Expansion
plans of Kotak Life Insurance
Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual life insurance
ltd. inaugurated their 52nd branch in the
country, in Vashi. This is their 6th branch
in Mumbai. It is reported that they have
plans to increase their business by 100%
on FYP base for which they intend to open
branches at 24 more locations. Mr.Gaurang
Shah their MD said that they are planning
to increase strength of their ‘life
advisers’ which is at present 13500
across 35 cities, to offer professional
advice and customized ‘insurance solutions’.
Branch Manager Mr. S.Kulkarni will manage
their new branch at Vashi with a team of
20 Sales Managers and 300 life advisors,
assisted by Asst. Manager Mr. Mukesh Jethwani.
Kotak Life insurance has increased their
capital by Rs.20 crores bringing total capital
to Rs.317 crores. The percentage of holdings
however remains unaltered at 26 and 74 between
Old Mutual Plc and Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd.respectively.
Kotak Life Insurance declared a total return
of 7% inclusive of 4% bonus on its participating
Contracts for year 2005/06.
ICICI
Prudential record 150% growth in premium
ICICI Prudential has posted a growth of
152% in first quarter 2007 on quarter on
quarter basis, garnering a new business
weighted premium of Rs.812 crores. Of this
Rs.690 crores was from retail business premium.
The company has issued 302482 policies and
total sum assured is over Rs. 56000 crores.
Funds under management are over Rs. 9300
crores. The successful quarterly performance
equals 32% market share of private insurers
and 12% of the total market. Ms. Shikha
Sharma MD & CEO of ICICI Prudential
Life said “ Product development to
expand our offerings to customers seeking
solutions to meet their specific goals of
retirement, health, education insurance
and wealth creation continues to be our
thrust area. This will be coupled with an
expansion of our distribution network through
our own branches as well as those of our
partners”. ICICI Prudential has commissioned
75 new offices during the past quarter and
has about 83000 advisors in the country.
BOB
entering Life insurance
It is reported from Kolkata that Bank of
Baroda is in advanced talks with foreign
and Indian insurance companies for setting
up its life insurance venture.
Rural
Markets attract Tata-AIG
Tata-AIG launched three new products to
capture the huge rural market in Life Insurance.
Their new products titled Navkalyan Yojana,
Sampoorn Bima Yojana and Ayushman Yojana,
it is reported by the company, are simple
with ease of documentation. Nav Kalyan Yojana
is a 5-year monthly income plan providing
financial security to policy holder’s
family with accidental death benefit rider.
In Sampoorn Bima Yojana plan policy holders
remits premium for ten years and is provided
cover for fifteen years. Upon survival till
maturity gets 100% return on the premium
paid. Ayushman Yojana is a single ten-year
protection plan with payment at the beginning
of the term and the policy holder gets back
the premium amount plus 25% on survival
at the end of the term.
Only
chit company in life insurance Shriram Life
Insurance of Chennai
Shriram Life Insurance Company is a joint
venture between Shriram group and South
African Insurer Sanlam. It is targeting
a turnover of Rs.110 crores for year 2006-07.
The company collected Rs.8 crore annualized
premium from April to June this year. During
last quarter of last year the firm is reported
to have done Re. 15 crore first premium
business. They have issued so far 15000
policies. The insurance company has 10 divisional
offices. Four of them are located in Hyderabad.
Standard
& Poor’s report on life insurance
sector
S&P, global rating agency, says India’s
Life Insurance sector is expected to grow
by 20% year on year, “spurred by improving
economic conditions, growing affluence,
the need for health protection and low penetration
rates and driven by growing middle class
and rising disposal incomes.” It further
says that” a positive development
will be the anticipated lifting of the governments
ceiling on permitted foreign direct investment
in insurance companies to 49% from 26%”.
According to S&P, one of the growth
drivers has been the pension fund plans.
S&P says, “ LIC’s challenge
has been to move away from guaranteeing
long-term returns on life products and to
improve its solvency ratio.” It further
reports that the ability of the private
players to bring in new and innovative products
and services is expected to improve their
market penetration.
Reliance
Life Insurance Co’s maiden insurance
product
The ADAG’s Reliance Life Insurance
Co announced its first insurance product
since acquiring the life insurance business
of AMP Sanmar in October last. The product
is called Reliance Connect 2 Life Plan.
It is a 15-year insurance cum savings plan
for individuals in 18 to 45 years age group
with a minimum sum assured of Rs.1 lakh.
The cover can be upgraded in the 2nd and
3rd year up to Rs 10 lakh. Reliance Life
Insurance has 30000 insurance advisors in
158 branches across 143 locations and a
call center to service customers. HDFC and
UTI bank will be collection network. The
company is also finalizing with banks for
sale of the products thro’ Bancassurance
mode. According to Shri. Nandagopal,.the
Company plans to engage ten to twelve thousands
more advisors who are already under training.
Reliance Life Insurance has a capital base
of Rs. 383 crores and 3654 employees. The
Reliance Life Insurance has moved to 8th
position from 13th position as of June 06.
Change
of guard at Birla Sun Life
Mr. Nani Javeri CEO, Birla Sun Life Insurance
is retiring from the company. Mr. SK Mitra
director BSLI will oversee affairs till
a new CEO is appointed. During the formative
years of the company, Mr. Javeri had contributed
immensely which has enabled the company
earn local and international recognition
for performance and excellence.
