The third largest global insurance company, which set up a representative office in India four years ago, has intensified its search for an ally to set up a life insurance venture. In an interview with The Financial Express, group's executive vice-president Alexander R Wynaendts said the group is waiting for guidelines from the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (IRDA) to be in place before finalising the joint venture deal.

The group manages a $50 million Indian offshore `Scottish equitable' fund from London. Aegon Insurance will deal with a full range of life insurance products, pensions and asset management and associated financial services.

"We are looking for an experienced and high quality player to team up with," said Wynaendts. Wynaendts said the institution wants to be a very serious player inIndia. India is one among a chosen few countries in Asia apart from Taiwan, Philippines and China. "Though there are other ready-made markets available in Asia we have preferred to wait for the opening of the market in India and China.

"In both the countries we have only representative offices so far. Our corporate philosophy is to be in a few big markets and customise every thing to suit local necessity," he said. According to him, India is an underinsured but fast developing insurance market and provides an excellent potential for insurance business as it has the culture of savings and educated English speaking people. It also has a well developed legal structure.

In regard to the group's business strategy in India, Wynaendts said a lot depends on the capacity of the partner. "With the best of technology, we will depend on the network and agency force to conduct the business," he stated. For example, a metropolis like Mumbai needs around 800-900 agents to sell their products. The technology is nosubstitute for agency force and the group believes in the creating an efficient agency forces of its own, he said.