Though India First Life Insurance, a joint venture among Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and UK-based Legal & General, started late, it has done well through its bancassurance model. P Nandagopal, managing director and CEO, India First Life Insurance, speaks to Kumud Das on his strategies to grow his business.
Being the youngest player in the sector, how much have you been affected due to the several regulatory changes?
If you are a new company, then you get the benefit to start things in a new plate. We have a very balanced approach and are not affected much due to the changes in regulation. We will be completing one year of our operation later this month.
How much business have you done in the very first year.
Well, we have been able to sell insurance policies to the tune of R600-700 crore during the very first year of our business. Our product mix comprises 90% of Ulip and the remaining coming from traditional products. Our total assets under management (AUM) is at R1,000 crore, 60% of which was constituted by Ulips.
At present, Ulips constitute the maximum part of your sales while other life insurance players are reducing them in their business mix. Is it safe?
We will continue to focus on Ulip products, rather than non-transparent and highly priced traditional products in future too. Let me add here that even traditional products are not risk-free.
How do you see your product mix going forward?
We don?t believe in technical differentiation of products. Rather, we want to have a need-based product base. While we would like to have 30% of our sales coming from savings products. We also want 15-20% of our revenue coming from health products. Similarly, we want to sell 30% of pension and 20% of investment products.
What kind of products you are looking at launching in future?
We are looking at launching three to four products during the next financial year and half of them will be Ulips.
We may also consider launching Ulip-based pension products, but for that we are waiting for some liberalisation of existing pension norms by Irda.
Throw some light on how much of your fund has been allocated to equity and how much of them in debt so far?
As of now, 65% of our funds have been invested in equities and remaining has been put in debt.
What is your staff hiring and branch expansion plans?
At present, we have 1,200 employees and are planning to add 300-400 staff during the next financial year. More than 95% of our sales comes from bancassurance channels, which was basically happening through 3,000 branches of Bank of Baroda and Andhra Bank. However, we want to make our presence in all the 5,000 branches of the two banks during in three years. We also plan to bring down dependence on bancassurance by two third in three years.
IndiaFirst just launched its digital channel ?LifeStore?. What other initiatives are your looking at?
LifeStore is a do-it-yourself site that helps customers complete their insurance requirements online. We are also working on making policy transactions through mobile phones possible.