Aviva to unveil new insurance products

Aviva Life Insurance, the joint venture between Aviva Plc of UK and India's Dabur Group, is planning an aggressive expansion in the country as it wants to increase the number of its branches from 112 to 191 in the next one year.

Aviva Life's managing director Bert Paterson said on Tuesday that the company would increase its sales force from the present 13,500 to 31,000 by the end of 2007.

Paterson said the company was also planning to introduce new insurance products to address the specific needs of target customers.

"One of them will be a unit linked insurance plan," Paterson said, without giving any details of the rest of the products. "A few products have been submitted to the regulator, and they will be introduced in the following few months."

Paterson said the company had sold 2,00,000 policies this year till the end of October and the number of policies it sold since inception is 4,15,000.

According to Paterson, there are 300 million people in India who have the means to buy insurance policies but haven't bought it.

The market is thus huge for all to tap.

According to him, Aviva Life has a market share of about 5.7 per cent.

Paterson was here to announce 'Walkathon', the company's corporate social responsibility initiative being undertaken in co-operation with the Concern of India Foundation.

The event has a 5-km walk on December 10, in which locals would be encouraged to participate, he said.