Birla Sun Life To Up Equity Base By Rs 50 Crore This Year

Private sector insurance player Birla Sun Life Insurance Company (BSLI) of the Aditya Birla stable, will enhance its equity base to Rs 450 crore in the next five years. This fiscal, BSLI will enhance the base by Rs 50 crore.

Birla Sun Life has tied up with Citi Bank and Deutsche Bank and is in negotiations with four national public sector banks for selling its 'bancasurance'. BSLI aims to be one of the top three companies in the life insurance business in the next five years.

This the company plans to achieve through the sale of its investment-linked insurance products by leveraging the asset management skill of the promoter company. "We will grow into one of the top three insurance companies in the next five years in new premium written and not on lives covered, although we have our targets in term of lives covered," said chief executive officer Nani B Javeri at a gathering to launch its group super annuation plan in the city today.

 

At present BSLI ranks fifth in terms of premium income, sixth in term of policies written, fourth in terms of sum assured, and tops among seven companies in average premium written.

Meanwhile, the company has targeted its annualised premium income at Rs 215 crore with 90,000 new policies in 2002-03. Number of agents, labelled advisors under the new norms, will grow to 6,500 from the present figure of 2,000.

The company will also enhance its presence to 14 cities from nine by the end of the fiscal. BSLI proposes to increase its branch network to 22 from 12 by the end the year.

Javeri also announced that the company is in the process of launching two new products -- group gratuity and group savings plan in July and October respectively.

Speaking on performance of BSLI in its first years of operation, Javeri said it has surpassed its internal targets on all respects. While it recorded a premium income of Rs 35 crore it covered 19,700 lives.

Sum assured on insurance written was Rs 16,00 crore against targeted Rs 720 crore and its average premium size was Rs 15,800 per policy against a target of Rs 9,000.