Mumbai:
The domestic economy currently may be slowing down but it is now good time for the life insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation(LIC)
While recovering some of its lost market share in terms of premium and policies, state owned LIC has booked a profit of over Rs 14,000 crore from the stock market during the April -November period of the current fiscal.
“Not only we have earned a profit of above Rs 14,000 crore from our equity investment , we have done a handsome business in terms of premium and policies during this fiscal up to November 15, 2019,” said TC Suseel Kumar, Managing Director, LIC adding that there is no slow down in the life insurance business..
The corporation, the largest stock market investor in India, had earned Rs 23,000 crore from equity investments for the entire fiscal 2019-20.
“The total investment in the stock market this year so far from the LIC’s Life Fund is over Rs 34,000 crore and the same was around Rs 31,000 crore last year,” Kumar said.
The corporation has seen a good growth in its business mix consisting of single premium, non-single premium, group pension business and investment income during the current fiscal..
The corporation has set a target of Rs 55,000 crore of new premium income from individual segment and 2.5 crore of policies in 2019-20.
Till October end ,the lone PSU player in the life insurance industry has earned a total premium of Rs1,01.402 crore, including penion and group business and has a market share of almost 71 per cent in the industry in thsi segment..
The corporation till October 2019 has managed to sell over one crore of policies and has a market share of 74 per cent in the industry in the segment. .
“There has been a significant improvement in business from the non-single premium segment during this period,’’ he said..
The industry, consisting of LIC and 23 private sector players,has mobilised a total premium Rs 1,43,000 crore till Oct 2019.
On recruitment front, the Corporation is under the process of recruiting a total of 16,600 staffs in the current fiscal.
“We are under the process of recruiting 600 Class-I officers, 8000 development officers and 8000 clerks in the current fiscal,” he said.
The corporation has its presence in 14 countries as of now and is planning to expand into Myanamar, Maldives and Bhutan.The corporation has been able to sell 1,70,000 policies and has earned earned Rs 2000 crore of premium through its international operations, he said adding that the international operations of the corporation have remained overall profitable.
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The corporation earns around 4.5 per cent of its total business from bancassurance channel
LIC,which has faced difficulties in growing its agency force in the past, has added over 1,00,000 agents in the recent months.The corporation’s total agency force has gone up to 11.8 lakh now, Susheel Kumar said.
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On IDBI Bank,in which LIC earlier had picked up 51 per cent,said that “It was always LIC’s dream to own a bank and expand its bancassurance business.
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“IDBI Bank has already sold 50,000 policies through its branches as of now and thus giving us revenue of Rs 400 crore,” he said.
The market value of LIC’s investment as at the end of FY19 stood at around Rs 28.7 lakh crore, growing YoY by 8.6 percent. The insurer’s total assets had touched an all-time high of Rs 31 crore in FY19, which was a 9.4 percent rise.