Life Insurance Corp eyeing 20 percent premium growth

September 6th, 2009 CHENNAI - A flurry of plane crashes across the world this year will find its echo in the domestic aviation insurance premium rates in the form of a 25-40 percent hike. The year 2009 will go down as a bad year for airlines with three major accidents - Air France, Yemenia and Caspian Airlines - killing around 550 people.

August 4th, 2009 CHENNAI - Non-life insurer Cholamandalam MS General Insurance (Chola MS), a joint venture between city-based Murugappa Group and Japan's Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Group, Tuesday said it will continue targeting Korean and Japanese firms operating in India for selling its products. "Our strategy in India will be to expand the retail business, bring the technical knowhow in risk management from Japan to the country and train Chola MS employees in Japan and Singapore," Toshiaki Egashira, president and chief executive of Mistsui Sumitomo Insurance, told reporters here.

July 28th, 2009 AIG sells life insurance premium finance businessNEW YORK — Insurer American International Group Inc. said on Tuesday that it closed the sale of its life insurance premium finance business for $679.5 million in cash.

July 9th, 2009 PANAJI - Private life insurer Aegon Religare Thursday said India, where barely one-fifth of the total population is covered by life insurance, is a huge market for insurance companies. "It is a misconception that the life insurance market in India is saturated.

July 2nd, 2009 CHENNAI - Life insurance penetration in India dipped in 2007, first time since the sector was opened up for private players a decade ago, said the country's Economic Survey for 2008-09 released here Thursday. "The life insurance penetration in India increased from 1.77 percent in 2000 to 4.1 percent in 2006, before declining to 4 percent in 2007," the survey tabled in parliament by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee said.

June 24th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Wednesday announced that it would invest about 50,000 crore rupees in the equity market during this financial year. Addressing media persons in the national capital, Life Insurance Corporation of India's Managing Director Thomas Mathew said: "We expect to invest nearly Rs 50,000 crore in equities this year against Rs 40,800 crore last year." The largest life insurer in the country has invested about Rs 8,000 crore in the equities so far in this fiscal.

April 16th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Public sector insurance major Oriental Insurance Co Ltd (OICL) expects a steep fall of over 78 percent in profit for 2008-09, thanks to the economic slowdown. The profits will be reduced 'substantially' due to the slowdown in the economy, leading to defaults in premium payments and the company itself reducing the premium amount, OICL chairman-cum-managing director M.

March 31st, 2009 CHENNAI/CHANDIGARH - Officials at the India Post Insurance Directorate, the insurance arm of India Post, are upbeat about business prospects, while the rest of the industry is struggling to cope with a slowdown. The two major schemes of the company - postal life insurance (PLI) and rural postal life insurance (RPLI) - are logging good growth despite bad economic sentiments, the officials said.

February 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government will soon launch a new rural postal life insurance scheme at a monthly premium of Rs.1.25 for the rural people, Minister of State for Communications and IT Jyotiraditya Scindia said here Wednesday. 'The new policy will be of Rs.100,000 of sum assured in which a person has to contribute only Rs.1.25 per month or Rs.15 per year as premium.

February 7th, 2009 NEW DELHI - General insurance premium earning is likely to grow at 20 percent annually over the next six years and top the Rs.1-trillion (Rs.100,000-crore) mark by 2015, says an industry report released Sunday. The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM), in a joint study with the United India Insurance Co, also said the massive increase in premium earning from Rs.280 billion (Rs.28,000 crore) currently would be on account of increased awareness.

February 5th, 2009 CHENNAI - State-owned Life Insurance Corp (LIC) posted new business income last December worth Rs.69.61 billion (Rs.6,961 crore), selling over 4.65 million policies. According to figures released by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Friday, it was a huge jump that LIC registered when compared to the collection in November: Rs.33.46 billion (Rs.3,346 crore) from selling 2.58 million policies.

January 13th, 2009 KOLKATA - Future Generali, the joint venture with the Italian insurance giant Generali, is expecting to touch a premium income of about Rs.10 billion by 2010, a senior official said Wednesday. Future Generali is the insurance joint venture between Future Group of India and Italy-based Generali Group with a 74:26 stake.

January 1st, 2009 CHENNAI - State-owned Life Insurance Corp (LIC) increased its new business income by Rs.5.63 billion in November over the previous month, but the 20-member private sector club stagnated, data released by the sectoral watchdog Friday showed. According to the figures released by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), LIC earned a total premium of Rs.33.46 billion (Rs.3,346 crore) in November, selling nearly 2.58 million policies.

December 22nd, 2008 KOLKATA - Around 99 percent of Kolkata-based National Insurance Corp and 76 percent of General Insurance Corp non-management staff stayed away from work Tuesday in support of a nationwide insurance sector strike. Employees unions claimed 98 percent of Life Insurance Corp's non-management staff in the eastern region also participated in the strike.

December 22nd, 2008 AGARTALA - Over 1,700 insurance employees in the northeast went on strike Tuesday as part of a nationwide protest against the government's move to raise foreign direct investment (FDI) in the insurance sector. More than 1,700 insurance employees belonging to 22 branches of Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) and the General Insurance Corp (GIC) in Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram and Assam took part in the strike, said Dipankar Chakraborty, a spokesman of the All India Insurance Employees Association (AIIEA).