Generali Central Insurance has appointed Sandeep Rathi as Senior Vice President and Head of Underwriting, adding an experienced property and engineering insurance professional to its leadership team.
The appointment was reported on August 18, 2026. Rathi will be based in Mumbai and will take responsibility for underwriting at the general insurer. He brings more than two decades of experience covering property, engineering, commercial insurance, portfolio management and risk selection.
This is also a return to the company for Rathi.
He previously worked with Future Generali India Insurance, the earlier identity of Generali Central Insurance, as General Manager for Property Underwriting.
That previous experience gives the appointment an added layer. Rathi is joining a business he already knows, but the company he returns to has changed considerably in ownership, branding, management and market strategy.
Who is Sandeep Rathi?
Rathi has spent more than 20 years working mainly in property and engineering underwriting. His experience includes portfolio profitability, risk assessment and the selection of commercial risks.
Before joining Generali Central Insurance, he was Regional Underwriting Manager, Facultative, at Kuwait Reinsurance Company K.S.C.P.
His earlier career includes underwriting roles with:
- ICICI Lombard General Insurance
- Bharti AXA General Insurance
- Kotak Mahindra General Insurance
- Future Generali India Insurance
His professional profile describes more than 20 years of work in property and engineering underwriting, portfolio profitability and strategic risk selection.
This background is particularly relevant for Generali Central because a significant part of a general insurer's business comes from risks that cannot always be assessed through standard retail pricing.
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What will Sandeep Rathi do as Head of Underwriting?
An insurer collects premium today for claims that may occur months or even years later.
The underwriting team's job is to decide whether the premium being charged is enough for the risk being accepted.
That sounds simple. In practice, the decision can involve hundreds of variables.
For a commercial property policy, for example, an underwriter may have to consider:
- What does the company manufacture?
- How old is the plant?
- What fire protection systems are installed?
- How close is the property to a flood-prone area?
- Has the business suffered large claims before?
- What would it cost to replace machinery?
- Could one accident affect several insured locations?
- How much of the risk should the insurer keep?
- How much should be passed to a reinsurer?
The Head of Underwriting sets the wider framework within which these decisions are taken.
The role also requires keeping an eye on the overall portfolio.
A company may write thousands of individually acceptable policies and still end up with a problem if too many of those policies carry the same type of risk.
What is facultative underwriting?
Rathi's most recent position at Kuwait Reinsurance Company was in facultative underwriting, an area that often appears in insurance appointment announcements without much explanation.
Facultative reinsurance is essentially insurance for an insurer, arranged for a specific risk.
Consider a company that wants to insure a large manufacturing plant worth ₹2,000 crore.
The insurer issuing the policy may not want to retain the entire ₹2,000 crore exposure on its own balance sheet. It can transfer part of that risk to a reinsurance company.
When that reinsurance arrangement is assessed individually for a particular risk, it is known as facultative reinsurance.
The reinsurer studies the plant, the type of business, its loss history and the proposed insurance terms before deciding whether to accept part of the risk and at what price.
Rathi's experience on both the direct insurance and reinsurance sides gives him exposure to how large risks are viewed from different points in the insurance chain.
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Generali Central itself has changed
Rathi is returning to an insurer that has gone through an ownership and identity change.
The company was earlier known as Future Generali India Insurance.
Central Bank of India acquired a 24.91% stake in the general insurance company from Future Enterprises as part of an insolvency process. The bank had paid a total bid amount of ₹508 crore for stakes in the general insurance and life insurance businesses.
Generali announced Central Bank of India as its new joint venture partner in June 2025.
Under the announced structure, Generali was to retain a 74% holding while Central Bank of India would hold up to 26%. Generali said the partnership could also give its Indian insurance businesses access to Central Bank of India's network of more than 4,500 branches and over 80 million customers.
The general insurance company subsequently adopted the Generali Central Insurance identity.
Why underwriting is becoming harder
India's non-life insurance market is continuing to grow, but insurers are dealing with very different risks compared with even a few years ago.
Non-life insurers collected ₹31,397.6 crore in gross direct premium in July 2026, up 5.7% from a year earlier, according to General Insurance Council data.
For the first quarter of FY2026-27, non-life insurers had collected about ₹87,825 crore, with premium income growing 10.7% from the previous year.
But underwriting is not getting easier simply because the market is growing.
A factory today can carry risks linked to imported machinery, automation, cyber systems, supply chains, batteries, renewable energy equipment and changing weather patterns.
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News4Bharat POV
Sandeep Rathi's appointment as Senior Vice President and Head of Underwriting comes at a period of change for Generali Central Insurance.
The insurer has a new joint venture partner, a new brand identity and a management team that has seen several senior appointments during 2026.
Rathi also returns to a business where he has worked before, having previously headed property underwriting responsibilities at Future Generali India Insurance.