'South-Central Zone at the forefront'

Hyderabad, Sep 4: The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)'s South-Central Zone has attained the number one position at all India level in procurement of Micro Insurance New Business with 29,412 policies and sum assured of Rs 44.79 crore and first premium income of Rs 52.66 lakh, Zonal Manager S Viswanathan said today.

Speaking after donating ten wheel chairs to the Nizam's Institute of Medical Sciences (NIMS) here, Mr Viswanathan said the zone had secured 23 lakh policies with First Premium of Rs 2,007 crore with a growth rate of 90 per cent in policies and 66 per cent in first premium.

He said LIC was the largest life insurance company on the basis of number of policies and number of claims settled. The Life Fund of LIC was Rs 5,60,806 crore and its asset base Rs 6,51,883 crore, making it one of the largest financial institutions in the country.

He said upto March 31, 2007, LIC had invested Rs 73,747 crore in the Infrastructure and social sector.

He said in 2006-07, LIC had settled about 1.32 crore claims for an amount of Rs 36,537 crore in individual life business.

He said recently LIC had introduced two new unit-linked endowment limited payment plans, Fortune Plus and Profit Plus. The Death Benefit payable under this plan was higher than the sum assured or the policy holder's fund value. On maturity, an amount of equal to the policy holder's fund value should be payable. The Profit Plus plan was available with optional riders like Critical Illness Benefit and Accident benefit, he said.

UNI