Cholamandalam MS General Insurance, the Murugappa Group’s general insurance joint venture with Japan’s Mitsui Sumitomo, has appointed Rajive Kumaraswami as Managing Director-Designate, succeeding V. Suryanarayanan, who retires after two decades with the company.
Announced on 10 April, Suryanarayanan will retire on 31 May 2026 after six years as Managing Director and nearly thirty years with the Murugappa Group. Kumaraswami takes up the designate role from 22 April and will become MD and CEO from 1 June, subject to regulatory approvals.
Kumaraswami brings over three decades across insurance and banking. Most recently he was MD and CEO of Magma General Insurance, which he built from a small player into a mid-sized, multi-channel general insurer over nearly a decade. He began his career at ICICI in project finance, joined ICICI Lombard as part of its founding team in senior underwriting, reinsurance, sales and risk roles including Chief Risk Officer, and later served as Chief Representative for the Indian subcontinent at SCOR SE, the world’s fifth-largest reinsurer, where he helped establish its foreign reinsurance branch in India. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
The board recorded its appreciation for Suryanarayanan, crediting him with leading the company through a period of growth ahead of industry averages since 2020, expanding its product portfolio, strengthening distribution and deepening its use of technology.
Chola MS, a joint venture between the Murugappa Group and Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance of Japan, began operations in 2002 and operates across 26 states with over 600 touchpoints. It reported gross written premium of Rs 8,328 crore, up 9.6%, and a solvency ratio of over 2.18 times against the regulatory minimum of 1.5.
