The Hindu Business Line : Aegon Religare entering health insurance space

The company, which had launched its pension plan in January, is looking to bring out a health insurance product sometime later this year, said Mr Rajiv Jamkhedkar, Chief Executive Officer, Aegon Religare Life Insurance.

The company currently has products in the pension and child space.

Training for agents

The company has four distribution channels — tied agency, direct financial advisors through Aegon Religare Direct, other group companies of Religare and corporate agency and brokers.

“We plan to increase our agency strength to 10,000 by the end of the next fiscal from 2,200 at present. We also plan to increase our financial planners from 180 to 500 by March 2010,” he said.

The company is also planning to invest in specialised training for the agents, to help them better their productivity, he added.

Aegon Religare, which does not have a bancassurance partner so far, hopes to have a tie up in place by next year, Mr Jamkhedkar said.

Capital base

The company, which is joint venture between Religare Enterprises, Bennett Coleman and Company and Aegon, has a capital base of Rs 300 crore that is slated to go up to Rs 370 crore by June.

The company will add around Rs 250-300 crore over the next year depending on its business needs, he said.

ULIP policies

ULIPs form a major proportion of the company’s sales. Around 80 per cent of the total premiums collected come from sale of ULIP policies. In terms of the number of policies sold, the proportion is 70-30 in favour of ULIPs, Mr Jamkhedkar said. Going ahead, the mix between traditional products and ULIPs is unlikely to change, despite the slump in the equity markets, he said.

“In fact, we are planning to launch a few more ULIP-based products in the coming year,” he said.

The company, which began its operations in July 2008, hopes to achieve break even in the eighth year of its operation, that is, by 2016.

According to Mr Jamkhedkar, the slowdown in the economy has not affected the company’s plans. “We are still a relatively new company, we will continue to grow our base, add to our channels and increase our agents,” he said.

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