Bajaj Allianz pips ICICI Pru in premium income stakes

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, for the first time since its inception in December 2000, has failed to record the highest collection of monthly premium among private players in September 2005.

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance has emerged as the fastest growing private life insurer. The insurer's first year premium income in September 2005 was Rs 214.42 crore against ICICI Prudential's Rs 195.35 crore.

Bajaj Allianz's first year premium income in the first half of 2005-06 rose by 237.80 per cent year to Rs 643.59 crore. Whereas ICICI Prudential reported a year-on-year growth of 71.39 per cent during the period with first year premium income of Rs 819.75 crore. 

THE BREAK-UP
(in Rs cr)	Apr-Oct 2005	Growth	Market Share
ICICI Prudential	998.89	75.75%	7.26%
Bajaj Allianz	817.53	247.33%	5.94%
LIC	10,160.40	26.91%	73.82%

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance's chief financial officer, Sandeep Batra, said "Our market share could fluctuate. We don't look at private sector leadership only. We are more interested in our share of the total industry (including Life Insurance Corporation)."

Bajaj Allianz's share in first year premium income in the first half of 2005-06 was 5.68 per cent, up from 3.39 in 2004-05.

ICICI Prudential's market share during April-September 2005 was 7.24 per cent against 6.25 per cent in 2004-05.

The Pune-based Bajaj Allianz has gained from investments it made in expanding its reach to far off towns.

It has increased its offices to 560 from 200 at the end of March 2005 and increased the employees to 8,000 from 3,000.

"We have spread our reach to places where private sector competition is absent. Of the 560 offices, 450 are in small towns where the only alternative is the LIC," said Bajaj Allianz CEO Sam Ghosh.

Bajaj Allianz has now offices in places such as Balasore, Darjeeling, Gangtok, Shirdi and Silchar. The life insurer will extend its presence to 750 smaller towns by June.

"We will have new premium income of over Rs 2,000 crore in 2005-06 against Rs 900 crore in 2004-05," Ghosh said.

Bajaj Allianz now also has 75,000 agents across the country against ICICI Prudential's less than 70,000 agents.