The Hindu Business Line : ING Vysya Life to shore up capital base

Bangalore, Dec 17 The ING Group and its domestic partner are shoring up the capital base of the domestic life insurance venture, ING Vysya Life Insurance Company Ltd, by infusing Rs 100 crore.

Speaking to reporters here, ING Vysya Life Insurance Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Mr Kshitij Jain, said: “We are looking at 80 per cent growth next year.” The capital infusion was for meeting that expansion he said.

ING Vysya’s paid-up equity is currently Rs 790 crore and that would go up to Rs 890 crore by the year-end. ING Vysya, he said, expected to hike capital to Rs 1,340 crore by 2009. ING Vysya’s domestic partners, who hold 74 per cent of the equity, include Exide Industries, Gujarat Ambuja Cement and investment bank Enam group.

ING Vysya, Mr Jain said, was looking at selling about 6 lakh policies next calendar year. This year, the life insurer is expected to sell 3.4 lakh new policies. This would take its policyholder base to about 5.5 lakh, he said. Gross premium accretions this calendar year would exceed Rs 950 crore, he added, up from last year’s Rs 614 crore.

Besides, Mr Jain said that the insurer had also improved its premium collections through rehabilitation of lapsed policies. This year, the collections through renewal premium were about Rs 330 crore, against Rs 160 crore last year.

He said that 80 per cent of the sales of the insurer were, however, unit-linked plans or ULIPs, the bulk of which was sold in the urban and metro regions of the country. He added that the company was pushing its savings-linked insurance products as well. Most of the savings-linked products sales were from the rural regions. This was because ING insists on a minimum premium of Rs 10,000 in ULIPs. In savings-linked plans was it was far lower. ING has also received approval for launching new term plans. The term plans would be launched in January next year, he added.

He said that ING Vysya had improved its footprint in the country. Between July and November this year, the customer acquisition has grown by 108 per cent. As on November end this year, the company had 1.4 lakh new customers. ING Vysya had expanded to 300 branches in November up from 195 branches during the corresponding period of last year. The branches covered 188 cities in the country, he said.

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