LIC chairman M R Kumar said that the insurance company is growing at 18% and is expected to grow at 20% in terms of the number of policies, with the aim of reaching 2.5 crore policies by the end of March 31, 2020. He said, “LIC wants to maintain the profit of Rs 21,000 core it had made last year from investments in the equity market and hopes to, at least, reach Rs 22,000 crore this year.”
Around 2 crore policies have been sold by LIC in the last five years. In the current year, the life insurance industry reported a new business premium of Rs 1.69 lakh crore of which LIC had garnered about Rs 1.2 lakh crore. There was a net increase of 1 lakh agents last year. Kumar said that among banks, IDBI was leading in terms of bancassurance tie-ups with LIC, and the bank has brought Rs 500 crore in premium this year.
Kumar added, “LIC would be looking at unit-linked policies where the need for solvency does not arise to deal with potential stress in the insurance market and to improve solvency.” He informed further, “LIC had filed a couple of products with the regulator and was hoping to come up with some new ones in the next financial year.”
