Metlife to scale up capital base by Rs 350 cr

Bangalore, Feb 20: MetLife, one of the fast growing private insurance companies in the country has decided to scale up its paid-up capital base to Rs 1230 crores from Rs 880 crores to sustain its growth, Mr Rajesh Relan, MD, MetLife said here today.

Speaking to newspersons here today Mr Relan said that MetLife, with a strong portfolio of over 20 products, had over 110 branches in 66 cities across the country was enjoying a market share of 2.4 per cent.

He said that MetLife, which started its operations in India in 2001 had sold over five lakh policies so far and had grown over 156 per cent over last year.

MetLife, has registered a volume of gross Written Premium (GWP) for Rs 586.3 crores at the end of December 2007 as against the GWP receipt of Rs 229 crores for 2006. "The expected GWP receipt by December 2008 was about Rs 1000 crores" he said.

He said that MetLife, which had an employees base of over 50,000 had over 32000 financial advisors all over the country with bancassurance tie-ups with five banks including Axis Bank, Karnataka Bank, Barclays and J&K bank. MetLife's bancassurances tie-ups with J&K Bank, UTI Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank, Karnataka Bank and Barclays has enabled to reach over 13 million customers, he said.

Mr Relan also said that the decision to increase the capital base was to support the company's growth plans in 2008 and sustain the company's growth. "Our performance in the year 2007 has been excellent and we have taken significant strides towards achieving our vision of being a formidable player in the indian life insurance industry. We are infusing additional cpaital to support our growth plans in India" Mr Relan added.

UNI