ING Life India launches new product

ING Life India launched a new unique ULIP named ING Market shield. This product allows the customer the opportunity to participate in the equity market for maximum returns with adequate protection. Mr. Rahul Agarwal, Chief Distrubution Officer, ING Life India said. "ING Market Shield is a one of its kind unit linked insurance product. It is designed such that our customers can benefit from market's upswing due to high equity participation, but secure their investment from losses, when the market are volatile. The plan provides the customer a Guaranteed NAV throughout the term of the product and not just at maturity unlike most available products." The product targets the investors who want to avail the equity participation with protection from marketing fluctuations.

Bharti Axa’s “Aajeevan Anand’

Bharti AXA Life came out with a new product named Aajeevan Anand. It provides guaranteed payment after every 5 years and also life cover upto 100 years of age. Mr. Mark Meehan, Chief Marketing and Operations Officer, Bharti AXA Life said, "Aajeevan Anand is a powerful financial solution that provides guaranteed regular payouts to meet various life stage needs until the age of 100”. The nominee would get the sum assured in case of death during the policy period. Mr. Mark Meehan further said that this life policy would be suitable for salaried people as the total premiums are to be paid in first 10-15 years of the policy.

Insurance Industry’s request on regulatory changes

Insurance Industry requested the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority to go ‘slow in their approach’ on changes in the regulations. IRDA has assured that from next year it will go slow in bringing regulatory changes. IRDA has implemented no. of changes in the life insurance sector. They made ULIPs as long-term products that give returns alongwith life cover from investment in the capital markets. It made the insurance companies to reduce the agent’s commission in the first year. Other changes are prohibiting companies to sell universal life plans like ULIPs, to sell life policies online, minimum assured sum for policyholders etc. These fast pace of changes for insurance sector result in reduced business.

But inspite of the changes, the life insurance industry has shown continuous growth. The new premium collect is Rs.69706 crore during April-Oct 2010 compared to Rs.46689 crore in the same period last hear which is 49% more.

SBI Life’s plans & performance

SBI Life has achieved new business premium collection of Rs.3173 crore in the first half of the year 2010-11 showing a growth of 30% compared to the same period of last year and the company is focusing on rural areas now where there is a good growth potential for the life insurance business. SBI Life is ranked NO.1 among the private sector insurance companies. 19.03% market share belongs to them. The company achieved 96% growth in assets under management at 28551 crore. The company so far covered 6.49 million lives with Rs.10000 crore gross premium.

The company launched three new products named Smart Scholar, which is a child ULIP plan, Saral Life, which is a traditional endowment Policy and Smart Elite a ULIP product.

IRDA’s Report on private life insurers

IRDA in its annual report for the fiscal year 2009-10 said that eventhough many insurance companies are nearing 10 years of completion they failed to meet the break-even targets projected by them at the time of requesting for license.

But now the companies are taking corrective measure to reduce their operating expenses considerably. The increased expenditure is due to increase in expenses of management particularly ‘procurement costs of business’. The report also said that due to lapse rates profitability was affected. On the positive side only few death claims have happened

ING Life’s plan to grow faster

ING Life is to increase their capital base by adding Rs.1147 crore bringing the capital to Rs.2374 crore by March 2011. The company also aims to achieve a collection target of Rs.1939 crore of premium by end of this fiscal year. The total premium collection is Rs.830 crore as of now and they have set a target of Rs.1100 crore by March 2011. The company is aiming to achieve this target through their innovative products. At present the company launched three ULIPs and two more both traditional and ULIP are to be launched by March next year. The company also has plans to bring out 2 products with a mix of both traditional and ULIP every quarter.

IRDA’S report on life insurers

In its annual report, IRDA announced that eight life insurance companies have reported profits in 2009-10 out of total 23. LIC is leading with profit showing Rs.1061 crore which is 10.8% more than the previous year. In the second position is SBI Life with continuous profit for the fourth year with Rs.276 crore. ICICI is in the third position showing a net profit of Rs.258 crore after incurring continuous loss for the last eight years. Other companies are Aegon Religare, Kotak Mahindra, MetLife, Bajaj Allianz, Sahara India. But the cumulative loss of life insurance industry at end fiscal 2009-10 was Rs.20143 crore.

Salient features of Life Insurance Industry in 2010 are private life insurers restructure the operations, fall in the number of branches of private insurers, LIC increased their branches by 220 and Insurance penetration is only 4.60%

Star Union Dai-ichi Life’s innovative plan

Star Union Dai-ichi Life insurance Company Limited signed a MOU with Union Bank of India. The MOU facilitates Union Bank to offer Star Union Life’s Reverse Mortgage Loan enabled Annuity Plan to their customers. This is specially aimed for home owning senior citizens. The JV promoters are Bank of India and Dai-ichi Life and Star Union.

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