Life Insurance Corporation of India
The company was created with the objective of spreading life insurance more widely, especially to reach all the insurable people in the rural areas and provide them with adequate financial cover at a reasonable cost. Apart from its corporate office, LIC had five zonal offices, 33 divisional offices and 212 branch offices in 1956. The nature of life insurance contracts being long-term coupled with the need to provide a variety of services during the term of the policy, LIC re-organised itself by opening a number of new branch offices.
After its re-organisation, servicing functions were transferred to branches which were converted to accounting units. other cities. LIC has also launched Satellite Sampark offices in order to provide easy access to its policy holders. The company had 340 such offices as on Mar 2008. LIC also provides housing finance through LICHFL. It has also formed an asset management company known as LICMF AMC. The corporation has also extended its operations to the international arena; through various JVs and subsidiaries it operates in as many as nine countries.
LIC offers a wide array of insurance products to its customers such as insurance plans, pension plans, unit-linked plans, special plans and group scheme. During FY08, the company introduced certain new products such as Profit Plus, Fortune Plus, Jeevan Akshay, Jeevan Amrit & Amulya Jeevan. As of Mar 2007, total number of agents of the company stood at 1. 1 mn while the total number of policies issued was 38. 2 mn. The premium earned by the company reported a growth of 41% in FY07 when compared to the previous year.
During the year, the company insured 34. 28 mn individuals for the first time, taking the ratio of first insurance to total business to 89. 61% for number of policies. Operations As on Mar 2008, LIC had 2,048 fully computerised branch offices, 109 divisional offices, eight zonal offices apart from its corporate office. LIC’s network connects all the branches through wide area network. The company also has tie-ups with certain banks and service providers to offer on-line premium collection facility in select cities.
