Bajaj Allianz plans 1,000 virtual sales offices, pilots in 14 locations

Move follows healthy 38% growth in Pune set-up; company to pilot new initiative in 14 sites in Maharashtra

Leading private life insurer Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company Ltd, plans to have 1,000 virtual sales offices in the next 12-18 months.

"We have taken a new initiative of virtual sales office. It is our ability to get to locations where we want to get customers without actually opening a branch. We are piloting the new initiative in 14 locations in Maharashtra,” said Manish Sangal, chief agency officer of the insurance company.

"A device will be handed over to the sales officers where all the services relating to the customers will be done on it. It will be acting as a mobile branch”, he added.

The company will spend Rs 25,000-35,000 on each device. The Pune headquartered  insurer had posted a  growth of 38 per cent  on individual rated new business premium for 2017-18, which  is almost double the industry growth rate of 19 per cent. Bajaj Allianz claims its growth rate was the highest among the top 10 private life insurers in the country.

Sangal said, the company will grow by about 45 per cent in this fiscal on individual rated new business premium in this financial year.  The individual rated new business premium of the Bajaj Allianz was Rs 13.97 billion.

On total new business premium too, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance grew at a much faster pace of 29 per cent in FY18. The insurer plans to grow by 35 per cent in this fiscal.

It plans to add 35,000 new agents in 2018-19. The insurance companies operates with 631 branches, 70,000 agents and has assets under management (AUM) worth Rs 510 billion.

In Odisha, the company had sold 17,018 policies, covering 16,652 lives at the end of last fiscal. The private insurer plans to ramp up agent strength to 10,000 in this fiscal from 6,360 at present.