LIC to up agent headcount

Corporation targets 40% premium from unit-linked insurance policies

Life Insurance Corporation of India (south-central zone) will be recruiting a minimum of 50,000 agents this year. This apart, it is targeting to earn 40 per cent of its premium this year from unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) as compared to around 30 per cent in the last financial year.

This strategy is targeted towards retaining its marketshare in the presence of private sector companies. While LIC's marketshare with regard to premium collection is around 78 per cent, it is 91 per cent with regard to policies.

Speaking to Business Standard, T Chattopadhyay, zonal manager, LIC (south-central zone), said, "Because of the development officers' protest against the new incentive scheme floated by the corporation in September last year, the zone lost around 8,000 agents. We have, therefore, been asked to increase the agent headcount by at least 30 per cent to ramp up our business." The insurance behemoth currently has around 1,55,000 agents in this zone.

"We will also be targeting to earn 40 per cent of our premium income from ULIPs this year. This is because, these plans are very popular and if we need to retain our marketshare, we need to tap this potential," he added.

The corporation already has ULIPs in the form of Future Plus and Bima Plus. It will be introducing another ULIP in July this year.

"Agents are not very keen to sell ULIPs as the commission that they get from such plans is two per cent on single premium policies and five per cent on non-single ones. For conventional products, they receive 25 per cent commission plus a bonus of 10 per cent. The agents, however, do not realise that they can earn more commission on ULIPs as the premium collection can be more in this case," Chattopadhyay said.

"We will, therefore, be focusing on training agents in this regard. Though conventional products have to be sold, ULIPs cannot be ignored," he added.

"There will be greater thrust on alternate channels too. We recently tied up with Andhra Bank and they have targeted to contribute Rs 100 crore to our premium income," he said, adding that while they sold around 40 lakh policies last year in this zone, this year they are targeting 55 lakh, a jump of around 37 per cent.