AVIVA LIFE TO RAMP UP AGENCY FORCE

On camp at Madrid, Spain Aviva Life Insurance Company, among the pioneers of the bancassurance model in India, will be focussing on a balanced distribution model, Mr Bert Paterson, Managing Director & CEO, said on Tuesday.

He was speaking at the AvivaLife Insurance Summit at Madrid, where a team of journalists from India were taken by the company.

Explaining further, Mr Paterson said that the company would be ramping up its direct sales force (agents) this year. It would be doubling the force to 66,000 this year from 31,974 agents in 2007.

He said that the contribution of the agency force to the premium income had increased from around 30 per cent in 2004 to about 40 per cent in 2008. The company hopes to increase this to 50 per cent soon.

He added that the focus would be on improving the quality of manpower. The last year had seen an explosive growth in the agency force in the industry. All private players had added nearly 5 lakh to the agency force, representing an increase of 128 per cent over the previous fiscal.

Mr Paterson pointed out that the market share of the market leader, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), had fallen by 15 percent and had gone below 50 per cent for the first time in 2007-08.

He said that the private players had gained market share at the expense of LIC. He said that the industry, which had 19 players in the field now, would double in 5 years.

Bancassurance trends Talking about key trends in bancassurance, Mr Paterson said that banks were becoming manufacturers from being distributors earlier.

This was a reference to the fact that many banks were entering the insurance industry directly rather than only functioning as distribution arms of other insurance players. He said that there were few banks which remained for tie-ups and this would lead to an increase in entry costs for bancassurance partnerships.

Mr Paterson said that the cap on foreign direct investment in insurance at 26 per cent would have to increase in order that the insurance industry had sustained growth. He said private players need over Rs 10,000 crore to maintain the current growth rate.

Later Mr Paterson also announced the launch of Aviva’s foray into health insurance with the launch of a new product ’Aviva Health Plus’ as well as two other unit-linked insurance plans - Aviva Sachin Century Plan and Aviva Lifeline plan.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

AVIVA TO GET INTO HEALTH BIZ

Madrid: Aviva Life Insurance, the world’s fifth largest insurer, on Tuesday announced its foray in the Indian health insurance market. Aviva is already present in the Indian life insurance market, in a joint venture with Dabur. Aviva on Tuesday launched a product that guarantees maturity benefits regardless of any claims made during the term of the policy. This is supposed to be the first health insurance plan to offer such a benefit.

Speaking at the Aviva annual insurance summit here, Aviva India MD and CEO, Mr Bert Paterson, said, ¨This product has all benefits that would help policyholders to be prepared for contingencies at any point during the term.¨

He said that India’s health insurance market is largely untapped and the company, which is bullish on India hopes to be amongst the top five insurers. Aviva Investors, the company’s global fund has a corpus of £315 billion and is interested in entering India, Mr Paterson said. Aviva Life Insurance is currently present in India in a joint venture with Dabur, which owns a 74 per cent stake in the venture. Aviva says it has over 40 million customers globally. It has more than £364 billion of assets under management.

Aviva has recently signed a £505 million deal for managed IT outsourcing. The nine-year deal was sealed with WNS, an Indian managed IT outsourcing provider, which will provide business process services to the insurer.

Source: Deccan Chronicle, Asian Age, The Telegraph

AVIVA LIFE TO LEVERAGE TENDULKAR BRAND

Madrid: Sachin Tendulkar, brand ambassador of Aviva Life Insurance, has helped the company improve its brand awareness among customers, Mr Paterson said.

Asked about the relationship with Tendulkar, in the backdrop of recent news reports that he had been dropped by other products as their brand ambassador, Mr Paterson said that they would leverage the Tendulkar brand in a big way.

The contract was for a period of 3 years, he said, and they were in the middle of it.
What would happen after the end of the contract was for the future. But their surveys had shown that brand awareness score had increased from 79 per cent in 2006 to 89 per cent in 2007, he said.

Source: The Hindu Business Line

SUVIDHHA INFOSERVE TIES-UP WITH LIC

Mumbai: Suvidhaa Infoserve, on Tuesday announced its tie-up with Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) to help policyholders pay their insurance premium at all Suvidhaa points called S-Commerce kiosks.

"We are delighted to tie-up with LIC that will help enhance our customer-servicing capabilities," Suvidhaa Infoserve's Managing Director, Paresh Rajde, said in a press release issued here.

Suvidhaa kiosks are connected to LIC's central server using state-of-the-art technology to update the collection on a real-time basis.

The policy-holders can pay their premiums across the country for policies issued from any LIC branch.

Source: PTI, The Economic Times

INSURANCE FIRMS FIND OPEN OFFER PRICE ATTRACTIVE

Mumbai: Insurance companies, which hold a substantial chunk of Ranbaxy Laboratories, feel the open offer price of Rs 737 a share is quite attractive and will trim their stake in the company.

LIC is one of the biggest shareholders in Ranbaxy Laboratories with a 15.84 per cent stake. GIC holds 1.44 per cent in the company.

LIC Managing Director Thomas Mathew said Ranbaxy's open offer price is "very attractive considering the current share price of Ranbaxy". LIC will soon take a final call on how much it should divest," he said

GIC Chairman and MD Yogesh Lohiya also said that the price is indeed attractive and the company would take a final call within two days. The open offer will begin from August 8 and close on August 27.

Going by the share price of Ranbaxy as of, LIC's investment in the company is valued at Rs 2420 crore. At the open offer price of Rs737, the investment value will almost double, at Rs 4357 crore.

LIC with 15.84 per cent, Deutsche Securities Mauritius (3.17 per cent), Merrill Lynch(1.13 per cent) and General Insurance Corporation of India (1.44 per cent), together hold 21.58 per cent stake in Ranbaxy.

Nippon based Daiichi Sankyo, which entered into a deal with Ranbaxy promoter Malvinder Singh and his family to buy their entire 34.8 per cent stake in Ranbaxy in a deal valued at $4.6 billion, had announced an open offer to acquire a further 20 per cent from other shareholders.

Source: Business Standard