Vizag surpasses group insurance policy sales target

The Visakhapatnam division of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has surpassed its 12-month business target within five months in selling group insurance policies.

"While our target for 2006-07 in selling group insurance policies is 30,000 and first premium of Rs 108 crore, we sold 41,000 policies and collected Rs 140 crore as premium by the end of August itself," said N Prabhakar Rao, senior divisional manager of LIC, Vizag division.

The major portion of the group insurance business in the division was generated from Visakhapatnam Port. LIC is trying to garner some business from Visakhapatnam Steel Plant as well.

Keeping these opportunities in mind, the corporation is expecting Rs 250 crore premium in the group insurance segment during this fiscal, according to Prabhakar Rao.

He said the division was taking steps to increase the business through corporate agents.

"Our target is to increase the total business through corporate agents from the current 2 percent to 5 percent by the end of this fiscal. At present, we have 20 corporate agents (banks and other organisations) with about 140 outlets in the division. To achieve the 5 percent target, we want to increase the number of agents and outlets apart from strengthening the existing infrastructure," he added.

During April"�August 2006, the Visakhapatnam division posted 70 percent growth in first premium collection compared to the last corresponding period.

In April-August 2005, the first premium collection was Rs 37 crore. It increased to Rs 63 crore for the same period in 2006, thus registering a growth of 70 per cent, he said.

In the current year, LIC is expecting Rs 60-70 crore first premium through New Bima Gold policy, introduced recently, he added. This year, the division's first premium collection target (other than group insurance premium collection) is Rs 200 crore.