LIC to enter micro-insurance; 3i Infotech to develop transactional software

Mumbai: After the entry of banks in to micro finance, the government owned LIC plans to introduce micro insurance in the country. It will offer life insurance for a minimum sum assured of Rs5,000 to those in the age group of between 18 and 60 years in the rural and semi urban areas.

LIC says that its micro insurance initiative is first of its kind and will cover all the rural and semi-urban areas in India. With the huge potential for micro insurance in the country, the life insurer expects to issue one crore micro insurance policies over the next two to three years.

To facilitate this, the insurance giant has placed an order on 3i Infotech to develop software to facilitate online and offline micro-insurance transactions with agents and other intermediaries.

With the help of this software, LIC will make this policy available in rural and semi urban areas through its 10,000 agents including NGOs, self help groups and micro finance institutions spread across the country.

The software will enable the micro insurance agents to completely manage their insurance portfolio and provide them with reporting capabilities. Additionally the software will facilitate information exchange with LIC's systems and be a desktop-based full-fledged application with local repositories of information pertaining to micro insurance agents.