LIC eyes Rs 14 lakh cr asset size in three years

Looking to capitalise on its vast network of insurance agents, growing by lakhs every year, country's top life insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) expects its asset size to grow by about Rs 6,00,000 crore or 75 per cent in next three years.

This will take the company's asset base, already highest in the country, to between Rs 13,00,000-14,00,000 crore in the three years' time, Life Insurance Corporation Chairman T S Vijayan told PTI.

"We are number one in financial terms with Rs 8,00,000 crore of assets.. Nobody else comes even close... Even banks don't have Rs 8,00,000 crore (assets)," he said.

 

Asked where he sees the company in the next three years, Vijayan said: "In three years, LIC should be handling anywhere between Rs 13-14 lakh crore."

Set up in 1956, the government-run life insurance major had about Rs 8,00,000 crore of assets at the end of last fiscal, or as on March 31, 2008.

To meet this target, LIC is planning to nearly double its field workforce of agents by March 2011, from about Rs 11,93,000 as on March 2008.

"(In) three years, we want to double the number of agents," he said, adding, "last year, we ended with 11 lakh plus agents and we would like to increase it by a minimum 25 per cent by March, 2009. This is a target we have taken ourselves and I think we will be able to do it."

During the current fiscal, LIC has already recruited about two lakh insurance agents across the country, which is more than double of about 90,000 agents hired in the previous fiscal.

Besides, LIC has also hired 4,500 development officers so far in the current fiscal and up to 5,000 new officers could be hired in the next fiscal, he noted.