SBI Life eyes 25% growth in FY19, leans on Ulip, pure protection products

Apart from taking total field staff strength to around 15,000, SBI Life also plans to tie up with commercial banks for bancassurance services

SBI Life Insurance, a JV between State Bank of India and BNP Paribas Cardiff S.A., is targeting to grow its new business premium (NBP) by 25 per cent in 2018-19. The growth will be driven by Ulip and pure protection products.

Speaking to Business Standard after inaugurating the company's new regional office in Chennai, Sanjeev Nautiyal, managing director and CEO, SBI Life Insurance, said that individual new business premium grew 30 per cent in fiscal 2018 to touch Rs 84.1 billion from Rs 64.7 billion for fiscal 2017, adding that the target is to achieve Rs 105 billion in FY19.

Ulip products accounted for 77 per cent in 2016-17 and currently contribute around 73 per cent as the company is cautious in its approach to increase the contribution of pure protection products.

SBI Life Insurance says that in the pure protection profitability is good, though the ticket size is small, Nautiyal said.

He added that the company is planning to bring in a bunch of combo products to contribute to growth.

"We've seen good growth in the new business premium income, at 15 per cent by the end of the first quarter. Going by the business trends, we are confident that growth will be 25 per cent at the end of the fiscal," said Nautiyal.

In order to support the growth, apart from adding around 1,500-2,000 people to take the total field staff strength to around 15,000, SBI Life also plans to tie up with commercial banks for bancassurance services. The number of branches will be increased to around 900 in 2018-19 from 825 currently.

Nautiyal said the claim ratio is around 96.97 per cent currently and by end of the year, it will reach last year's number of 98.41 per cent from 97.98 per cent in 2016-17.

While ruling out any capital infusion in the current fiscal, Nautiyal said the company has enough capital and that its solvency ratio stood at 2.14 per cent at the end of first quarter of the current fiscal, as against 2.11 per cent a year ago.

It may be noted, the regulatory requirement of solvency ratio, an indicator of a company's ability to meet its debt and other obligations, is 1.50 per cent.