Online BusinessIDBI Fortis to increase agency branches
As part of its expansion plan, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance Company Ltd, the joint venture between the IDBI Bank, Federal Bank and Fortis Insurance International, intends to increase the number of its agency branches in the country to 100 by March 2010.
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The company has 33 such branches at present. Similarly, the number of insurance advisors is proposed to be doubled to 15,000 from 7500 at present. The company having presence in tier-I cities, is in the process of moving out to smaller cities, a senior executive of the company said here.
“We have 33 agency branches at present and intend to increase the number to 100 by the end of the current fiscal. The focus will be on opening of branches in smaller cities,” Mike Wood, chief actuary, IDBI Fortis Life Insurance told Business Standard.
The company will also leverage the organic growth of the partner banks which have about 500 branches each to achieve the objective, he added.
IDBI Fortis Life was able to mobilise Rs 318 crore premium during the last fiscal and achieved 187 percent growth in premium collection during Apr-June this year compared to the same period last fiscal. It sold 87,000 policies last fiscal including 2000 rural and social policies.
Despite the impact of the economic slow down, the company which started its commercial operations in March 2008, hopes to sell about 2 lakh policies during the current fiscal. This will include about 15,000 rural and social policies including Termsurance Grameen Suraksha (TGS). As a measure to strengthen the financial inclusion process in the rural areas, the company is focusing on micro-insurance products.
While it has already entered into tie-up with the Orissa based Regional Rural Development Centre (RRDC) for selling TGS, the company is exploring the possibility of having similar partnership in other states like Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Tamilnadu and Maharashtra.
In the issue of capital infusion plan, Wood said, it is a continuous process and the decision will be taken depending on the requirement. The company started with a capital of Rs 200 crore and injected fresh capital of Rs 250 crore in February 2009, he added.
Ruling out any freeze in the employment due to impact of economic slowdown, Wood said, we will appoint more and more people as we expand. It has a workforce of about 1000 at present including 800 people in sales.