IndiaFirst Life Looks at more Bank tie-ups

IndiaFirst Life Insurance is looking to tie-up with additional banks to provide their suite of products to their customers. The private life insurer, which is a joint venture between Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and UK's Legal and General as its foreign partner, has taken part in some of the recent requests for proposal (RFP) floated by banks like Indian Overseas Bank.

R M Vishakha, MD & CEO, IndiaFirst Life Insurance said, "We bring experience and we will be knowledge partners. We are exploring additional tie-ups with more banks. Hence, we have participated in the Indian Overseas BankRFP too," she said.

However, she explained that with respect to small-ticket policies, there is a need to have specialised agencies to deal with it. "Banks till continue to sell small-ticket products and 96 per cent of our branches are active. However,micro-insurance with very low premiums will need specialised distributors for it to penetrate further," she said.

The insurance regulator had also allowed insurers to sell products through common service centres (CSCs) in rural areas. But, Vishakha explained that the off-take for the CSC products is not very high at present, since it is still a push product. However, she said that they are taking efforts to market it further in smaller towns and villages.

IndiaFirst Life's foreign partner has not yet increased its stake in the company to 49 per cent, which is the maximum permissible as per the new insurance amendments which were passed in 2015. Vishakha said that the foreign partner is certainly interested in investing for the long term for the company, however it is waiting for some more stability.

"The regulations have not yet stabilised and any person who wants to make an investment would want to see regulations to be stable. We've been having regulations and changes in changes in them regularly, so anyone who wants to invest would want to see that the regulations stabilise. We need a little more stability to give confidence to the investor," she said.

With respect to the product mix, IndiaFirst still has a large traditional portfolio and Vishakha believed that this is primarily because of the volatility in the stock markets. Similarly, in the health space since the existing reimbursement product will have to withdrawn as per regulatory decisions taken, she said that they will need to work on bringing out a benefit product so that their health portfolio sees a growth. Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has said that life insurers cannot offer indemnity based products in neither individual nor group segment.

On the digital front. the insurer is working on revamping their entire website which would be launched by early next year. "In tune with that launch, we may look at launching another digital product at that time," she said. IndiaFirst has set a target of 30 per cent growth in retail new premium for this financial year and Vishakha said that they are already seeing 80 per cent growth in retail premiums in the first five months.