India’s state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), which is the country’s biggest life insurer, cites the GCC as the company’s best performing market abroad.
LIC’s Bahrain-headquartered arm LIC International produced the best results among the group’s eight international subsidiaries in terms of new business premium collection in 2015, reported the Press Trust of India. The other overseas subsidiaries are in Britain, Fiji, Mauritius, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Kenya and Saudi Arabia.
LIC International is present in five GCC countries, namely, Bahrain, UAE, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar. This subsidiary contributed over 80% of the group’s total overseas business in terms of new business in 2015.
“New business premium of LIC International grew by a whopping 197% to US$121 million in 2015,” Chief Executive and Managing Director of LIC International Rajesh Kandwal told the news agency.
“We sold 13,120 policies in 2015, which is a growth of over 16% over the previous year. In terms of the number of policies, we enjoyed over 88% of the market share in Bahrain in 2014,” he added. Mr Kandwal said the major contributing factors for the performance were attractive products, a high level of trust in the LIC brand, and the success of bancassurance in the UAE.
LIC has a very strong connection for non-resident Indians (NRIs) who form a significant proportion of the workforce in the GCC. The NRI segment is a niche market for the group. Mr Kandwal said: “Though we mainly target the NRIs, we also go beyond them. Our bancassurance partners play a significant role in selling to the other nationals, particularly locals,” he said.
Going forward, he said the company would consolidate its operations and tap the potential in the existing markets.