SBI Life registers new premium growth of 264 pc

Mumbai, Jan 3: SBI Life today claimed to have become the fastest growing life insurance company with net business premium growing at a scorching 264 per cent (YTD) basis.

Briefing the media about it here today, company's MD and CEO S Krishnamurthy, said that the net business premium of his company has grown from Rs 275 crore to Rs 1,000 crore and total business premium from Rs 370 crore to Rs 1150 crore during the period. He attributed it to the strong growth across all the channels of the company namely bancassurance, agency channel and group corporate.

While bancassurance alone contributed 37 per cent of total premium collection by the company during the period, the number of agents attached to the company has increased from 2000 until few years ago to 18,000 now.

SBI Life today also announced the infusion of additional fresh capital of Rs 75 crore to take its capital base upto its authorised share capital limit of Rs 500.

The additional capital has been injected to maintain stipulated solvency margins for the exponential new business growth and expanding branch network, he added.

Talking about the feature of the new Horizon II Pension Product, which was launched by the company today, Deputy CEO Pier-Paolo Dipaola said ''It is a combination of systematic investment planning concept with periodical automatic relocation of assets based on the plan option and remaining term to maturity''.

The other attractive feature of the new product is the availability of optional life cover, he added.

The company is now leveraging the 14,500-strong SBI Group branchnetwork from where SBI Life products are currently available.

The company has increased its own branch network from 68 branches as on March 2006 to 95 as on December last year.

UNI