IndiaFirst Life Insurance to infuse Rs 120 crore

IndiaFirst Life Insurance Company Ltd, a joint venture of the Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and UK-based Legal & General, is planning to infuse around Rs 120 crore capital this fiscal. The proposed infusion is to support the company’s Financial Planning Centres (FPCs) in various parts of the country and to meet its solvency capital requirements.

After launching its first FPC in Chennai, P Nandagopal, managing director and chief executive officer, IndiaFirst Life Insurance said, “There will be a capital infusion of Rs 120 crore in this quarter of the fiscal to meet our solvency capital requirements and to set up the FPCs. With this, our total capital infusion will be around Rs 550 crore.”

So far, it has infused Rs 430 crore in two phases, first with Rs 300 crore and later with Rs 130 crore. The capital infusion would be from the promoter bankers, he added. Public sector banks, Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank hold around 44 per cent and 30 per cent of the company, respectively, while UK-based risk, wealth and investment company Legal & General has the rest of 26 per cent stake in FirstLife Insurance.

Meanwhile, the company launched its first FPC in Chennai, today, and plans to set up a total of 12 centers in various major cities in the country in next two to three months. It would offer a range of services including new business application processing, policy servicing request processing, advisor licensing processing, advisor and sales training, claim intimation processing and document collection and record management for business applications.

In the next two to three months, the PFCs would be set up in cities including New Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hydrabad, Kolkata, Pune, Ahmedabad, Lucknow, Jaipur, Indore and Kochi. Over a period of next four to five years, it has plans to set up a total of 100 FCPs across the nation.

“These centres are to explain our customers the pluses and minuses of each product. We will ensure that each of the new customers is aware of the policies before they buy the product,” said Nandagopal.

With the launch of FPCs, the company expects its advisors to contribute 30-40 per cent of the business over a period of 3-4 years. It is also expecting to increase the number of licensed advisors from current 350 to 1,000 in next 3-4 months and 5000 by end of the year.

During the fiscal year ended March 31, 2011, the company has collected a premium of Rs 704 crore and plans to double it in the present fiscal. Currently the insurer has around 200,000 individual customers and 1.2 million customers for group insurance.

It is looking at a 10 per cent penetration into the total 50 million customers in both the Banks through bankassurance in next two years.

The company, which offers protection and savings products at present, would launch investment and health plans in next three to six months. It would also offer pension plans shortly and has plans to launch around 6 products in the current fiscal year, he added.