Bharti AXA Life kicks off India operations

Bharti AXA Life Insurance Company, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and global insurance major AXA, today formally launched its operations in the country, amid plans of the two joint venture partners to foray into general insurance, pensions funds and asset management.

Bharti AXA is the 16th life insurance player in the country. It plans to leverage the existing client and distribution base of mobile services provider, Bharti Airtel, to tap the life insurance market.

"Bharti Airtel has 25 million customers and is adding one million new customers every month. We will deep-dive into the market by tapping this customer base," said Nitin Chopra, chief executive officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, at the inauguration of the company's first office here. Bharti AXA will be recruiting agents and will train them in-house through AXA Academy.

"We plan to invest approximately Rs 500 crore in three years. While we intend to roll out 30 branches by December 2007, we will be supplemented through other (bancassurance) partnerships as well," said Chopra.

The life insurance market in the country is around Rs 1,00,000 crore and is growing at over 40 per cent. It is under-covered and therefore presents huge opportunities for insurance ventures.