Exide Life Insurance bets big on long-tenure insurance products

Average policy duration is 25 years; company to launch new corporate campaign on Monday

Private life insurance company Exide Life Insurance is betting big on the long tenure products in its product portfolio.

At a time when life insurance product durations are in the average range of 10-15 years, the company has an average product tenure of 25 years.

Kshitij Jain, managing director and CEO of Exide Life said that there has been focus on the long term traditional product since their target customers are middle and upper middle class segment.

"They may not have an appetite for equity-linked insurance products. Hence, we have had products of 25 years duration which are suitable for us customers. Almost 96% of our products are in the traditional segment due to this focus," he said.

A little more than a year after the ING Group exited the life insurance business in India by selling its 26% stake to Exide Industries, the name of ING Vysya Life Insurance Company Limited was recently changed to Exide Life Insurance Company.

Exide has been a shareholder in ING Life since 2005. It held 50% stake in ING Life Insurance. Subsequently, when ING Group exited the venture, Exide acquired the group's 26% stake; it also bought 16.32% from Hemendra Kothari Group and 7.68% from Enam Group, all for an aggregate consideration of about Rs 550 crore.

Jain explained that on Monday, they would be launching their new brand identity through an advertising campaign. He added that about Rs 10-12 crore has been set aside for the production and media for this campaign on an immediate basis.

While this campaign will introduce the general public to the new brand name, Jain said that existing customers had already been informed about change in the company name and identity.

"In the second phase, we will sensitise customers about our products and product features, along with some elements of customer education," he further said.

Though the company has a bancassurance partnership with ING Vysya Bank, Exide Life has 65% business coming from the agency network. Even within the bank and broker networks, Jain said that the emphasis was to sell long-term protection and savings oriented products.

For FY14, In 2013-14, Exide Life Insurance doubled its profits to Rs 53 crore driven by growth in renewal premiums and improvements in efficiency and product mix. Its total Total assets under management grew 13% to Rs 7,490 crore in 2013-14.

It collected Rs 567.88 crore of new premium for FY14, compared to Rs 638.20 crore in FY13, but its total premium income has grown 5% to Rs 1,830 crore from Rs 1,742 crore in 2012-13.

Exide Life has 35,000 plus life insurance advisors, apart from bancassurance partnership with ING Vysya Bank across 500 plus bank branches.