SBI Life targets 150 pc growth in premium collection

Bangalore, June 29 (UNI) SBI Life Insurance, which became the first private insurance company to break even within five years of its inception, has targetted a premium collection of Rs 2,500 crore in the current year, a 150 per cent jump compared to its performance last fiscal.

Addressing newspersons here, company Managing Director and CEO S Krishnamurthy said the main reason for SBI Life to make profits in the fifth year itself was its product profile. The other factors that helped were the partnership with its mother organisation SBI and associate banks, which had 12,000 branches, high level of productivity of both its employees and the retail agency force, and its strong investment performance. However, Rs 35 crore of the accumulated loss still remained and it would be wiped off in the next 18 months, he added.

He informed that SBI Life had chalked out plans for aggressive expansion in the country by widening its branch network from the present 58 to 150 across 113 cities.

Mr Krishnamurthy said SBI Life, which had covered four million lives, mainly in group insurance schemes, had made impressive strides last year, which helped it in expanding its asset base to Rs 2,000 crore. Its investment performance had been one of the best in the country, bringing a return of 12 per cent for its customers in unit linked products and 100 per cent for those who had invested in its unique 'Horizon' fund.

Inaugurating its new office in the city, he said SBI Life would launch three more unit linked new products this year according to IRDA guidelines. SBI Life would now focus on group insurance in the corporate sector, covering both medium and big companies, from this year.

Mr Krishnamurthy said the company had not given any serious thought to IPO, but in the next two or three years it was bound to go public to meet its ever increasing capital needs.

He allayed fears over the volatile stock market, which had plummeted alarmingly in the recent days. ''We are not too worried over the fluctuations in the market, as it is expected to be short term. The market is bound to bounce back and in the long term, prove beneficial to insurance companies like SBI Life,'' he said.

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