Allianz Bajaj premium income leaps 3-fold

By Our Banking Bureau | 07 Jun 2004

Chennai: The Pune life insurer Allianz Bajaj Life Insurance Company Limited, has closed the fiscal 2003-04 with a premium income of Rs220 crore up from Rs69 crore logged the previous year.

The company's new business premium for 2003-04 was Rs179 crore and the number of new policies issued during the period was over 1.8 lakh. The total sum assured for the year 2003-04 was Rs2481 crore and the cumulative sum assured for the company at the end of last fiscal stood at Rs4137.

According to Sam Ghosh, country manager and also CEO, "Our strategy of putting the company on a growth path through a series of initiatives has started showing results. We have drastically increased our network to 56 cities from 33 cities to reach out to our customers. Our decentralisation policy has also begun to yield results. In the current year we will be launching innovative and need-based products and using IT infrastructure to drive our growth strategy."

During the period under review, Allianz Bajaj had launched 11 products and 60 per cent of its new business was contributed by its UnitGain, its unit linked product.

Bancassurance channel also contributed significantly, almost 20 per cent, to the premium income from its two bancassurance partners. The company plans to increase this channel by tying up with more banks.

The company also pioneered the issuance of policies at point-of sale whereby any branch or corporate agents can issue policy from their own location in minutes. With its Black Box Underwriting system, developed in-house, underwriting decision is given in minutes from the local office itself.

The company is also keen to strengthen its Group Insurance portfolio by launching customised group insurance cover. The company already has three plans and this year would be launching two more such plans.