Tata AIA Life sees senior level exits

Tata AIA Life Insurance is seeing attrition at senior management levels. According to sources, about five people from the senior management team are in the process of leaving the organisation. The company has about 13 people at senior vice president positions.

According to industry sources Mitali Dalal, Senior Vice President, Vikas Bagga - Senior Vice President & Head of North Zone, Natasha Joshi, Senior Vice President & Head of South Zone, S Bharat, Vice President & Head of Strategy and M Anand, Vice President are quitting from the private life insurance company.

"Like every growing organisation, people movement is a regular part of Tata AIA Life Insurance," said the company in a reply to a query sent by Business Standard. The company has about 4000 employees on its roll and has recently appointed Mukesh Dhawan as the Deputy CEO and Chief Distribution Officer. Dhawan is responsible for creating and implementing new strategies in marketing, product development and distribution.

In 2010 too, the private life insurers reduced headcount by 27% to achieve profitability. Tata AIA Life Insurance (which was then called Tata AIG Life Insurance) had seen a 33% reduction in headcount in 2010-11 compared to 2009-10. The company had then said that this was because they were reworking their business model to suit the regulations which came into force in September 2010. As part of this strategy, they did not fill all the positions which became vacant mostly due to natural attrition.

In September 2010, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) capped the charges and commissions on unit-linked products (Ulips), as a result of which, the average commission in Ulips as a percentage to premiums collected fell to 4% in 2011-12, from nearly 10% in 2009-10.

The company has also seen a drop in premium collection by 44.3% for the period from April to September 2012, compared to the premiums collected in April to September 2011.  According to data available with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda), the company collected Rs 261.8 crore premium for the April to September 2012 period. In the same period, the private life insurance industry also saw a drop in new premium collection for the April to September 2012 period by 5.7%, compared to the same period last year.