convert into complete LEDs. And another 2 or 3 offices are partially LED-lighting. So there is a lot of focus on this aspect. As a company, during the year, we've rebranded, renamed our CSR committee to CSR and Sustainable committee. And we are looking at this issue very, very actively as a company. And Some of the initiatives that we are taking is you probably have seen the CSR initiatives of implementing solar -- setting up solar panels in some of the municipal schools just to ensure that not only our own branches, but even other places, we are bringing in -- helping in terms of promoting green energy. You had a suggestion in terms of ensuring that even when we go physical, we keep it hybrid. We'll keep that in mind, depending on the situation in the next year. Mr. Vinod Agarwal, you had a few specific questions again. You talked about the fact that our premium has gone up last year, but the PAT has come down, and you rightly identified this is largely because of the COVID claims that we made last year. The total claims that we paid for COVID was about INR 556 crores, [ INR 5.56 billion ]. And your question on what have we done in terms of premium, consequent to that, we increased the premium for group policies to the extent that we thought was [Technical Difficulty] and make it more sustainable. You also had a question on motor insurance. Motor insurance, you're right in the sense that the price of vehicles are increasing. The premium also commensurately increases to some extent, in line with that. But we'll also have to observe the claim frequency because last few years, we had some reduction in claim frequencies because of partial lockdowns in India during the year. But this year, the claim frequencies are up and as you know, our principle has been to focus on balancing topline and bottom line, and we'll keep on looking at what we need to do in terms of making that portfolio [Technical Difficulty] as I explained we are #2, #1 company is New India. Just after us, there are a couple of government companies like United, National, Oriental and then there are private sector companies also. You want a confirmation that the total dividend was -- is INR 5 plus INR 4 equals INR 9, that is confirmed. That is what we are paying out. Now your question on the helmet. If you see our -- the helmet initiative is really part of our CSR initiative for ride to safety where we go to municipal schools and do a lot of workshops on importance of road safety and trying to [Technical Difficulty]. Apart from that, we give helmets to those individuals. They are not our customers, not our employees. It's part of our CSR initiatives. And that's why this initiative is going on for quite a few years, that's why you see so many of you riding with those helmets. You had some suggestions on Independence Days. We are -- as an organization, we are hatching plans across the country, you will see a lot of effort that we are putting in the corporate office. So yes, this is a very important year in terms of the 75th year of independence, and we do want to celebrate it in a large scale. You had some suggestions for the 25th AGM. We'll keep that in mind if it is feasible. One of the things that we keep saying that as a management [Technical Difficulty] to build a sustainable business. So we have to keep all of that in mind when we are thinking of issuing bonuses, et cetera. Ms. Shenoy had again some specific questions on whether there are -- what are the new policies introduced? Last year we introduced, I don't know if you saw the ads that we are paying while we were waiting for the AGM to start. We introduced a very innovative product for cashless outpatient health claims. Traditionally, health insurance pays for hospitalizing costs, but the normal [Technical Difficulty] the overall healthcare cost in this country is in that area. So that was an area where we launched a product, very innovative and very different from health insurance companies do. And this year, as we speak, we've launched some very innovative motor insurance products, which you probably would have read in the papers. But that is this year, we will see how they do in the coming years. You also talked about what we are doing about our digital future. I think this is a big trust area for us as a company. We've always believed in investing ahead of the curve ball on technology and digital, that's an investment that we've continued to do, almost 97% of our policies that we issue in the company, we don't receive the paper coming in the company. Everything is issued outside the organization through technology platforms or e-commerce platforms or digital platforms. We've also done a lot of work in terms of using artificial intelligence and machine learning to streamline the process for settling claims, again using technology as also policy issuance. So that's an area that we keep on investing. And last year, we became the first company, large insurance company, to move all our systems to the cloud. And that we believe will help us in our digital journey going ahead. You asked a question on number of claims [Technical Difficulty] also answer this question. So if you look at the split model, we paid about 1.3 million claims, health we paid 0.7 million claims, and on others was about 0.3 million. So totally adding up 2.3 million claims. Mr. Vijay Varghia, you had a critique about the way the company secretary has been handling. We believe the company has provided you necessary responses and clarifications from time to time with respect to your concerns. I'm