After clocking full-year profits for two consecutive fiscals, leading private sector insurer Reliance Life today said it expects to clock much higher profits in the current fiscal 2013-14.
Part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's financial services arm Reliance Capital, RLIC (Reliance Life Insurance Company) registered a net profit of Rs 380 crore for the year ended March 31, 2013 -- marginally higher than Rs 373 crore in the preceding fiscal.
The company had recorded its first full-year net profit in the financial year ended March 31, 2012.
"Though profits of our life insurance business have been flat and new business premium as well as renewals have shrunk, our new business profit margins have grown over 20%.
"This is a positive sign and we expect improved growth in new business premium and renewals in the current fiscal," its parent company Reliance Capital's CEO Sam Ghosh told PTI.
"We are confident that profits in the year ahead will much higher than the last financial year's profits," RelianceLife CEO Anup Rau said.
"Our continued focus on selling more traditional policies, productive agents and quality customer servicing have helped the company maintained profitability. We continue to address the under and un-insured opportunities in medium and smaller towns and cities," he added.
Rau said the company expects a 10% growth in total premium income on the back of growth in regular premium policies and better policy renewals.
The total funds under management of Reliance Life Insurance as on March 31, 2013 stood at Rs. 18,189 crore.
Reliance Life is the only company among the top 10 private insurers which achieved profits without having a bank partner. Its distribution network continues to have a gap in terms of the absence of any bancassurance tie-up, which enables banks to sell the products of partner insurance firm.
Nippon Life, Asia's largest private life insurer and seventh biggest globally with an asset size of $650 billion, holds a 26% stake in Reliance Life, which it had acquired for over Rs 3,000 crore.
