LIC seeks presence in malls

Satellite branches will not be more than 600-800 sq ft of swank, modern office space.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is all set for a makeover to woo the youth section in a major way as it enters its 50th year in September.

The state-owned insurer will set up satellite branches in malls and modern-looking banks across the country, where the footfall would essentially be that of the youth. "Swank, sleek, the modern look that will appeal to the youth and high networth individuals," said A K Shukla, chairman, LIC.

With private players snapping at its heels, it wants to change the impression that it is meant only for the older generation.

By setting up branches in malls and banks, LIC hopes to enter a new arena for hawking its products where proper surveys and due diligence exercises have already been carried out by the shops and banks on the customer profile.

"We aim to lease the space from banks. This will serve a dual purpose as we can immediately deposit the premium collection," said Shukla.

This will also give a new twist to bancassurance as LIC would not necessarily have a tie up with these banks, but would capitalise on the customers walking into the bank branches to sell them a life insurance policy or cater to their requests.

The satellite branches will not be more than 600-800 sq ft of swank, modern office space, fully automated with at most four LIC staff, including marketing officers, said Shukla.

To start with, LIC will set up 29 such satellite branches this year in major cities of Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Kolkata. These satellite operations would be networked to the main branch in these cities.

The establishment of satellite branches is the first experiment being undertaken to transform the state corporation, a decision that was taken at the last central management committee meeting on June 24.

LIC has 2,048 branches across the country, many of which tend to be concentrated in a few areas and not well dispersed across cities.

"We have 73 branches in Mumbai, but we have failed to grow with the city. We do not have any branches in Malabar Hill to cater to high networth individuals. Nor do we have offices at Worli or Navi Mumbai despite the city having developed extensively in these areas," pointed out Shukla.

Lower Parel or Worli today houses a huge number of malls, well frequented by youth. Similarly, with Navi Mumbai having developed as an IT hub, it has become home for a large young population, today working in BPOs and drawing attractive salaries.