LIC’s eastern zone set to post huge jump in business

Kolkata, Jan 1: Notwithstanding the presence of almost all private insurance companies with full strength, the eastern zone of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is all set to register a hefty jump in total business mobilisation during the first nine months of the current financial year.

"Though the exact figures are not yet available, we appeared to have already crossed the entire last fiscal’s business during the first nine months of the current financial year itself," regional manager (marketing) HS Bansil told PTI on Tuesday.

"This reflects people’s faith in LIC and was possible due to our continued thrust on improving service quality and efforts to reach new customers through our better equipped agents," he said.

Mr Bansil said the corporation had embarked on a massive information technology drive to increase penetration and improve service quality. As part of this strategy the zone was planning to equip all its 18 divisional offices in the region with multifunctional kiosks that gives instant information about the policies to the holders within this fiscal.

Already five of the offices, including two in Kolkata, one in Patna and one in Bhubaneswar, had been provided with these kiosks. "We are working to make the kiosks operational on on-line basis, but it will take some time," he said.

"Our next programme is to popularise the concept of payment of premiums on the Internet. It is already on in a limited way, but needs to be popularised," Mr Bansil said.

Mr Bansil said the corporation’s IT wing was working to introduce Wide Area Network (WAN) and Metro Area Network (MAN) to connect all the divisions on-line. "Already five centres have been connected with the service catering to the needs of about 50 lakh customers," he said.

— PTI