Information at a premium

04 March 2002

At a time when new private life insurers have to win the confidence of the wider public by sharing information, exactly the opposite is happening. And the media - one of the vehicles that should be used to establish public trust - is turning pessimistic about these new-generation life insurers.

New private players such as Max New York Life, MetLife India, ING Vysya and Birla Sun Life are cagey when it comes to sharing basic numbers, like premiums earned and the number of policies sold by them. An official of one life insurer recently misled reporters by saying his company need not prepare a life fund account, since it guarantees minimum returns to policyholders instead of a traditional bonus.

You have to convince me as to why I should part with those numbers, says ING Vysya deputy managing director and president Yvo R Metzelaar. Numbers can be misinterpreted, and we dont want that to happen to us. ING Vysya claims to have exceeded its planned sales projections for the year 2001. Similarly, it claims to have recorded a premium income in January 2002 that is 81 per cent higher than the average recorded between September and December 2001. The figure doesnt mean anything without a base number to compare with.

The predicament of officials like Metzelaar or MetLife India MD Venkatesh Mysore is understandable. Their companies commenced operations very recently and they cant quote any impressive numbers. But it's not much different even if the numbers are good.

What the officials fail to understand, or even notice, is that the press is just trying to find out the progress or simply identify the number of people who have reposed their long-term confidence in their companies. And the companies are losing out an opportunity in projecting themselves. For instance, Birla Sun Life had settled one death claim during this fiscal - a crucial aspect that the company failed to highlight in their media communication.