Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Limited, also known as Sri Lanka Insurance is the largest and strongest composite

insurance Insurance is a means of protection from financial loss in which, in exchange for a fee, a party agrees to compensate another party in the event of a certain loss, damage, or injury. It is a form of risk management, primarily used to hedge ...

provider in

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

. It is the first and only insurance company in Sri Lanka to be assigned a prime AAA- rating for Insurance Financial Strength from the US rating agency

Fitch Ratings Fitch Ratings Inc. is an American credit rating agency and is one of the " Big Three credit rating agencies", the other two being Moody's and Standard & Poor's. It is one of the three nationally recognized statistical rating organizations (NRS ...

New York City. The company now manages assets worth over US$1102 Million.

History

Sri Lanka Insurance was incorporated by a special act of

Parliament In modern politics, and history, a parliament is a legislative body of government. Generally, a modern parliament has three functions: representing the electorate, making laws, and overseeing the government via hearings and inquiries. Th ...

in 1961. It was formed by nationalizing the insurance industry which was run by various local and foreign private companies. It maintained the

monopoly A monopoly (from Greek language, Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situati ...

in the insurance industry until the establishment of the National Insurance Corporation in 1980. In 1988, the insurance field was liberalized by permitting private companies to enter the industry. In 1993 with the objective of providing greater autonomy to operate in this environment, the corporation was converted to a fully government-owned

limited liability Limited liability is a legal status in which a person's financial liability is limited to a fixed sum, most commonly the value of a person's investment in a corporation, company or partnership. If a company that provides limited liability to it ...

corporate entity. It was subsequently sold to the "Distilleries-Spence Consortium" under the Government Privatization Plan in April 2003. As such, it became a subsidiary of

Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC Distilleries Company of Sri Lanka PLC (DCSL) is a diversified Sri Lankan conglomerate listed on the Colombo Stock Exchange with a market capitalisation of US$600 Million. It was one of the first Sri Lankan companies to be listed in Forbes's Bes ...

. In November 2006, Sri Lanka Insurance acquired Lanka Hospitals Corporation PLC, which owns and operates

Apollo Hospitals Colombo Lanka Hospital (formerly Apollo Hospital Sri Lanka) is multi-speciality tertiary care hospital in Sri Lanka and is one of the largest private hospitals in the country. It is a subsidiary of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation. The company's previousl ...

, a 350-bed state of art health care facility. The

Sri Lankan Parliament The Parliament of the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (Sinhala: ශ්‍රී ලංකා පාර්ලිමේන්තුව ''Shri Lanka Parlimenthuwa'', Tamil: இலங்கை நாடாளுமன்றம் ''Ila� ...

's Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) revealed that the privatization process of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation was irregular. In 2007, a case was filed in the Supreme Court challenging the privatization of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation citing the revelations of this report. On 4 June 2009, the Supreme Court of Sri Lanka annulled the sale of Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation in 2003. As such

was ordered to return its stake in Sri Lanka Insurance to the government treasury. The treasury was ordered to pay the purchase consideration back to Distilleries Consortium.

References

External links

Sri Lanka Insurance Ltd

UPDATE 1-S.Lanka shares down on Distilleries verdict

Lanka E News
{{authority control 1962 establishments in Ceylon Financial services companies established in 1962 Government-owned insurance companies Government-owned companies of Sri Lanka Nationalised companies in Sri Lanka Insurance companies of Sri Lanka