Aegon Religare to invest Rs 180cr

In a bid to meet its increasing operational expenses and maintain solvency margins, Aegon Religare Life Insurance Company Limited is planning to infuse a capital investment of Rs 180 crore by March 2010. This is in addition to the Rs 350 crore that the company had already invested since its inception around two years ago.

The investment would be utilised to increase its insurance advisors’ number from the present 5,000 to around 12,000 by the end of March 2010 apart from other expansion plans.

Aegon Religare Life Insurance chief marketing officer Yateesh Srivastava told Business Standard that the company had special focus on Maharashtra, where it wants to have more than 3,500 insurance advisors over the next eight months. Aegon Religare has five offices in Maharashtra – one each at Mumbai, Pune, Navi Mumbai, Nagpur and Nashik.

“We have plans to collect new premiums worth Rs 240 crore by the end of the current financial year. And to support this target, we will have more than 12,000 insurance advisors with us by then. Within Pune, we are looking at having 650 insurance advisors from the present number of 70 by March,” Srivastava added.

The company has three term plans – two unit linked plans and a pension and child plan. “We are looking at launching an annuity scheme and a health insurance product over the next two years. If needed, we might infuse some more capital into the company for this purpose,” he said.