SBI Life Maha Anand ULIP – Review
SBI Life has recently launched SBI Life Maha Anand — a unit linked (ULIP), non participating insurance plan. It is an simple and affordable scheme which does not require any medical examination, offers flexibility to increase investments of policyholders through top-ups and liquidity through partial withdrawals.
Under the scheme, a policyholder needs to choose premium amount and policy term. The premium after deduction of premium allocation charges will be invested into funds chosen by policyholder. On maturity accumulated fund value will paid and in case of unfortunate event of death, the nominee will receive higher of fund value or sum assured.
The minimum entry age is 0 years whereas maximum is 55 years. The maximum maturity age is 65 age. The payment mode of premium is yearly, half yearly, quarterly and monthly. The minimum premium amount is Rs 6000 (yearly), Rs 3000 (half yearly), Rs 1500 (quarterly) and Rs 500 (monthly). While the maximum premium amount is Rs 30,000 (yearly), Rs 15,000 (half yearly), Rs 7500 (quarterly) and Rs 2500 (monthly). The policy term under this scheme is 10 years, 15 years and 20 years.
Under the scheme, partial withdrawal is possible only after completion of 5 policy years to meet any sudden or unforeseen expenses. The 3 investment fund options available under the scheme are Equity Fund, Optimiser Fund and Bond Fund.
Bharti AXA to launch micro-health insurance
Bharti AXA General Insurance, a private insurance sector player, plans to launch micro-health insurance to explore the rural market. For this, the company has tied with rural co-operative banks. Further, it is in talks with micro-finance institutions and non-government organisations.
Under health insurance, the insurer plans to improve its premium income from the present level of 5% to 20% through launch of new policies. Currently 40% of its premium income consists of motor portfolio and rest belongs to other segments.
LIC introduces – Gold club membership for its customers
Life insurance major, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will be introducing Gold club membership for customers paying premium of more than Rs.25,000 per annum. Further in order to become Gold Club Member, one should hold minimum 5 LIC polices for at least seven years. There should be no premium payment lapse.
LIC’s Coimbatore Division has further introduced a scheme under which top performing development agents will be promoted as Senior Business Associate (SBA).
A SBA office offers facilities such as payment of premiums and deposits for new policies, renewals, income tax certificates for premiums paid, loan quotations, policy revival quotations and status reports.
IRDA to define pre-existing illness for Customer’s benefit
Indian regulators always wake up after consumer complain and shout of injustice. Likewise, IRDA is no exception.
located at Mumbai and Thane have observed a surge in disputes over medical insurance claims because insurance companies are rejecting claims on the basis of ‘pre-existing illnesses’.
As per the regulation, when an applicant takes a medical insurance policy, he has to submit his medical records, details of ailments, diseases, diagnosis and hospitalisation for the previous four years. But according to insurance companies, applicants do not disclose the details of his ailments and his insurance claim is rejected at the time of submission of the medical evidences.
Therefore in order to solve the rising rate of rejection of insurance claims, IRDA will come out will uniform definition of pre-existing illnesses that will be binding on all companies.
Birla Sun Life to launch new term insurance plan
Birla Sun Life Insurance, a private insurance company, is planning to launch a new term insurance plan for people with healthy lifestyles. The term policy offers only life protection cover for a fixed period.
Till date, an insurer used to load the premium if the policyholder was suffering from smoking or drinking addiction, blood pressure, diabetes or obesity. Birla Sun Life will be launching first of it kind of policy that offers rewards to those with good family health history and healthy behaviour, with a discount.
Normally in life insurance, underwriting process involves collecting all bodily fluids and testing them at one end, and asking the prospect to blow on a mirror at the other end. But for the proposed term policy the underwriting process will not involve such procedure. With new mortality tables will be coming up in near future, life insurers are also coming up with innovative polices.
Globally, such kinds of term policies are available where policyholder is offered discounts who go to gymnasiums regularly.
