SBI Life tops the list of private insurers for new business premium: IRDA
SBI Life Insurance has topped the list of private life insurers in terms of new business premium for the month of March 2009, as per an IRDA report.
The company attained Rs 1,038 crore of new business premium in March 2009.
Individual non-single premium contributed the most, almost 54%, to the business in the month of March.
The insurer also recorded Rs 258 crore from SBI Smart ULIP, within one month of its launch, a contribution of almost 25% of total business for the month.
Max New York Life adopts new channels for distributing Max Vijay
Max New York Life Insurance Company (MNYL) is planning to reach out to the uninsured population through the unorganized kirana shops to sell its recently launched insurance cum saving plan — Max Vijay.
The insurer is implementing a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh covering 30 districts and 100 retailers including grocery shops and other mini-retail outlets and plans to implement it across the country next year.
It has entered into a tie-up with distributors in each district who will choose these retail outlets.
Training will be imparted to the entire distributor’s sales person and the shopkeeper who are certified and qualified according to the regulator’s norms and will work like a referral model.
The company has also entered into a tie-up with Pearless General Finance and Investment Company to market the scheme.
The company aims to attain a premium of Rs 300 crore in the first year over the next 2-3 years by selling Max Vijay.
Star Union Dai-ichi Life to infuse Rs 850 cr in five years
Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance is planning to infuse an additional capital of Rs 850 crore in the next five years to expand its business operations for insurance products.
Star Union Dai-ichi Life is a joint venture between Bank of India, Union Bank and Dai-chi Mutual Life.
The insurer plans to add Rs 100 crore this month, taking the total initial investment to Rs 250 crore.
The company is hoping to market its products through 5,000 branches across the country. It currently sells through 1,500 branches.
The insurer is also planning to introduce three new schemes in the current fiscal, targeting the uninsured in the unorganized sectors in the rural and semi-rural areas. It has so far introduced six schemes
Health Insurance Council India – Insurers come together
Insurance companies in the health sector have come together to form a Health Insurance Council to standardize practices across companies, a move that would help the policy holders to get better service and for clearing all the hurdles of growth.
Along with representatives from insurance companies, the proposed body will also have representatives from third-party administrators (TPAs) – the entities which handle claim settlement work – and from hospitals.
Differences between the three major players in the health insurance business had hindered the growth in this segment, with penetration levels remaining low as much as 14% as of end-December last year.
The body is to be headed by the secretary general of life and general insurance sectors alternately for a period of two years.
Premium collection of general insurers decline by 2.33% in Feb
The non-life insurers witnessed a 2.33% decline in their gross premium income collection in February 2009 as compared to 6% in January 2009.
High discounts, ongoing economic slowdown and the cut-throat competition are considered to be the reason for this decline.
Public sector general insurer National Insurance recorded a 10.43% fall in growth, while New India, Oriental Insurance and United Insurance recorded a growth of 3.05%, 7% and 10.11% respectively.
Private sector insurers like Bajaj Allianz and ICICI Lombard recorded a decline of 14.21% and 9.96% respectively.
Non-life insurance businesses were growing at a 10% rate since the time of detariffing in 2007. But difficulties in motor insurance sector coupled with majority of the companies postponing their expansion plans and reducing businesses related to fire and engineering policies have hit the insurers hard.
The insurer also resorted to offering high discounts in a move to expand their customer base as the premium collection decelerated over the last few months.
ICICI Prudential to expand service in health insurance sector
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance is planning to expand its service in the health insurance segment, company officials announced.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance’s Managing Director Shikha Sharma said that besides huge growth potential in this sector the competition is also less as there are fewer players in health insurance as compared to life insurance.
This prompted the insurer to step up its service in this area. Sharma also said that the company’s recently-launched health plans had received good response from the market
IRDA may allow insures to launch Universal Life Policy
The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) is likely to allow the life insurers to introduce the Universal Life Policy (ULP) which allows the customers to change the policy amount after buying the policy for a different amount.
The regulator is currently studying the UK model of this policy which is at the front position in this segment. This policy is expected to offer the customers flexibility in terms of both the premium paid and sum assured.
In UK, the ULP policyholder is free to change terms of the amount of death benefit at his convenience.
The policy also offers lapse protection, which ensures that the policyholder will continue to enjoy the benefits as long as the premiums are paid regularly.
The customer can also make a choice in the timings of the premium payment. The premium can either be paid at regular intervals or in one stroke. However the amount of premium to be paid cannot be changed.
Another feature of this policy is that it will not get cancelled automatically even if the customer fails to pay the premiums.
ULP also helps the customer to raise finances by allowing him to borrow money from the insurer in the form of surrender value and loans
HDFC Ergo launches cover for exclusions
HDFC Ergo has launched covering exclusions for a slightly higher premium after the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (IRDA) allowed partial freedom. This is the first time a general insurer is offering cover for exclusions.
Exclusions refer to those developments that are not compensated by the insurance companies. These will be clearly mentioned in policy wordings of any insurance policy.
For example, until now in case of fire in a factory, insurers did not pay claims for the equipment that caused it, Instead it paid only for the damages caused to other equipments and premises due to the fire.
However with exclusions being included, the insurers will now offer cover for equipments causing fire for an extra premium.
HDFC Ergo is a joint venture between financing major HDFC and Germany’s Ergo Group. Ergo holds 26% stake in the joint venture and the remaining is held by HDFC.
ICICI Prudential Life inks pact with PNB for premium payments
Private insurance major ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has entered into an agreement with public sector lending major – Punjab National Bank (PNB) – to facilitate premium payments through the bank.
This is the first of its kind tie-up between a private sector insurer and a state-run bank.
As per the deal, the customers of ICICI Prudential can make their premium payments in cash, cheque, demand draft or direct debit through over 10,000 touch points of PNB across India.
Initially the service will be offered in five states of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Haryana and West Bengal and would be extended to the other states later.
PNB had recently entered into a bancassurance agreement with insurance major Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) wherein the lender would sell insurance LIC policies through its branches.
LIC parks Rs 40,000 cr in equity this fiscal
India’s largest insurer – Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) – has invested around Rs 40,000 crore in equity this fiscal, exceeding the total equity investments made in the last financial year.
Every year LIC invests around 8-9% of its total premium collection in the stock markets, majority being in the banking sector.
This year the state owned insurer picked up a 2.11% stake in State Bank of India (SBI) for Rs 1,484.12 crore, taking its total shareholding to 9.16% (4.94 crore shares).
The insurer hiked its stake in Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) by 2.86%, in Cummins India by 2.18% and increased its stake in ICICI Bank to 9.38%.
It also upped its stake in various other state-run banks like Union Bank of India (2.18 per cent), Oriental Bank of Commerce (2.60 per cent), Bank of India (1.63 per cent), Canara Bank (1.21 per cent) and Punjab National Bank (0.38 per cent).