'Top 50 districts have seven life insurance agents for 1,000 people'

However, bottom 120 districts have average of 0.7 agent licenses per thousand people

The top 50 districts in the country have seven agent licences for 1,000 people, according to a Insurance Information Bureau of India (IIB) report on the spread of life insurance agents across India.

The report, however, pointed that the bottom 120 districts in India had an average of 0.7 agent licences for 1,000 people. More than half of the 120 districts are in the East and North-east regions, with another one-third coming from the North. The national average stands at 3.15 licences for 1,000 people.

“Agency penetration of bottom 120 districts of the country is less than one-fourth of the national average,” said the report. Here, agent penetration means the number of valid life insurance agency licences for 1,000 people.

In its report, IIB pointed that while there were about 3.7 million licensed agents in the country, the number of active agents was about 2.4 million.

Region-wise, West India has the highest presence of agents, followed by the South. The East stands last in this aspect, the report noted.

According to the report, in terms of state-wise averages, the states with relatively higher gross domestic product (GDP) ratio have fared better than the rest.

States such as Kerala, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra, Delhi and Chandigarh are on the top, while Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and some North-eastern states are at the bottom of the list.