Life
insurance cover to home loan borrowers from
PNB
PNB has entered in to arrangement with
Tata AIG for extending insurance cover to
borrowers of home loan in order to attract
more home loan borrowers. The cover will
take care of the debt in case the borrower
dies. The facility is called “mortgage
reducing term assurance”. Under this
scheme PNB offers cover of loan outstanding
by paying a single premium to protect the
house to the survivors in case the borrower
dies. The one time premium for a forty-year-old
borrower on repayment tenure of 15 years
will be about 2.5% of the loan amount. “
This is one time premium financed by the
bank as a part of the loan”. Maximum
sum insured is rupees one crore. Policy
will continue for the agreed period even
if the loan is repaid. 10% discount on premium
is offered to the younger spouse if she
is a co-borrower. Cover is available for
a period up to 20 years or 65 years of age
whichever is earlier.
Bharti
AXA starts functioning
Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company has started
its operations by opening its first branch
in Hyderabad. They are the 16th life insurers
in the country. The plan is to leverage
the large client base of Bharti Airtel the
mobile service provider. Mr. Nitin Chopra
CEO, Bharti AXA said, “there are several
strategic partnerships in the pipelines.
One of the major partnerships would be with
the private cellular major Bharti Airtel,
which has a large customer base of over
25 million, and is growing at a million
new customers’ s month”. On
the occasion the company released two unit-linked
products – “ Future Confident”
targeted at masses and “Wealth Confident”
aiming for the affluent. Mr. Chopra further
said that ‘we plan to invest approximately
Rs.500 crores in three years. While we intend
to roll out 30 branches by Dec 2007, we
will be supplemented through other (banc
assurance) partnerships as well’.
Service
Tax on Insurance companies
The CBEC has said that life insurance companies
should pay service tax on their asset management
service. This charge might either increase
charges for policy holders or add to the
life insurer’s losses Hitherto insurance
companies pay tax only on the risk premium,
the charge levied for providing life cover.
But Mutual funds with similar asset management
pay service tax on their asset management
fees. In normal policies all premiums go
into the central life fund. All charges
are deducted from the life fund and any
surplus is distributed to policy holders
either as bonus or dividend. Private insurers
manage almost twenty thousand crores of
rupees which were mobilized through unit
linked insurance policies. Fees on this
vary from 0.5% to 2%
ICICI
Prudential’s new products
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has floated
two more products offering security to investors
and retirees. The first is InvestShield
Life-New. It is a premium guarantee product
offering investors scope for long-term capital
appreciation through exposure to markets
without eroding their capital. It is long-term
investment cum insurance plan that invests
40% in equity. This ensures the conservative
investor to experiment with equity without
losing his investment in case the markets
go down. The plan is available for a minimum
premium of Rs.8000 per year for a policy
term of 10 to 30 years. On death, the policy
holder’s nominee gets the sum assured
plus the higher of the fund value and guarantee
value (total premium paid), while on maturity,
the higher of the fund value and guarantee
value is paid to the policy holder.
The second plan, Immediate Annuity, provides
retirees with a stable and secure income
for life. A person between 45 and 80 years
of age can purchase Immediate Annuity by
making a single lump sum payment and can
select any of their 7 annuity options. The
pay out options are: annuity for life with
or without return of purchase price; joint
life (for annuitant and spouse) with or
without return of purchase price and annuity
for life guaranteed for 5/10/15 years.
Asset
under management - Life insurers to disclose
to the regulator
The insurance regulator brought out a new
MIS format, which requires Life insurers
to submit details of their assets under
management. Till recently, companies furnished
data pertaining to new business only. Under
the system companies were ranked based on
their first year premium. For achieving
this companies resorted to selling short
term policies to their existing customers
additionally every year. Further AUM as
a measure is expected to be better in ranking
as it could reduce many other impacts such
as lapsed policies pushing up business figures.
Insures also say that AUM forms important
parameter for measuring a life insurance
company.
SBI
Life to expand in Tamilnadu
Mr. Rajiv Gupta ,Senior VP (retail and
corporate agency) SBI Life said that ‘the
agency channel of SBI Life has set a target
of Rs.1000 crores plus total premium for
year 2006-07. We expect Tamil Nadu to contribute
over 20% to the total business from the
agency channel this year’. At present
SBI Life operates at Coimbatore, Madurai,
Trichy and Chennai and are intending to
expand to Nagerkoil, Salem, Erode, Vellore
and Pondicherry
Training
agency force -the Bajaj Allianz Life new
initiative.
In order to train their agency force to
be better equipped to advise their customers
on proper investments and coverage, Bajaj
Allianz Life have launched new certification
programs such as “certified Insurance
Consultant Program” and ‘Velocity’.
It is reported that they have recently updated
their 75000 odd agency force with a special
training module “CIP” Certified
Investment Planner to meet the challenges
brought in by the revised norms for ULIP
& AML. The new CICP is over and above
the mandatory 100 hours of training for
agents. Velocity is a special initiative
for outdoor training to their sales managers.
Mr. Sam Ghosh, their chief executive officer
said that they have a strong training force
of 150 trainers supporting their branches
of the agency channel and a separate training
team for banc assurance and alternate channel.
Andhra
Bank to enter life insurance business
Andhra Bank’s chairman Mr. Ramakrishnan
said that Andhra Bank would be floating
a subsidiary for its life insurance joint
venture with the Bank of India and the Dai-ichi
Mutual Life Insurance Company. The bank’s
board has accorded a in principle approval
to form a life insurance joint venture with
the Bank of India and The Dai-ichi Mutual
Life Insurance Company of Japan. Dai-ichi
is the second largest life insurance company
in Japan. Dai-ichi will hold 26% stake in
the joint venture. Pattern of remaining
holdings and further details are being worked
out between the Indian partners.
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