Enthused and encouraged by the exemplary success of Life Insurance Corporation of India the Government of India in the early 1970s decided to bring in the general insurance industry also into the vortex of a nationalised setup to provide comprehensive insurance security to the people of India. How effectively and substantially Life Insurance Corporation of India and the four nationalised general insurance companies, the holding companies of General Insurance Corporation of India, contributed to redesigning the socio-economic fabric of modern India is a part of the post independent economic history of India. Though these two organisations have interlaced and intertwined their destiny with that of India, the preference shift in the Indian markets, new realities of the global economic order, and demands arising out of multilateral trade agreements have all left India with no option other than throwing open its economic and commercial policies to global competition and challenges.