Life Insurance Corporation, the country’s largest life insurer, expects growth in new business premium to exceed 12 per cent this fiscal, said a top company official.
S. K. Roy, Chairman, LIC, said: “We had budgeted a growth of 12 per cent in first premium, but my expectation is that we will see substantially more than what we have budgeted.”
According to IRDA data, cumulatively, in the first six months of the current financial year, the life insurer posted a growth of 7.25 per cent in new business premium of Rs 37,906 crore, compared to Rs 35,342 crore in the same period last year.
The insurance behemoth has already invested Rs 33,000 crore in the equity market this fiscal. On profit booking during the last three months, Roy said, “The last few weeks have seen the Sensex at reasonably high levels. As a prudent investor we would like to take the opportunity to book profits as we need to give returns to our policyholders in a fair manner.”
Debt investment
On LIC’s participation in the Government’s disinvestment programme, Roy said: “We view the disinvestment proposal as we view any other investment proposal. If it makes good sense to us, we will participate. Our track record is testimony to that.”
On investment in debt instruments, he said, “Debt is not an opportunity which is available in large quantities. What (investment opportunity) is available, we are considering those prudently.”
The life insurer has already withdrawn 14 products in compliance with the regulator’s product guidelines, which are to be implemented from January.
On product approvals, Roy said, LIC plans to have at least 15 approved traditional products for sale from January. On sales of unit-linked products, Roy said, “Whatever we have filed with the regulator has been approved, but I cannot say that we have filed our last product (for approval with the insurance regulator).
“At the moment, we don’t have an approved ULIP product. ULIP is a market that we would like to be present in but in the sequence of priority that we have created, our conventional products, which have been with us for 50 years, get the first priority.”