“It is too early for the largest domestic life insurance company to go public,” says MR Kumar, LIC Chairman. Kumar further said that while the economy is seeing a slowdown, life insurance as a sector is doing well.
“The potential is huge, and consolidation is still far away,” he said. LIC possessed total asset under management in excess of Rs 31 lakh crore as of July end. Kumar stated LIC has invested Rs 33,000 crore in equities this year.
“The insurer has made Rs 13,000 crore profit on this. Last year, it made Rs 23,000 crore profit from equity,” he said.
Kumar had said LIC is not worried about market movements, as it is a long-term player. “As long as a scrip gives returns over 10-15 years, it is good enough,” Kumar said his company does own research before investing and evaluates its portfolio once in a quarter.
Kumar stated, “LIC has stakes and board seats in many companies but is not involved in running day-to-day operations of any. Bulk of LIC’s corpus is still invested in debt,” he said.
“We have seen slowdown cycles before, and we shall ride over this one as well,” he said. Kumar states, “His company plans to add 16,000 officers but does not have plans to add branches. LIC is integrating smaller branches with IDBI Bank branches and is going digital fast to seek technology-led business growth via new products.”
“People have so far preferred buying LIC’s term and endowment products,” Kumar said, adding that his company has consciously stayed away from Ulips, but will gradually start adding them.
