If all goes according
to plan, India Post will soon offer life insurance products as part of a
broader strategy to give its millions of customers a suite of financial and
savings instruments ranging from small savings, fixed deposits, insurance and
mobile wallets. A specific policy for the girl child, with a maximum assured
sum of Rs 10 lakh, is also on the cards.
The move is part of
the postal department’s strategy to modernise its services, leveraging its
network of 160,000 post offices , 45,000 postmen and 250,000 extra-departmental
employees, who would be trained to serve as personnel financial advisers in
remote villages.
“We are looking to
revamp our life insurance business in a big way in 2016...at present, we offer
our own life insurance products in a very limited manner only to postal staff
and a few government officials,” Kavery Banerjee, secretary, department of
post, told HT.
India Post will soon
approach the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) for its
approval to launch more insurance products.
At present, India Post
has a total corpus of Rs 56,000 crore under its insurance segment, which offers
postal life insurance (PLI) and rural postal life insurance (RPLI). “We are
looking at a 500% increase in the next two to three years,” Banerjee said.
India Post has managed
to sell 7 million policies under PLI while 23 million under RPLI. It is also
looking at tie-ups with general insurance companies at a later stage to offer
non-life products.
Besides, India Post
will also start selling Atal Pension Yojana, a government-backed pension
scheme, which was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May this year.
Until August, banks have managed to induct only about 500,000 subscribers into
the scheme, which mainly targets the unorganised sector.
The finance ministry,
which has set a target of 20 million subscribers by December 31 this year, has
also asked banks to chalk out individual strategies to expand the reach of the
pension scheme.
//copy// HT
No comments:
Post a Comment