For LIC, Jeevan Akshay a cash cow

Driven by robust sales of the single-premium immediate annuity plan Jeevan Akshay, the national life insurer LIC has so far seen a healthy 81.6 per cent jump in first premium income for the current fiscal over the same period a year ago and is also set to breach the full-year target.
Till January 15, the Corporation notched up a first premium income of Rs 27,350.67 crore for FY2016-17, an LIC spokesperson told PTI.
The official also said the insurance behemoth has set an annual revenue target from first year premium income at Rs 31,000 crore for this financial year.
As far as the zones are concerned, three of the eight zones of the Corporation -- South, East and West -- have already achieved their first premium target for the current fiscal by mid-January.

It can be noted that for the past few years, single premium products were a runaway success for LIC. In 2015-16, LIc had netted a first premium income of Rs 25,737.90 crore, the official added.
This massive sales come in spite of the fact that LIC's sales in terms of volume in the reporting period remained tepid at 1.24 crore policies, which is only around 60 per cent of 2.05 crore polices it had sold in the entire fiscal of 2016, the official said.

The Corporation had in November announced that the annual average returns from Jeevan Akshay would be come down by 50 bps to 7 per cent from December 1 due to the falling interest rates following the note ban. This worked as a trigger as there was a rush among the investors to buy the retirement plan.

According to the LIC official, growth in first premium income during the reporting period has gone up mainly due to good sale of the single premium plan.
"It's basically the single premium policies which have helped us achieve higher growth rates in first premium income. Up to January 15, we have seen a whopping 167.75 per cent growth in the single premium segment," he said.
The Corporation has netted Rs 13,739.73 crore in first premium from Jeevan Akshay plan alone during the period. LIC had procured Rs 4,365.15 crore under Jeevan Akshay-VI in fiscal 2016, over three-fold growth.
However, it has not done well on the front of Ulip during the reporting period. "The Ulip segment is not performing well. We have minuscule market-linked business this year," the official said.