Aegon Religare to infuse up to Rs 470 cr in 2010-11

Private life insurer Aegon Religare today said it is likely to infuse up to Rs 470 crore and hire over 15,000 people in the current fiscal to support its expansion plans.

The insurer is also expecting a huge jump in its first year premium collections in the current fiscal. It is eyeing new business worth Rs 365 crore in 2010-11, compared to Rs 166 crore in the last fiscal, Aegon Religare Life Insurance CEO Rajiv Jamkhedkar told reporters through video conferencing.

"We plan to invest Rs 450-Rs 470 crore in the current financial year. We basically infuse on a quarter-to-quarter basis," Jamkhedkar said.

The company, which started operations in August, 2008, has a capital base of Rs 570 crore.

He further said that company plans to hire over 15,000 people this fiscal, including 13,000 agents and around 2,000 employees.

"We would take our employees strength from 1,900 to 3,800-3,900 by end of this fiscal, total number of life advisors from 7,000 to 20,000 and the number of relationship managers would increase from 300 to 1,100," Jamkhedkar added.

Aegon Religare Life is a three-way joint venture between the Hague-based Aegon, financial services group Religare and media house Bennett, Coleman and Company.

Answering a query whether the turf war between market regulator SEBI and insurance watchdog IRDA has impacted its business, Jamkhedkar said,"I don't think it has been impacted," he said, adding that the company's product suit is full and it has no plans to launch any ULIP product in the near future.

At the end of the last fiscal, ULIPs comprised around 75 per cent of the total business of Aegon Religare, which it plans to reduce to 65 per cent by end of 2010-11.

Last month, SEBI banned 14 life insurance companies, including Aegon Religare, from raising funds through unit- linked insurance policies, which invest the money collected in equity and debt markets. However, IRDA asked the insurance companies to do business as usual.

After SEBI and IRDA came out with conflicting orders with each other, the Finance Ministry intervened and persuaded the two to seek a legally binding mandate from court on jurisdiction over the ULIPs.

Following that, SEBI in a fresh order said that no insurance firm should issue any fresh unit-linked insurance products (ULIP). ULIPs constitute more than half of the total business of the life insurance industry.

Jamkhedkar said the company expects to achieve break even in 2015 and would be launching a health product in two months' time.