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M. Ramesh

Chennai , Aug. 16

Life Insurance Corporation of India intends to come out with a product that is "akin to and an improved version of" its last year's "highly successful" product Bima Gold, the LIC Managing Director, Mr Thomas Mathew, told Business Line today.

Bima Gold, a souvenir product offered in the Corporation's golden jubilee year, was a money-back policy that featured lower premium and quicker returns. The product accounted for a third of the 3-crore policies that LIC sold in 2005-06 and contributed around 18 per cent of the first year premium of Rs 18,085 crore.

Observing that Bima Gold was a "roaring success", Mr Mathew said its clone, which has received IRDA nod, could be launched in September.

The new product, which is among a slew of "conventional products" LIC intends to launch this year, is expected to sustain the momentum in first year premium generated in the first quarter of the current year. In the quarter, total new business premium stood at Rs 9,204 crore, up 217 per cent from Rs 2,899 crore in the previous year. About 90 per cent of the premium came from unit-linked policies.

Mr Mathew was here to participate in the 5th annual day celebrations of the Academy of Insurance Marketing.

Call centre soon

Mr Mathew said LIC would shortly launch a resource centre and a call centre to assist its field force.

Later, answering a question, Mr Mathew told Business Line that LIC's credit card initiative had progressed to the second stage after the consultants, KPMG, gave a favourable feasibility report. KPMG is now engaged in identifying a partner for the venture and its report would come in a year.

He said the data warehousing project, "the biggest in the world, as we have 19-crore policyholders", was going as per schedule and would be completed in two years.

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