Bharti AXA starts ops, plans 30 offices by Dec '07

Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company - a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and global insurance major AXA - will be setting up 30 branches by December 2007. The company kicked off operations by opening its first branch office in Hyderabad today.

Bharti AXA is the 16th life insurance player in India. The Indian life insurance market is estimated to be around Rs 1,00,000 crore, and is growing at more than 40%.

"We plan to invest approximately Rs 500 crore over the next three years. While we intend to roll out 30 branches by December 2007, we will be supplemented through other partnerships as well," Nitin Chopra, chief executive officer of Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company, said.

Bharti AXA has forayed into the life insurance segment with two unit-linked insurance products - Future Confident and Wealth Confident. The company has also filed papers for four other products with Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDA).

With regard to the kind of business that they were expecting from unit-linked products, Chopra said, "As has been the market trend, we see 70-80% of our business coming from this segment."

The company plans to leverage the existing client and distribution base of Bharti Airtel to tap the market. "Bharti Airtel has 25 million customers,  and is adding one million every month. We will deep-dive into the Indian market by tapping this customer base," Chopra said.

Bharti AXA will be recruiting agents in "thousands" and will be training them in-house through AXA Academy.