LIC to hire 2 lakh agents, targets 4 crore new policy issuance

Mumbai: Giving itself an ambitious target, insurance behemoth LIC aims to double its business in terms of new policy issuance to four crore in the current fiscal and will hire two lakh new agents to augment its field strength.

State-run Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) currently has an agency force of over 10 lakh.

These targets were set out for LIC by Chairman S K Roy during his address to the senior divisional managers on a three-day conference here.

"During Fiscal year 2016-17, let us commit ourselves to set new records in sales and exponentially expand on individual non-single premium segments. We should target a minimum 4 crore lives to be covered and minimum two lakh agents to be added in 2016-17," Roy told the 56th All-India Senior Divisional Managers' Conference last week.

His optimism comes from the robust growth the Corporation could record in financial year 2015-16, wherein it grew by close to 25 percent in terms of new policy issuances.

"Financial Year 2015-16 was a year of recovery for us. We recovered from below-par performance in fiscal 2014-15 to show positive results. On the basis of reporting of figures to the (regulator) Irdai, we have grown by 24.74 percent growth in first year premium and 1.86 percent growth in policies/ schemes," Roy said.

During fiscal 2015-16, LIC had a market share of 70.44 percent in number of policies and 76.84 percent in the first year premium income, Roy added.

In individual single premium business, LIC's market share stood at over 80 percent in fiscal 2015-16, whereas in group single premium, the market share was more than 85 percent.

Roy said LIC's aim should be to outgrow the Indian economy, growing at a fast pace of 7.6 percent now, at a multiple of at least three-times.

He said the potential for selling life insurance has not been tapped in any significant manner so far as the life insurance penetration is only a little above 3 percent, leaving the insurance density in the country at much below the international averages.

Expecting competition to increase manifold in times to come, Roy said at least nine of the 23 private sector life insurers are likely to see an increase in the stake by their foreign partners.

"What is significant in this is that we should assess the impact of this on the performance of respective companies and what that means to us," Roy said.