sorry that you still [Technical Difficulty] again, you had some positive feedback about the annual report and the company secretary team like a lot of others. You had a question on claims settlements in COVID, I think I've answered that both in terms of numbers and COVID, as I said, was about INR 5.56 billion of claims is what we paid for COVID. In terms of new verticals being added, what we've done this year, post the annual report -- post- the 31st of March, is we've looked at creating a separate group for the emerging markets, as we call, the smaller towns, the [ interlands ], rural market. So that's a new vertical that we created, but that is this year. Your question on investment assets going down, that is actually not correct, because the total investment assets have gone up from INR 30,892 crores to INR 38,786 crores over the last 1 year. You are correct in the sense that the return on investment has come down, because as you -- as we've discussed for the -- due to the COVID losses, our profits for the year came down. And that's the reason why our ROI has come down. You requested for looking at crores and lakhs, we'll look at it. But in general, we have been consistently using millions and billions [Technical Difficulty] in the first 4 months, the industry is growing much faster. There is a bit of base effect. So it may not sustain for the whole year, but the initial months, the growth is much higher. We are also seeing a lot more awareness that has got created particularly around the area of health insurance. And that growth looks like it is sustained and that's why we are also investing in adding more distribution in that aspect. This is Ms. Neha Shah, you had a few questions, particularly in terms of distribution and expansion. Just to give you a sense of what we are doing [Technical Difficulty] we added some more people in the first quarter of this year. These are people who then hire agents and agents are people who actually go out and sell. On the agency side, we are adding -- we've added more than 8000 agents together in this quarter. So that's a really focused investment that we are making as a country. We are adding a lot of digital partners. The number of digital partners that we've added over the last few years have significantly increased. We've added a lot of bancassurance partners consequent to the merger with Bharti AXA. So all those banking partners have become our partners, that's also added a lot of distribution. So overall, there is a big focus in terms of increasing our distribution through the tradition [Technical Difficulty]. So digital and distribution expansion is very, very important. In terms of the [indiscernible] brand, we have a very strict philosophy, which is the previous day's ending stock market price as the market closed. And that for the -- for last year was INR 1,300 and INR 63.1 per share. Ms. [indiscernible], again, you had a recommendation of how physical as I said, depending on the situation next year and where things are, we will definitely look at -- look into it. You have asked a question on profits having dropped. As I explained, it is largely because of the COVID losses that the industry as well as us experienced was really was not something that anyone of us anticipated before this pandemic that happened. So this was obviously not priced into our products. But this was a very large hit that we took as a company and as an industry. And I think that was a responsibility, and we took care of all of those claims. I think that's largely all the questions that I have had. And there was one question that I missed. I think Vishal had a question on the distribution. I will just give you the numbers, Vishal. So total number of agents that we ended the year with, we started the year with 73,511 agents and POS agents. We ended the year with 88,539 agents and POS agents. So that's the growth that we've had last year. We have further added roughly about 8,000 agents in this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bhargav. The queries have now been answered. As I mentioned earlier, those who have not cast their vote on the resolutions set forth in the notice may do so now, as the e-Voting platform is available for next half hour. I declare the meeting has closed. As soon as the voting on the resolutions has been completed, members who are e-Voting. I authorize one of the full time directors of the company, or the company secretary to declare the results of the remote e-Voting as well as for the electronic voting done at the AGM today along with the scrutineer's report. The results will be announced within 2 days from the conclusion of the meeting that is on or before Tuesday, August 9, 2022, to the stock exchanges and shall also be disseminated on the website of the company along with the scrutineer's report. The same would be duly recorded as part of the proceedings of the AGM. This concludes the formal business of the meeting. Before I conclude, on behalf of the company, I wish to place on record our gratitude to all our shareholders, customers, distributors and regulatory authorities for their cooperation and active participation in the proceedings and for their valuable suggestions and all the employees for that hard work and commitment. Also I would -- once again like to thank you on behalf of all the members of the Board for your continued trust and support in all our endeavors. And last of all, I must wish you and your families all the very best for a safer and healthier tomorrow. Please take care of yourselves.