The Hindu Business Line : SBI Life tops target in premium income

Mr S. Krishnamurthy, Managing Director & CEO, SBI Life Insurance (right), with Mr. S. Muralidharan, Chief Marketing Officer, prior to a press conference in Mumbai on Tuesday. - - Shashi Ashiwal

Mumbai , May 11

SBI Life Insurance Company Ltd has recorded a 210-per cent growth in total premium income at Rs 225 crore for the financial year ended March 31, 2004, against Rs 72.75 crore recorded in the previous year.

"The company has exceeded its internal target of premium income by 7.5 per cent," said Mr S. Krishnamurthy, Managing Director and CEO, SBI Life, while addressing a press conference here on Tuesday.

The premium income from the group business amounted to Rs 131.56 crore and from individual business at Rs 94.10 crore.

First premium income atf Rs 202.1 crore was up181 per cent compared with Rs 72 crore received last year, while the total sum assured rose to Rs 26,000 crore against Rs 4,000 crore of the previous year.

SBI Life sold 1,04,194 policies during the fiscal ended March 31,2004, against a sale of 17,746 policies in the previous fiscal.

In its third year of operations, over 8,000 branches of the company's parent, State Bank of India, would sell SBI Life's products, with the number of certified insurance felicitators being increased to over 7,000, Mr Krishnamurthy said.

In keeping with the IRDA regulations, the company has fulfilled its social and rural sector targets by covering 80,927 lives in the social sector by selling 19,851 policies in the rural areas.

Responding to press queries on Cardif's plans for its Indian operations, Mr Gerard Binet, Deputy MD and Head - International Operations, Cardif, said, that a non-life personal insurance venture in India may be on the cards sometime in the future.

However, he emphasised, that there were no immediate plans towards this and the idea would take time to take shape.

Cardif's total premium income in the last fiscal was 9.2 billion euro, of which, around 2.5 billion euro was contributed by its non-life personal insurance business.