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Mumbai , Sept. 1

THE Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has booked a profit of about Rs 1,200 crore from sale of its investment in equities since April this year, a senior official said on Monday.

In January-March-2003 when Sensex was ruling at 2900 points, LIC invested in equities while FIIs were virtually absent in the market. LIC, then accounted for more than 10 per cent of the deliverable turnover in the market, the official said.

``We feel it is prudent to book profit at certain level of prices and we did it,'' Mr R.N. Bharadwaj, Managing Director, LIC, said at a press conference convened to announce the launch of LIC's new product, `Jeevan Shree'. Equities account for nearly 10 per cent of LIC's total investment.

In the last fiscal, LIC had invested Rs 35,000 crore in the corporate sector and Rs 21,000 crore in equities.

The company's total investments in the current fiscal up to July amounted to Rs 30,000 crore of which 74 per cent are in Central Government securities and 16 per cent in State Government securities.

Mr S.B. Mathur, Chariman, LIC, said the Corporation had recorded a 24.16 per cent growth in first premium income in individual assurance policies, at Rs 1,166.30 crore, from the same of 51.11 lakh policies on a sum assured of Rs 35,341.90 crore.

Growth in premium income on single premium policies fell by 81.36 per cent to Rs 91.22 crore, from a sale of 15,048 policies for a sum assured of Rs 121 crore.

Premium income in individual pension policies grew by 240.32 per cent to Rs 90.01 crore with the sale of 19,221 policies.

As on August 23, the company has issued 87,000 policies under the Varishtha Pension Bima Yojana, for Rs 1,550 crore.

Under the pension and group schemes, LIC has covered 3.96 lakh new lives amounting to a 137 per cent growth in premium income at Rs 594.86 crore.

As on July 31,2003, LIC has an agency force of 10.02 lakhs, 194 corporate corporate agencies with 795 outlets and 13 banks with 5512 outlets.

On the issue of LIC meeting its solvency margin requirements, as per IRDA guidelines, Mr Mathur said the company would meet the 100 per cent solvency requirement by providing Rs 10,000 crore.

IRDA wants LIC to make additional provisions 50 per cent, which the company plans to do over the next five years.

Meanwhile, LIC has explained its view that the additional provision is not justifiable in the case of LIC.

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