After opening the trading day on a strong note, Indian share markets continue to extend gains in the morning session with both Nifty and the Sensex hitting fresh record highs. Gains are largely seen in stocks from realty sector and banking sector. Meanwhile, information technology stocks are trading in the red.

The BSE Sensex is trading higher by 379 points and the NSE Nifty is trading higher by 96 points. The BSE Mid Cap index and the BSE Small Cap index both are trading up 0.9%. The rupee is trading at 64.77 to the US$.

Bank Nifty is the outshining sector with the index gaining 2% led by ICICI Bank which jumped 4.5% while State Bank of India and Punjab National bank up by 3.5% & 3% respectively.

New India Assurance is a leader in the general insurance category with an overall market share of 15% in FY17. The company enjoyed leadership positions in fire, engineering, aviation, liability, marine, motor and health insurance segments with market shares of 19.1%, 21.9%, 29.6%, 18.2%, 21.0%, 15.1% and 18.4% of total gross direct premium respectively.

The company has witnessed a CAGR of 15.18% in gross written premium over FY13-17 which was almost in-line with non-life insurance industry growth of 15% CAGR over FY11-16.

Motor and health contributes around 64% to the gross written premium followed by fire, other, crop and marine. The company offers over 230 products under these business segments.

The direct channel of agents contributes around 42% to the business, followed by 25.75% from brokers. Being a PSU, the company also partners with state and central government for implementation of various insurance schemes.

BSE IPO Index vis-a-vis Sensex

So, an investor blindly following the IPO hype might have done better following the Sensex.

In other news, India broke into the top 100 in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings. This was seen on the back of big gains on a number of measures.