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(From left) Mr S. Krishnamurthy, Managing Director & CEO, SBI Life Insurance, and Mr Eric Lombard, CEO, BNP Paribas Assurance; and Mr Gerard Binet, Deputy Managing Director, Cardif, at a press conference in Mumbai on Friday. - - Paul Noronha

Mumbai , July 22

SBI Life Insurance will be introducing a slew of new products this fiscal, Mr S. Krishnamurthy, Managing Director and CEO, SBI Life Insurance, told newspersons on Friday.

The company, which derives about 67 per cent of its business from bancassurance, plans to diversify and have a more balanced portfolio of products, he said.

SBI Life will offer a creditor protection cover for SBI's India Millenium Deposits. The company will also launch a Unit linked Insurance Plan (ULIP), a single premium product, a savings product as well as pension products.

Mr Krishnamurthy said with the capital market booming, the demand for ULIPs is on the rise.

In terms of creditor insurance, Mr Krishnamurthy said "While Rs 1,00,000 crores might be deployed as personal retail loans, only 10-15 per cent are aware of creditor life products". Credit Life Insurance accounted for about 75 per cent of the company's group premium income in 2004-05 The agency force will also grow from the current 3,000 to about 8000, he said.

SBI Life reported a new business premium of Rs 482 crore in 2004-05. The premium from bancassurance, which grew three times compared to the previous year, was the major driver of growth, he said.

Mr Eric Lombard, Chief Executive Officer, Cardif, a BNP Paribas company and the joint venture partner of SBI Life, said that bancassurance in India was comparable to that in some of the other Asian countries such as Korea and Taiwan. In countries such as France, Spain, Portugal and Italy, bancassurance contributed to nearly 60 per cent of the distribution networkBNP Paribas and Cardif reported euro11.3 billion as premium in 2004-05. Cardif introduced Creditor life products into the Indian market through SBI Life.

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