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‘Start date of Life Insurance Companies’ or ‘Registration date of Life Insurance Companies in India’

Life Insurance Companies in India include LIC which is fully owned by Government of India and 23 private life insurance companies. LIC was founded in the year 1956 with the merger of about 154 Indian insurance companies, 16 non-Indian companies and 75 provident societies.

Private life insurance companies entered the life insurance markets at a much later date after the government threw open its gates allowing them to operate in India.

Here’s a look at the start date or registration date of all life insurance companies in India: 

Mr TR Ramachandran, the CEO and Managing Director of Aviva India has announced that a further capital infusion of Rs. 116 crores into its life insurance business in India.

With this additional cash infusion the total paid up capital of the life insurer has gone up to 2004 crores. The move shows that the company is focussed on its long term strategy in India. The additional funds would be used to bolster its current business.

A lot of life insurance companies had to re-look their business strategies after the new regulations on ULIPs came into effect. Most life insurance companies had to change their forecast numbers and even pushback their break-even dates. The revised ULIP norms had drastically cut down on the overall charges that could be levied on Unit Linked Insurance Plans, among a host of other customer friendly changes which were prescribed.

Aviva Life Insurance Company has performed well and has shown a growth in premium collection of Rs. 24 crores in the first 6 months of this year as compared to the last financial year. In September 2010, the company increased its premium collection by 35 crores. This goes to show that even though there is a reduction in charges, the life insurance business can grow as it results in increased customer awareness and satisfaction.

It is heartening to see new initiatives on the customer service side form life insurance companies. SBI Life Insurance Company launched an SMS based customer service initiative.

Any customer who has a problem with SBI Life can just send an SMS with text “SOLVE” to 56161 and they would get an immediate response from the company’s call centre in Mumbai. It is a great way to reach out to aggrieved customers – the greatness lies in the simplicity of the process. Anyone can do the same at any time and would be assured of a response.

The best part is that it will help SBI Life Insurance Company to also measure the amount of queries and issues which customers face. Very often an issue which is being handled by a local branch does not reach the proper channel and hence help does not come by easily. Through this method the company can keep track of issues being faced by their customers.

The initiative is inspired by the success a similar service received in one of its regions in Andhra Pradesh and is now being rolled out pan India.

Great move SBI Life! Also hoping that other insurance companies also launch similar and even better customer services initiatives for their customers.

Birla Sun Life Insurance Company has clocked a profit in the first half of the current financial year. This comes with a sharp increase in the premium collections of linked individual pension plans and other linked individual life insurance plans. Birla Sun Life has seen an increase in premium collected across all its business lines which has seen the company report a profit after tax of Rs. 29.26 crores in the first half of this financial year.

A summary of the un-audited financial results of Birla Sun Life Insurance Company for the year ended 30^th September 2010 is as follows:

Birla Sun Life Insurance Company recorded a Profit After Tax of Rs. 29.26 crores in the first half of this fiscal as compared to a loss of 238.36 crores in the same period last year.

The life insurance company seems to be well on their way to strong numbers this year as the  second half of the year is where the real action happens with people increasing the purchase of life insurance plans for tax saving purposes.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company announced its half yearly results for the first half of the current financial year 2010-2011. Overall the life insurance company has seen a decline in its losses from 105.1 crores in H1 2009-2010 to 101.1 crores in the first half of the current year.

ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company saw an increase in the premium collected in the first half of the year from 6477.2 crores to 7267.2 crores as compared to the same period last year. The maximum increase was observed in the non-linked group insurance segment. The non-linked regular plans also saw an increase while linked life insurance premium collection has seen a dip.

A summary of the life insurance premium collected by ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company is as follows:

All figures are in Rs. Lakhs

Overall the earnings per equity shares stood at -0.71 compares to -0.74 in the same period last year.

ICICI Life Insurance Company has launched some attractive plans in the last couple of months which include a pure online term insurance plan called iProtect which has very low premiums and could be a potential winner in the market. In addition to that the company has launched ICICI Pru Life Link which is a single premium ULIP plan.

New business acquisition for life insurance companies was never going to be the same as it was before September 2010. The premium collections have confirmed the same. Most life insurance companies have seen a drop in their business as compared to August 2010 – and that too a considerable drop.

The industry put together, saw the new business at half the levels – dropping from Rs.18,500 crores to Rs.9,613 crores. This was more or less on expected lines, in fact it could be considered to be better than what most people feared. With low charges and insurance agent commission being tightly regulated, the life insurance industry was expecting a worse show. Majority of the private life insurers were too focussed on selling the super-lucrative ULIP and when the new norms were announced, a lot of the insurance companies were taken by surprise.

Gradually we will see more focus from life insurance companies on traditional products also. So far most of the insurers had more or less shunned the traditional products and was going full on with sale of ULIPs only. In fact these stringent norms were put in place because they was rampant mis-selling which forced the regulator to act in the consumer’s interest and specify strict norms on sale of ULIPs.

The biggest drop in business was witnessed by Aegon Religare followed by Bharti Axa, Sahara and Aviva life insurance companies.

September 2010 was the toughest months and surely the life insurance companies will bounce back with more plans and aggressive distribution techniques.

Good luck!

SBI Life Insurance has launched a new Unit Linked Insurance Plan (ULIP) called Saral Maha Anand. This is the third ULIP launched by SBI Life Insurance after the new norms came into play on 1^st September 2010.The other 2 Ulips launched by SBI Life Insurance are Smart Performer and Unit Plus Super. More...

Reliance Life Insurance has taken a number of steps to ensure that they become profitable this year. The life insurance company has re-aligned its portfolio from being a predominantly ULIP focussed to a healthy mix of both ULIP and traditional products. As per plan the company was to break-even in 2011-2012 but if things go well Reliance Life Insurance should move into profitability this year itself.

The company has seen a slowdown in sales in September which was along expected lines. In fact, a lot of life insurance companies have experience this. Actual data is yet to collated from all insurancecompanies. Since all new ULIPs had to be withdrawn and a new set of unit linked insurance plans had to be introduced in a hurry to meet the 1^st September deadline, a slowdown was expected by the industry as there is a time-lag in training agents and getting the entire distribution network aware of the new policy features. This along with reduced commissions for insurance agents was expected to bring a slowdown in the month of September 2010.

Reliance Life Insurance on its part is rebalancing its portfolio and is planning to bring down the ULIP component from 94% in December last year to almost 50% by April 2011. This coupled with increased agent and branch productivity should see the company making profits this year itself, says Malay Ghosh, the head of Reliance Life Insurance Company.

The company feels the new ULIP norms will be good for the customers will eventually benefit the company in increasing sales. Reliance Life Insurance Company currently has 1,247 branches and has plans of adding another 100 more this year. The company will take the IPO route as soon as the norms for the same are declared by IRDA.

The going seems to be good at Reliance Life Insurance Company!

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is one of the financial institutions which have received permission from the Government of India to launch infrastructure bonds.

As per the norms, an individual can invest Rs. 20,000 in infrastructure bonds and save tax on the same. The tax savings will be over and above the 1,00,000 permissible under Section 80 ©. This tax saving would be under Section 80CCF.

The insurance regulator IRDA though has some concerns on insurance companies floating infrastructure bonds. LIC would then need the approval of the regulator before it can proceed with the bonds issue. It seems only equity is allowed as capital for insurance companies and not debt.

Infrastructure bonds can be attractive to high income individuals where they stand to get an additional Rs. 20,000 to invest and save tax over and above the normal avenues.