Mumbai, February 19: The National Insurance Company, United India Insurance Company and Oriental India Insurance Company merger will take place only next financial year, said reports . The merger will take place in Financial Year 2019-2020, reported the Economic Times.

According to data till March 31, 2017, the three companies together consisted about 200 insurance products. The total premium of the products of these three companies amount to Rs 41,461 crore.

The market share of these companies in the insurance sector is close to 35 percent. Together these companies have close to 44,000 employees and around 6, 000 offices.

“We will further bring down the losses before setting up a combined entity,” ET quoted one of the officials as saying.

The merger of the three state-owned insurance companies was announced for the first time in the 2018 budget.

The three companies have been told to reduce cost and increase efficiency before the merger. The companies are also looking to increase revenue by selling their real estate assets. The three companies registered a loss of Rs 1,800 crores for the quarter ended September 30, 2018.

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 19, 2019 02:23 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).