Max Life Insurance and Lakshmi Vilas Bank have entered into a 5 year bancassurance tie-up for distribution of the former’s life insurance products through the 400 branches of the private sector bank.

Under this alliance, Lakshmi Vilas Bank has become a corporate agent for Max Life Insurance and will offer a complete bouquet of life insurance solutions and post sales services to its customers.

The tie up will help Max Life Insurance reach out to an additional 25 lakh customers of the Karur-headquartered bank and strengthen its multi-channel distribution channel, primarily in the southern region, where Lakshmi Vilas Bank has a strong presence. Currently, over 20% of the new business for Max Life comes from South India. Of the total 400 branches of Lakshmi Vilas Bank, as many as 320 are located in South India.

Lakshmi Vilas Bank, which started distributing financial products from 2002-03 to increase its fee-based income, is looking at the alliance to enhance the insurance product bouquet.

Announcing the tie up, Rajesh Sud, Managing Director & CEO at Max Life Insurance, said: "This is our first big tie up in south India and we are looking forward to a mutually beneficial alliance that will pave the way for bank customers to have an access to a wide range of products such as long-term savings, protection and retirement solutions.

While the alliance will help us expand our presence in south India, we also want to use our skills in growing the life insurance portfolio for Lakshmi Vilas Bank. We want to make the partnership a success with strong focus on differentiated customer service such as claims guarantee and service promise."

Rakesh Sharma, Managing Director & CEO at Lakshmi Vilas Bank said: "We are happy to tie up with Max Life Insurance as we see this as complementary relationship where we can leverage on each other’s strong point to reach out to customers.

We also want to extend life insurance solutions to NRIs who are currently using our money transfer services."

srivats.kr@thehindu.co.in

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