Aegon Religare to infuse Rs 70 crore additional capital by June

To meet the solvency requirement as per the IRDA norms, improve information technology infrastructure and human resources development, AEGON Religare Life Insurance Company, a joint venture between AEGON and Religare Enterprises Ltd. (REL), will infuse Rs 70 crore additional capital by June this year.

This will take the total capital base of the company to Rs 370 crore. It also plans to infuse additional capital to the tune of Rs 80 to Rs 150 crore depending on the business prospects in the coming months, a senior executive of the company said.

“ We intend to infuse additional capital of Rs 70 crore by June this year and depending on the business prospects in the coming months, we may further infuse Rs 80 to Rs 130 crore after that ”, Yateesh Srivastava, chief marketing officer (CMO), AEGON Religare Life Insurance Company said.

The company, which started its operations from August 2008 in the country, aims at a total premium collection of Rs 70 crore by June 2009. It has already achieved a business of about Rs 40 crore till date. It is operating through 49 branches across the country including a branch at Bhubaneswar. However, the company will focus on improving the productivity of the existing branches instead of opening up of more branches.

As part of its expansion, it has chalked out plans for recruiting 12,000 to 14,000 agents over a period of one year. Out of it, more than 300 agents will be appointed in Orissa. The number of employees of the company is also likely to increase to 2200 to 2500 by the end of 2009-10 from 1250 at present. Stating that each branch of the company has been asked to work for achieving breakeven within 3 years, Srivastava said, the company is focusing on the long term savings and protection plans.

He claimed that AEGON Religare Life Insurance is getting excellent response for its pension plan launched in January this year and 25 percent of the total new business premium in February came from the pension premiums. This is further expected to grow to 28 percent by the end of March, he added.

On future product launches by the company, Srivastava said, the company is exploring the possibility of launching a health insurance product in the second quarter of the 2009-10.“ At the moment we are working on the secondary reserach and subsequently, primary consumer research will be taken up. We are also looking at modes of distribution for the product and hope to file for the new product in the second quarter of the next fiscal”, he added.

While Bhubaneswar branch is contributing 3 percent of total business of the company, the contribution of the eastern business to the total business was 21 percent.