SLIC General combines market leadership with a wider national purpose: protecting individuals, businesses and national assets while contributing to Sri Lanka’s economy. In this feature, Chief Executive Officer Dr Sameera Dharmasena explains how financial strength, commercial discipline and customer focus support sustainable leadership. Chief Officer – General Insurance Asiri Wickramarachchi explores the technical expertise, claims capability and preparedness required to address emerging risks. Chief Business Officer Sanjaya Attanayake discusses how trust, distribution, digital accessibility and portfolio diversification are driving growth. Together, their perspectives present SLIC General as a modern, responsible insurer committed to protection, innovation and enduring strong customer confidence.
Dr. Sameera Dharmasena is a distinguished insurance professional with over 20 years of experience in Sri Lanka’s insurance industry. He has held senior leadership roles across leading insurance companies, including Allianz Life Insurance Lanka and Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation General Ltd. His career reflects strong multinational exposure and a commitment to advancing professionalism, education, and innovation. He currently serves as President of the Sri Lanka Insurance Institute, Sri Lanka’s premier insurance education body affiliated with the Chartered Insurance Institute, UK.
1. Market Leadership with a National Purpose
Our responsibility is twofold: to remain commercially strong and to create value for the country we serve. As a State-owned enterprise, SLIC General has a wider responsibility to protect individuals, businesses and national assets, while operating efficiently and competing on the same terms as private insurers.
Commercial discipline is essential because a financially strong insurer is better positioned to protect policyholders over the long term. Our scale, national reach and long-standing relationships allow us to support customers across Sri Lanka, while our financial performance enables us to contribute to the economy through taxation and investment.
For us, national purpose and commercial success are not competing priorities. Sustainable commercial performance is what enables us to fulfil that wider responsibility.
2. The Performance Behind the Leadership
The Rs. 30.3 billion Gross Written Premium milestone reflects the confidence customers and intermediaries continue to place in SLIC General. Performance has been supported by our strength in motor, growth in non-motor segments, our extensive agency network and continued investment in customer-focused digital solutions.
We are also seeing the benefit of operating as a focused standalone general insurer, allowing us to respond more directly to market opportunities.
Going forward, sustainable leadership will depend not simply on premium growth, but on disciplined underwriting, a stronger business mix, service excellence, digital innovation and deeper customer relationships. We want leadership to be the outcome of consistently doing the right things for our customers and the business.
3. When an Insurer’s Promise Is Tested
The true measure of an insurer is what happens when a customer suffers a loss. Paying Rs. 12.3 billion in claims and benefits during 2025 demonstrates the importance of having the financial capacity, technical capability and operational reach to honour our commitments.
Our focus is on making the claims experience as clear, responsive and reassuring as possible. Technology is helping us through video-based inspections, online submissions and real-time claims tracking, while our people provide the judgement and empathy required in more complex situations.
Financial strength creates the capacity to pay; efficient processes and committed people turn that capacity into confidence for the customer. Ultimately, our promise is not made when a policy is sold—it is fulfilled when the customer needs us most.
4. More Than Profit: The Value of a Successful SOE
A well-managed State-owned enterprise can demonstrate that commercial performance and national contribution can reinforce each other.
SLIC General operates with the discipline required of a market leader, while its success creates wider economic value through taxation, investment and the protection it provides to households, businesses and national assets.
Our responsibility is not simply to generate a financial return, but to ensure that the organisation remains financially strong, professionally managed and capable of serving the country through changing economic and risk conditions.
In that sense, SLIC General demonstrates how an SOE can create value for both the public and the market when it is run with accountability, commercial discipline and a clear customer purpose.
5. Building the Next Generation of SLIC General
Over the next five years, we need to become even more customer-centric, data-driven and responsive. We will continue simplifying insurance through digital innovation, while preserving the human relationships that remain central to our business.
We must strengthen our non-motor portfolio, sharpen our technical capabilities, respond to climate and emerging risks, and develop our people and agency network for the future.
Most importantly, we need to anticipate customer needs rather than simply respond to them. Every interaction—from purchasing a policy to making a claim—should be seamless, transparent and reassuring.
Our ambition is not simply to remain No.1, but to set the benchmark for what a modern general insurer in Sri Lanka should be.
