Mumbai:
Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises, and AXA, has turned profitable by recording a net profit of Rs 5 crore in 2017-18 against a loss of Rs 120 crore during 2016-17.
Commenting on the performance of the company, Vikas Seth, managing director & CEO, Bharti AXA Life Insurance, said, ‘’ This is a significant milestone in the journey ahead. We have significantly brought down our operating expense ratio. Cost efficiency, high renewal premiums, better product mix and productivity and higher persistency helped the company record profits.’’
The company has registered 20 per cent increase in its new business premium at Rs 730 crore in the financial year 2017-18 against Rs 608 crore over the corresponding fiscal a year ago.
The company recorded 21 per cent growth in its renewal premium to Rs 954 crore in the year ended March 31, 2018, as compared to Rs 788 crore during 2016-17.
The total premium grew by 21 per cent to Rs 1,684 crore during 2017-18, as compared to Rs 1,397 in the same period a year earlier.
Seth said, ‘’ Going forward, our focus would be on growth, including from non-traditional channels, robust profitability and operational efficiency coupled with customer-friendly and congenial ways of accessing insurance, so as to harness the yet underpenetrated domestic insurance market, growing middle class and young insurable population along with increasing household savings rate, Complimented with our channels and agent productivity, we hope to continue to be on a high growth yet profitable journey ahead.’’
The company increased its advisor count by 10,000 during 2017-18 and also recruited over 1,000 sales managers to expand its distribution network across India.
Bharti AXA Life Insurance has added 50 branches to expand its distribution network to 187 offices across the country in the year ended March 31, 2018.