Bandhan Life Insurance, a Bandhan group entity, is eyeing a ₹300 crore new business premium at the end of the current financial year.
Bandhan Financial Holdings (BFHL) had acquired Aegon Life Insurance earlier this year and renamed it as Bandhan Life Insurance. The strategic acquisition marked Bandhan group’s entry into the Indian life insurance sector, complementing its existing presence in banking and mutual funds.
“It a new organisation. It has now started to doing business. We intend to do some ₹300 crore premium for this financial year. And then naturally the growth has to be much faster,” Bandhan Life MD and CEO Satishwar B. told businessline.
The life insurer’s new business premium for the first five months of this fiscal stood at ₹50.23 crore, which was an 83.66 per cent year-on-year (y-o-y) jump from the corresponding period of the last fiscal, according to insurance regulator Irdai’s data.
Bandhan Life on Thursday announced a strategic partnership with Bandhan Bank for distributing life insurance products. BFHL is also the promoter of private sector lender Bandhan Bank.
The insurer launched two new products-- iGuarantee Vishwas, a savings insurance plan with guaranteed returns and iInvest II, a unit-linked insurance plan.
“We are currently selling our products through Bandhan Bank branches in West Bengal and Assam. By November-December, we will be selling the products across the country,” Satishwar said, adding for distribution the insurance company would be depending on bancassurance channel to start with.
The insurer is planning to add a few more corporate agents and brokers in the next few months. By the end of the next financial year, it is aiming to tie up with at least two more banks for distribution.
As of now the company has no agency channel. “Developing agency channel will take some time. It will come in the future year and that will be evaluated. In a year or two, we would want to establish ourselves as a multi-product and multi-channel organisation,” the MD said.
On achieving break-even, he said the gestation period for life insurance companies is normally much longer. “Industry itself takes a lot of time for break-even. That changes for company to company, but anywhere more than five years is what it normally takes for a life insurance company to break-even.”