Max New York Life offers 4% equity to Axis Bank
Max New York Life is in the process of diluting 4% stake to Axis Bank, its bancassurance partner. Mr. Rajesh Sud, MD and CEO of Max New York Life said. "We are in the final stage of diluting four per cent stake. We have already received approval from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA)) to dilute four per cent stake to Axis Bank”. Axis Bank also got approval from Reserve Bank to buy the state from Max Newyork. This will increase the strength of the capital requirement of the company. The agreement is for 10 years. The company informed that they have no intention to enter the Initial Public Offering plans as they have enough capital required for the business.

Aviva Life offers high insurance cover
Aviva Life Insurance introduced an online term plan named Aviva I-life. The product comes with Rs.25 lakh as minimum cover and there is no upper limit. The term period is maximum 35 years. Mr. Gaurav Rajput, Aviva India director Marketing said, . "Our research with IMRB showed us that protection of family income in case of an unfortunate death is among the top three priorities for 52 per cent of Indians today. Hence, keeping in mind the customer need and demand, we have launched Aviva i-Life which can provide a high insurance cover at a low cost”. The company has a paid up capital of Rs.2004 crore. This online product offers Accidental Death benefit rider for enhanced protection where additional sum is payable in case of accidental death. The product offers Rs.1 crore of life cover at a cost of Rs.22/- per day.

New ULIP from Canana HSBC
A new ULIP plan launched by Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance named ‘Insure Smart Plan’ Comes with the option of NAV guarantee fund with investment friendly features. Canara HSBC OBC Life Director said, "Insure Smart Plan has been tailor-made to cater to the savings and protection needs of the customers. In addition to this, NAV Guarantee Fund provides an element of guarantee on investments to customers with lower risk appetite”. The policy has 10 year term and payment term of 5 years. The customer can withdraw from the sixth year. The customer can avail benefits on premium paid and benefits paid out.

New Life Insurance Simulator from Canara HSBC Life
Canara HSBC Oriental Bank of Commerce Life Insurance launched Life Insurance Simulator (LIS) to help the customer to understand the need of financial planning. LIS is financial need assessment software that works on an interactive mode and helps the customer to assess the amount for his needs through series of simple steps and also to know whether his savings and investments are enough to fulfill his requirements. M. Rishi Mathur, Company's Senior VP (Products and Marketing) said, "LIS has been designed with an objective to educate the customers about the importance of financial planning, It will also help them in making their financial planning more effective as it focuses on four essential life stages -- family protection, child's future requirements, wealth creation and retirement".

Exciting 2010-11 performance by ICICI Prudential
ICICI Prudential Life achieved Rs.808 crore profits in the financial year 2010-11. This is the second consecutive year with annual profit with growth percentage of 213%. Mr. Sandeep Bakhshi, MD & CEO said, “The journey over the last decade has been one of learning and adapting. All along we have had an unrelenting focus on providing the highest quality of service to our customers while continuing to set the benchmarks in the industry. This fiscal year has been particularly interesting. We have delivered strong results despite the structural changes witnessed in the industry on account of the new regulatory norms. Our objective was to focus on creating value for customers through enhanced service efficiency and by providing hassle-free claim settlement assistance to customers. Effective cost and persistency management as well as commitment to growing profitably has enabled us to report profits for the second consecutive year. Effective use of technology was a key catalyst in ensuring profitable growth and helped us deliver a better product proposition to customers. Going forward, we will continue to focus on increasing efficiencies in the system and look at avenues to deliver profitable growth.”

The company also feels that it is important to reach the customer and assist them for their financial solutions.

IDBI Federal Life’s another innovative ULIP
IDBI Federal Life Insurance introduced a ULIP product named IDBI Federal Retiresurance Milestone Pension Plan. The company earlier launched a traditional pension plan in the similar type named Retiresurance Guaranteed Pension Plan. The product help the customer in wealth building by offering a vide choices of investment options. It offers two choices to invest. One is guaranteed return funds and the other is guaranteed growth funds. Mr. G V. Nageswara Rao, MD &CEO, IDBI Federal Life said, “India’s population is predominantly young. With the increase in life expectancy, many Indians could be spending a good 20 to 25 years of their life in retirement. While the talented younger generation works hard to meet the increasing cost of living, we at IDBI Federal visualise this generation’s dire need for building wealth to support their standard of living post-retirement as well. This also assumes significance in view of the fact that many of the Gen-Next jobs are contractual by nature and the youth does not enjoy the benefits of traditional options like a Provident Fund.”

IDBI Federal life has at present 2,92,000 policies and Rs.16384 crore as Sum Assured. The company already launched many innovative products such as wealthsurance, homesurance etc.

Aviva Life’s New ‘Child future planning expert’
Aviva Life launched Child Future Planning Expert (CFPE) to help the customers who are in need of specialized advice for needs of their children. The company aims to train 10% of the sales people as CFPE with a clear objective to increase their productivity. In the pilot plan 300 trained advisors have generated business showing growth of 78%. Mr. Munish Sharda, Director –DSF said, “The idea of Child Future Planning Experts stems from the recognition that a parent is grossly under saved when it comes to his/her child’s future educational needs as per the Aviva Education Insights conducted by IMRB. We also realized that the customers are interested in quality advice when it comes to saving for their children’s future. Hence we worked with many experts around the industry to create a specialized training module for Child Future Planners with an objective to increase the productivity of our advisers by 40%.”

The training module and the programme are effective and provide the right learning to the FPA to understand the concerns of young parents. This not only helps the customer needs in a focused way but also help the agents to attain necessary skill.

Financial Planning centre from India First Life
India First Insurance has launched its financial planning centre in Chennai to cater to its customers in respect of all their insurance needs and products available. This centre will further meet the needs of advisor learning/training and record management for business application.

Dr. Nandagopal, MD & CEO of India First Life told while inaugurating the one stop shop said, “ Our Financial Planning Centers are one more step towards moving closer to our customers - both potential as well as existing. We are sure that these FPCs will help take our service standards to the next level”. The company expects 30-40% increase in the business in 3 to 4 years through these FPCs.

Life Insurers want reduction of single premium product
Insurance companies try to reduce their focus on single premium Unit Linked Insurance Products after a huge surge in income. In single premium products one time premium payment is allowed whereas in the regular premium product premium can be paid in intervals. After the ULIP guideline changes there was a fall in regular premium products.
Mr. M N Rao, MD and CEO of SBI Life said that to build a renewal premium it is necessary to focus on regular premium products. The company would like to decrease its share to 30% in single premium.

Mr. GV Nageswara Rao, MD and CEO of IDBI Federal life said, "The commission differential has narrowed. It is important to focus on regular premium to make customers build a larger corpus”. According to IRDA regulations a single premium products should have the sum assured as 125% of the premium paid

Performance of Star Union –Dai-Chi Life
Star Union Dai-chi Life has recorded a collection of Rs.1329 crore of new business premium in the 26 months since operations started. For financial year 2009-10 their total premium collection was Rs.530.11 crore and for 2010-11 it was Rs.933 crore. Their new business premium for 2010-11 stood at Rs.758 crore. The company stands at 12th in ranking among the 23 insurers. Their operational expenses are at the lowest among the industry as informed by Shri Kamalji Sahay, MD and CEO of SUD Life.

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