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Slowdown: insurance sector may feel the pinch
R. Ramabhadran Pillai
‘About 40 % of the policyholders are postponing payment’
‘People not showing much interest in new policies’
General insurance sector may feel the brunt more
KOCHI: The Ernakulam region of Life Insurance Corporation of India has been retaining the topmost position in terms of first premium receipts for several years. A boom in economy had prompted employees and businessmen to take insurance cover on a large scale. But the situation is not so bright now as the slowdown in the economy is taking its toll on the industry also.
About 40 per cent of the policyholders are postponing payment, says R. Sahasranaman, a senior member of the agency network of the LIC. The payment can be postponed for six months and will be accepted with interest. But there are many customers who want to surrender the policies as they are not confident of being able to remit the premium after a few months. The trend is more visible among those employed in the IT sector. About 20 per cent of his clients are interested in surrendering the policies, according to him. The policy-holders were being advised to hold the policies at least for a year so that the surrender value would be more, he said.
The people are not evincing much interest even in new policies. Jeevan Astha, a policy announced recently which had a minimum premium of Rs.25,000, could not get the expected support from clients, he said.
Development Officer N. Muraleedharan too aired a similar view. The business generally goes up in March every year, but the expectations are moderate this time because of the meltdown, according to him.
Growth rate
But Divisional Manager of LIC’s Ernakulam Division, M. Jagannathan, does not think on the same lines. There is a general shift from the unit linked insurance policies to the conventional policies, according to him. “The growth rate (in conventional policies) is terrific and the company is going ahead with expansion programmes,” he said. Jeevan Astha had done well in metros, but not so well in rural areas. There is reason for some top-scorers among the agents to feel a downslide; nevertheless, about 6,000 more agents have been added during the financial year, he points out.
The general insurance sector registered a growth of 6 per cent as per available figures for the period up to November last, but the slowdown had affected the sector as the figures for the corresponding period of the previous year were higher, according to C.B.Venugopal, a leader of the All India Insurance Employees’ Association. There is a drastic reduction in the number of new vehicles being sold which bears a proportion to the amount of new premium received by the general insurance companies.
With the construction sector facing a downturn, the insurance cover for fire too has come down. The general insurance sector’s growth is directly linked to the performance of industries. As such, the segment will feel the pinch more in comparison to the life insurance wing, according to him.
There could be retrenchment in the private sector insurance companies owing to the lesser amount of premium receipts. Neither is the public sector feeling comfortable. The government has introduced a Bill to reform the insurance sector, much to the disappointment of the employees. The move to dilute the government share in public sector insurance companies through public offers and to raise foreign direct investment would ultimately harm the interests of the workforce, he said.
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