Birla Sun Life Eyes 13-14% Growth in Individual Premium Income

Birla Sun Life Insurance (BSLI), the life insurance arm of Aditya Birla Financial Services Group, is looking at 13-14 percent growth in individual premium income during the current fiscal. BSLI, which has a market share of 7.7 percent among private sector life insurers in the country, had registered a total premium income of Rs 5,700 crore in the year gone by, which includes individual (Rs 700 crore), corporate (Rs 1,400 crore) and renewals (Rs 3,000 crore), among others.

"At BSLI, we are looking at 13-14 percent growth in individual premium income in the current fiscal. "However, we are aiming for achieving a single-digit growth in terms of policies by the fiscal-end after having witnessed a degrowth under the segment during the last fiscal," BSLI Managing Director and Chief Executive Pankaj Razdan told reporters on May 24. He was speaking after the launch of SecurePlus plan, a non-participating traditional insurance plan that provides customers a guaranteed second income (during the payment period) which is twice the annual premium paid along with a life cover. The minimum annual premium to be invested for the scheme is Rs 50,000 and it is meant for people falling under the age group of 5-50 years. "The productivity of each agent at BSLI has improved by 14 percent during the last fiscal.

Hence, keeping it in view, we are looking at further improvement of the agents' productivity in the current fiscal, apart from increasing the number of agents at the required level," he said. Talking about Ulip growth, Razdan said, "Ulip had witnessed a growth of 36 percent in the last fiscal and hence we are looking at Ulip growth in the range of 35-40 percent during the current fiscal too." The company has three bancassurance partners DCB, Karur Vysya Bank and Deutsche Bank. BSLI, with a network of 70,000 agents, recorded an EBITDA of Rs 140 crore in 2015-16 from Rs 285 crore in the previous fiscal.