LIC agents will don a new look soon

The agent from India's largest life insurance company, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) will soon don a new look as the insurance company is now focusing on changing its government company image from a modern corporate image.

Kannan M, senior divisional manager, LIC, Ahmedabad, told Business Standard Gujarat will soon have about 1,000 Customer Relation Manager (CRM) donned as a corporate executive.

The insurance company is emphasising on changing the image of its agents due to increasing competition from private insurance companies. LIC had observed that the private insurance company's agents are better equipped with laptops, and provide power point presentations to its prospective customers and are dressed in an executive style.

Now, even LIC agent too will get a makeover. They will be designated "" 'Customer Relation Manager', instead of the age-old designation of 'LIC Agent'.

They will storm the insurance market with a better image of the company.

The major focus will on improving the lethargic government image of LIC into a modern and corporate image.

"Last year we had identified 10 people for training as CRM and this year we will have another 110 people trained as CRM," informs Kannan.

It is a one week training provided by the LIC at its Pune facility. "We are in process of conducting interview and selecting another 1,000 people that will be designated as CRM," said Kannan. The customer relation manager will also be provided with premium collection electronic device.

Speaking on the company's target in Gujarat, Kannan, said as of August 31 of fiscal 2007-08, the targeted policy is 2.22 million out of which 36.5 per cent had been achieved.

While the new premium target is Rs 3,040 crore, of which 27.8 percent had been achieved till August 31.

Last financial year, LIC achieved policy target were 16,46,590 and it collected premium of Rs 1,949 crore. This year the company's target is doubled compared to last year.

LIC has seven divisions in Gujarat, namely, Bhavnagar, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, Ahmedabad, Gandhinagar and Nadiad. In Ahmedabad division, LIC had achieved 35 per cent of its targeted policies of 4.36 lakh.

By the end of this September, it will achieve another 15 per cent of its targeted policies. While out of the targeted premium collection of new business of Rs 679 crore, it had already achieved 23 per cent of the set target.

Last financial year, in Ahmedabad in all 385,679 policies were completed with growth rate of 20 per cent and collected Rs 465.76 crore first premium. The Ahmedabad division had settled 171,557 maturity claims and 5,853 death claims.