Everest Insurance elects 7 new BoD members; IB team formally exits

ShareSansar, February 14:

After holding the management of Everest Insurance Company for four months, the Insurance Board (IB) has formally handed over the management to its new Board of Directors elected amidst a special Annual General Meeting yesterday.

The newly elected seven directors are Shashi Agrawal, Rajan Kumar Poudel, Surendra Silwal, Niranjan Kumar Tibrewala, Pawan Kumar Sanghai, Arun Adhikari and Purushottam Raj Bhattarai.

 Back in October last year, a team delegated by the regulator has initially planned to take over the management of the troubled company for six months.

Now the regulator will completely exit from the company within 15 days, according to the sources.

The regulator had taken over the management of Everest Insurance and suspended the then BoD as well as chairman and CEO for flouting insurance regulations as well as their failure to run the company properly.

At that time, there were more than 3000 unsettled claims, which the IB team has now brought down by 50 percent.

According to the IB team that had been running the company, it has now resumed fire insurance service, besides reforming the management and the organizational structure of the company.

The regulator is now confident that the company can run smoothly without its direct involvement.

After taking over the management of the company, the IB had also urged the Central Investigation of Bureau of Nepal Police to investigate the financial misappropriation at company.

CIB then went on to arrest the company’s former CEO Kebal Krishna Shrestha, assistant general manager Anil Dhungel and two chartered accountants — Jagadish Agrawal and Gopal Agrawal — for their alleged involvement in misappropriation of money worth more than Rs 2 crore.

Everest Insurance had fallen into deep soup last year after it released payments to an fire insurance claim worth Rs 4 crore lodged by Himalayan Snax even before the surveyor had submitted the final report.

The regulator immediately sprang into action as both Himalayan Snax and Everest Insurance are promoted by Khetan Group.