LIC meets 51% of new premium income target

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), India’s largest life insurer, said the company would be able to meet the current financial year’s target of Rs 48,000 crore in new business premium (NBP) income. The corporation has already met 51 per cent of its target by December-end.

DK Mehrotra, managing director, LIC, who was here to inaugurate a sales training centre of LIC said the corporation had already collected Rs 25,000 crore by December-end.

“We already achieved our 51 per cent of the target. The remaining target will be achieved in the last three months of the financial year, which is peak period for any insurer,” he said.

LIC’s market share is around 65-66 per cent in the life insurance business, and it would focus on training to maintain it. “We currently invest around Rs 60-70 crore each year to train our agents and will look at increasing this budget,” he said. Currently, the corporation had around 14 lakh agents across the country and would add 20 per cent more, said Mehrotra.

To stay competitive in the insurance business, one of the key focus area and differentiator were knowledge and empowerment of agents, he added. Currently, the corporation has 33 sales training centres, including the new centre at Chennai.

“Training would also help the corporation to bring down attrition, which is currently around 10-12 per cent,” he added.

To boost sales, the public sector life insurer recently adopted a direct marketing model, said Mehrotra. “We started the model three months back and so far we got good response and will look at expanding it,” he said. The corporation has 500 people working under this model.

Commenting on the credit card business, Mehrotra said, the corporation was planning a pan-India presence by the end of December 2010 with more offerings, including health insurance, using the card for any payment and would also offer loan service. As of December, the corporation has offered 10,000 credit cards. “We don’t want to go aggressive at this point of time, before we offer all the service,” he said.