Where Expertise Meets the Promise of Protection
Mr. Asiri Wickramarachchi is an accomplished insurance professional with over 18 years of experience across multinational and local insurance companies. His expertise covers Underwriting, Claims, and Reinsurance. He became Sri Lanka’s youngest ACII-qualified Chartered Insurer in 2011 and received the Most Outstanding Student Award in 2012. He later earned the prestigious FCII qualification. He currently serves as Chief Officer – General Insurance at Sri Lanka Insurance General Ltd.
1. The Technical Strength Behind Market Leadership
Our technical strength comes mainly from the experienced professionals and strong re-insurance backing. We manage risk across retail, personal, commercial and large corporate portfolios. Strong underwriting discipline, risk assessment, Capital adequacy, financial ratings and global reinsurance partnerships are essential to managing that diversity responsibly.
We continuously assess changing exposures and ensure that our approach remains aligned with the risk we are taking.
Market leadership therefore has to be supported by technical leadership, protecting the customer while maintaining the long-term sustainability of the portfolio. This discipline is critical to ensuring that our growth remains both responsible and sustainable.
2. Claims: Where the Insurance Promise Becomes Real
Claims are where our promise to the customer is tested. Our approach combines technical accuracy with speed, transparency and empathy.
Digital tools such as video inspections, online submissions and real-time tracking can remove unnecessary delays, while experienced claims teams provide judgement and support where circumstances are more complex.
The objective is not simply to process claims faster, but to give customers confidence that their claim is being handled fairly, professionally and with an understanding of what they are going through.
Technology should make the process easier, but it is our people who ultimately provide the reassurance customers need.
3. Protecting Against Tomorrow’s Risks
The risk landscape is changing rapidly, and insurers have to evolve with it. Climate-related events, cyber risks, EVs and emerging technologies require stronger risk assessment, specialist knowledge and close engagement with global reinsurance partners.
We are strengthening our capabilities while exploring products and coverage that better reflect these exposures. Our role is increasingly about helping customers understand and manage risk before a loss occurs, as well as providing financial protection when it does.
For SLIC General, being future-ready means not waiting for new risks to become mainstream before we respond. It means anticipating change and ensuring that our technical capabilities, products and expertise evolve alongside it.
Taking Protection Closer to Every Customer
Mr. Sanjaya Attanayake, Chief Business Officer of Sri Lanka Insurance General, is an insurance professional with over 33 years of experience in property underwriting, sales, sales management, and key account management. He has extensive expertise in building distribution networks, developing high-performing sales teams, and driving business growth. His career includes senior roles at Union Assurance, Fairfirst Insurance, and LOLC General Insurance, where he successfully led business and operational initiatives.
1. Converting Trust into Growth
Trust gives us a powerful foundation, but it has to be converted into relevance and value every day. We are strengthening our distribution through our extensive experienced and high performing agency network while improving digital access to make insurance more convenient and accessible .by listing to our customers and front line teams ,we are identifying new opportunities responding faster to changing needs taking our trusted brand closer to customers across the country .
Our focus is not simply acquiring customers, but building relationships that last through responsive service, relevant products and a consistent experience across every touchpoint.
Our heritage gives us an important advantage, but it is the quality of our proposition and service that earns and sustain the relationship. We therefore see trust not simply as a brand asset, but as a platform for sustainable growth.
2. Beyond Motor Insurance
Motor remains a major strength, but sustainable growth requires a more balanced portfolio. We see significant opportunities across areas such as fire, health, engineering and other commercial and personal lines where changing customer needs and emerging risks ,increasing exposure to extreme weather and climate related risks create room for new protection needs ..
Our focus is therefore to strengthen our non motor propositions with relevant innovative and affordable solutions while maintaining underwriting discipline. The next engines of growth will come from understanding emerging needs, developing relevant products and leveraging our distribution strengths to make these solutions accessible to customers across the country.
3. The Competitive Advantage of Being SLIC General
Customers ultimately choose an insurer they believe will be there when it matters. Our advantage is the combination of brand trust, national reach, financial strength, technical expertise, an extensive agency network and a long history of serving Sri Lankan customers.this is further strengthened by our corporate sales expertise and establish channels ,broker servicing ,bancassurance,financial business .by bringing together market insights,product innovation,trusted relationships and reach of our agency network and corporate channels together these multiple distribution channels enables SLIC -GI to serve different customer segments and markets more effectively .
We can combine the convenience of digital services with the reassurance of personal relationships. Size alone is not the differentiator; it is the ability to turn scale into consistent service, dependable claims support and lasting customer relationships.
