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Remya Nair

Mumbai, Sept. 20 The latest entrant into the life insurance space, Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance, has set itself a steep target of Rs 500 crore for new business premium this fiscal.

But Mr Kamalji Sahay, the CEO, is hopeful the company will achieve it. “We are a toddler and are trying to establish ourselves as a big player. Hopefully, by the next financial year, we should be in the big league,” he says.

In an interview with Business Line, Mr Sahay outlines the plans and the roadmap for the company.

How has the journey been so far?

It has been a difficult and at the same time an exciting time. The process of setting up a company, coordinating with so many vendors, and setting up offices is a big challenge. We took it upon ourselves of starting at an all-India level and establishing a large network. The task of activating all branches of our two parent banks is also challenging. We are in the process of hiring people so that we can activate most of the branches.

Right now, of the 5,600 bank branches, around 3,000 branches are mapped through our people.

We were the 22nd company in India. Today, we stand in the 19th place. In July, we have done better than companies such as IDBI Fortis, Sahara, Aegon Religare and DLF Pramerica. When the August figures come out, we should be maintaining this position.

What targets have you set for your company so far? Are you confident of meeting them?

Till August, we did business amounting to Rs 70 crore. We are targeting more than Rs 500 crore of fresh premium in the current fiscal. However, we have been a bit slow in hiring people. Still, we are hopeful of reaching our target as the economy is also improving.

What is your strategy to capture market share?

We have launched a number of new products. We are focussing on promoting group products, education and housing loan.

We are treating September as a half-yearly closing. It’s a festival month and there is lot of money in the market as the Government is releasing the second instalment of arrears of Rs 17,400 crore.

We are making a plan to mop-up the money and are training people. We are planning to sell pension products. People would want to park their lump-sum money in a safe fund that grows reasonably well. At present, pension funds grow reasonably well.

We are also looking to introduce very simple products for people in rural areas. Union Bank and Bank of India have large number of rural branches. We have tied up with regional rural banks also.

We are working on the products and will file it with the regulator shortly. The number of policies should increase even if money may not come in a big way as these are small ticket policies.

Around 90 per cent of our portfolio is ULIPs and the remaining is traditional products.

What are your hiring plans? Do you plan to diversify to other channels also?

To activate all the branches of banks, we are in the process of hiring more people and training them. We have recruited 550 people for field purposes and want to increase it to 900-1,000 by the end of this fiscal.

We are planning our workforce in a manner that situations such as job cuts do not arise.

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