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Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) expects to close the current financial year with higher new business premium income of ₹35,000 crore on the individual side, according to Chairman Vijay Kumar Sharma.
Last year, this head of income amounted to ₹32,838 crore.
Sharma said: “Our performance is in line with our expectations, even slightly better. We had planned for ₹31,000-crore NBPI (new business premium income) on the individual side.
“We have already achieved this target this year. Still we have one more month to go (for the financial year to close).”
For NBPI, the LIC chief expects March to be a very strong month and the Corporation to close the financial year with around ₹35,000 crore in new premium on the individual side.
Nine-month performanceIn the reporting nine months, LIC posted 12.43 per cent growth in total premium income at ₹1,45,031 crore as against ₹1,29,001 crore in the year-ago period. Total income grew 16 per cent to ₹3,37,465 crore (₹2,91,511 crore in the year-ago period).
So far this financial year, the Corporation has added 44,000 agents. As on date, it has 11 lakh agents.
Sharma said he expects the economy to do better next year. After a slack period of about four years, the insurance industry is now on a growth curve.
“The insurance industry will grow in double digits in any case. Till date we are market leaders in business growth…,” he said.
DemonetisationSharma said prior to the scrapping of ₹500 and ₹1,000 bank notes, half of LIC’s collections came by way of cash.
“So, initially, obviously (in the first 15 days of the announcement of demonetisation) there was a sharp fall in cash collections and there was a fall of about 25 per cent in overall collections.
“But by the twentieth day (into the demonetisation period), normalcy was restored in collections. The only difference was that earlier 50 per cent of the collection was through cash and 50 per cent by cheque and other means. This proportion went down to 25-30 per cent (cash) and the balance by way of cheque, online, and digital…,” explained Sharma.
After roughly 40 days (into the demonetisation period), the LIC chief said “we came into the normal growth of 20-25 per cent, which we show every year.”
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