Future Generali launches Future Anand
Future Generali India Life Insurance, part of Future Group, has launched Future Anand that offers combination benefit endowment cum whole life plan. The policy also offers choice of short term and long-term payment terms ranging between 8 to 20 years. It offers death benefit which means if policy holder dies after premium paying term the company will pay 125% of sum assured, plus terminal bonuses, if any.
The policy also has a special feature called Premium Holiday “Auto Cover” wherein one can choose not to pay premium after three years for up to 2 years while the life cover continues. Future Anand can be availed by persons aged 12-62 years, at a minimum sum assured of Rs 1 lakh per policy.
Future Generali is currently active through 93 branches across 84 cities and over 25000 licensed advisors. Besides this large network of agents & branches, Future Generali will also actively offer their Insurance solutions across 192 Future Group malls. In FY 2008-09, the company earned a premium income of Rs 155 crore.
Max Vijay crosses a sales target of 30,000 policies
One of the leading insurance companies in India, Max New York Liferecently had formed a tie up with its corporate agent PeerlessDevelopers to distribute Max Vijay — a policy for the underserved. MaxVijay has recorded sales figures of over 30,000 policies in such asmall time frame. On an average, daily 1,000 Max Vijay policies aresold.
Max Vijay is an innovative insurance cum saving businessmodel for underserved. This product is been sold through Peerless’ 102offices spread across in 21 states.
With such a overwhelming response, Peerless Developers has set a target of over 5 lakh policies in the first year of its tie up.
Birla Sun Life aspires to emerge amongst the top 3 life insurance companies
Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI) a part of Aditya Birla Group hasexpressed its aspiration to emerge as amongst the top 3 insurancecompanies in India. For this, company plans to launch contemporaryproducts. It also plans to expand its network of branches in India.
InFY 2008-09, company stood at the fifth position having a 9% marketshare (amongst private players) in terms of weighted new receivedpremium (WNRP). The company recorded a rise by 44% in WNRP in FY2008-09, thus to achieve second highest growth rate amongst top tenlife insurance company in India.
Presently, BSLI has network of600 branches. The company has made efforts to strengthen itsinformation technology (IT) platform to support growth.
Religare inks pact with Swiss Re to foray into health insurance
Religare Enterprises has formed joint venture with Swiss Reinsurance Company (Swiss Re) to incorporate a health insurance company in India. Religare expects to emerge as one of the leading players in health insurance segment in India.
Swiss Re is one of the world’s leading and diversified reinsurers. This investment reflects its commitment towards the development of health insurance business in emerging markets such as India.
This JV will strengthen Religare’s diversified portfolio and bolster its presence in the insurance domain. On the other hand, Swiss Re will be a minority shareholder and will seek to provide its actuarial, risk management and underwriting expertise to the new venture.
The joint venture company is expected to become operational by 2010.
National gets warning on Bhai Ghanya Sehat Sewa Scheme
The Punjab and Haryana High Court issued warning against National Insurance Company (NICL) for attempting to back out from its contractual obligation of providing medical reimbursement to more than 8,00,000 beneficiaries of the Bhai Ghanya Sehat Sewa Scheme under the sponsorship of Bhai Ghanya Trust.
The trust was set up by the Punjab government for implementing the healthcare scheme for the poor in the state.
The court has also ordered NICL to ensure that the medical reimbursement services are not disrupted. The matter has been adjourned to May 27, 2008 as the counsel for NICL sought time.
The trust had appointed NICL after it emerged as the lowest bidder in a process for selecting an insurance company for providing health insurance cover and paid Rs 24 crore as premium to the insurer.
NICL had quoted an insurance premium of Rs 1,291 per main member. Meanwhile, the insurer already faced medi-claim reimbursement up to Rs 20 crore. Fearing heavy losses, NICL issued a termination notice on April 8, 2009, to the trust.
The group medi-claim policy is valid till September 2009.
Besides, NICL also issued a demand notice asking the trust to pay premium over and the amount earlier agreed at the time of execution of the service level agreement.
The trust pleaded that it had paid the premium as per the contractual obligation and the rate quoted by NICL during the bidding process.