LIC Shimla records highest premium collection in north zone

Shimla, Mar 12 (UNI) Having collected a whopping Rs 664 crore as premium in the current financial year, LIC Shimla division has set a target of another Rs 100 crore by end of this month as its popular market plus scheme draws to a close.

LIC Shimla senior divisional manager M K Kemmu said that in absolute premium collections the division was at number one position in the whole north zone and was at third position among the 106 zones in the country.

''The market plus scheme, a unit linked policy that has a provision for pensions, has till date collected a premium of Rs 410 crore in the division. By March 31 when the scheme closes, we expect to collect and additional Rs 100 crore,'' he said.

Countrywide the scheme has collected Rs 29,000 crore, he claimed.

The policy that had taken without an insurance cover, had various levels of investment options depending upon the risk appetite of the individual, he said.

Mr Kemmu said professionalism was on the rise among LIC agents as there were 80 agents who qualified for the million dollar round table, a globally recognised benchmark for insurance agents. In the previous year there were only 32, he added.

Speaking about the Aam Adami Bima Yojna, a policy that finance minister P Chidambaram had launched from here, last October, the LIC official said that so far only about 5,000 people had been categorised as landless workers in Himachal of which 2,500 had been brought under the insurance cover UNI AS PS VN1951