‘The need for retirement planning assumes great importance’

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: The life insurance sector is buzzing in India, more players are entering and existing players are trying to consolidate their stand in the highly competitive market. S Krishnamurthi, CEO and MD, SBI Life Insurance Company spoke with Nikhil Walavalkar of The Financial Express on the emerging trends in the business and SBI Life's strategies. Excerpts:

At what rate is SBI Life growing? What are your expectations in terms of first year premium?

SBI Life Insurance is currently growing at an impressive rate of 200%. As per the latest Irda report SBI Life ranks No. 3 amongst the private insurers. The company's market share has increased to 10% amongst the private players and is 2.25% in the total industry. This year, the company is aiming at a growth of 150%.

The new business premium of the company from beginning of the year to September 2006 is Rs 660 crores. The total business premium of the company from the beginning of the year till September 2006 is Rs 765 crores. The company aims to collect first year premium of over Rs 2,000 crores.

What is the contribution of each distribution channel (in % terms) to your total sales?

We at SBI Life follow a multi distribution channel approach and expect all channels to contribute to the overall growth. Today, the agency channel contributes over 50% and bancassurance channel contributes to 40% of the business. Other channels like Credit Life and Group Corporate are also performing very well.

Are you looking at creating or adding any new distribution channels? Do you foresee any changes in the contribution percentages of these channels over a period of next five years?

Currently, we are not planning to introduce any new channels of distribution. However, we are in the process of expanding and improvising our agency sales force along with the bancassurance channel's sales force.

For example, in our bancassurance channel, we intend to leverage our parentage with SBI and motivate more of the State Bank of India staff members to opt selling of life insurance over the bank counters. We also plan to increase the number of insurance advisors to 25,000 by the end of this financial year.

How do you intend to leverage the parentage of State Bank of India?

Along with SBI and its seven associate banks, SBI Life enjoys the unique and unrivalled strength of over 14000 branches.