LIC sees 15% premium growth in Vizag division

The Visakhapatnam division of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is expecting a 15 per cent growth in first premium collection this financial year.

The public sector life insurer will introduce a new policy called ‘LIC Pension Plus’ from Thursday, according to D Nageswara Rao, senior divisional manager, LIC (Visakhapatnam division).

“This year, we are targeting Rs 420 crore in new premiums as against Rs 367 crore registered in the preceding year. As on date, we have sold 134,000 polices and collected Rs 153 crore in new premium, which are 24 per cent and 36 per cent of our targets for current year respectively,” Rao told media persons here on Wednesday, adding that and the new policy would significantly add to its new premium collection.

Out of 450,000 policies sold in the last fiscal, about 29 per cent were Jeevan Saral and 23 per cent were Jana Raksha. This year too, the corporation was expecting a majority share for these policies, he said.

In selling group insurance policies, this division was always at the forefront thanks to Visakhapatnam Steel Plant and Visakhapatnam Port, he said.

“In 2009-10, we had targeted Rs 250 crore premium from selling group insurance polices. As against this, we collected Rs 300 crore. For the current year, we are aiming for Rs 350 crore, and have collected Rs 200 crore as of today,” Rao said, adding that by March 2011, the insurer would cross the target by collecting more than Rs 350 crore.

LIC’s market share in Vizag division is in the 75-80 per cent range, he said.