MUMBAI:
Private Insurer Shriram Life Insurance Company ended the financial year 2019 on a positive note achieving a sales growth of 23% on total individual premium. On total premium collection the company touched 1700 crores as compared to 1500 crores in the previous year. Profit after tax stood at 63 crores.
The company was also ranked 9 th amongst the private insures on number of policies. SLIC achieved these results despite significant impact on business from key partners due to the NBFC crisis in the third quarter of the last financial year. Part of the Shriram group, SLIC focuses on the “aam aadmi” customer segment with over 50% of its policies sourced from the rural area and a huge chunk from the tier II and III towns. It is the only insurer to have such a high percentage of business contribution from the rural sector.
Casparus Kromhout, MD and CEO Shriram Life Insurance Company said,“ SLIC has stayed focused on its purpose to spread financial protection to those sections of the society that are generally overlooked by the mainstream commercial institutions; these families are most vulnerable to financial catastrophe due to untimely loss of a breadwinner”.
SLIC’s focus on improving fundamentals and providing exemplary customer service to the mass market segment led to continued improvements on various parameters. Renewal Premium Collection achieved a growth of 28% with additional focus on persistency enhancement.
“Persistency has always been a challenge considering the low awareness levels in the mass market: SLIC was able to set processes to reach out to these customers and 13 th month persistency crossed the 60% mark which is a benchmark for the said segment to 63%”. He added. Continuing to focus on customer service claim settlement ratio for the company crossed 85%; another benchmark for the mass market segment and an improvement of 5 percentage points from the previous year.
“SLIC’s growth has been satisfactory at 23%, considering the strong potential provided by the macro economic factors and current low penetration levels; we experienced a setback in the 3 rd quarter of the past financial year as the NBFC crisis affected business from some key partners; but the company was able to recover in the last quarter and reach close to 1700 crore on total premium collection. SLIC would continue to strengthen on innovation and technology implementation with focus on providing greater value to its customers and employees” concluded Kromhout.
The company has progressed further on the adoption of digital technology in its business processes to enhance customer service, improve ease of doing business and deploy analytics more efficiently. Focus on Innovation strengthened with the company piloting new distribution avenues to service remote rural areas and focusing on product innovation to meet the specific needs of farmers and seasonal income customers.
