The insurance sector is expected to grow by double digits of between 15% to 20%. However, insurance growth will not be at the cost of the banks, or that the banking sector would not grow, said the Life Insurance of India (LIC- India) Chairman, V K Sharma in a media scrum in Mumbai recently.

Facing a barrage of media questions about the Punjab National Bank controversy,  the LIC chairman refused to comment by stating “We will hold onto our 14% stake in PNB and I stand by the PNB which is 133 years old. We are handpicking investments today under the changed circumstances,” he said, adding “Our equity investments have gone up and wherever we invested, it’s long-term and not for trading. In the long-term, the story will unfold and one such is +Modi Care+ which is a revolutionary thing that is going to happen.”

“Our performance is in line with our expectation and the Corporation has recorded healthy results based on its strong fundamentals and core values,” he said while emphasizing LIC’s drive for customer satisfaction and profitability alongside focus on technology for improving customer experience and organizational efficiencies.

Highlighting LIC’s Q3 2017-18 figures, Sharma said New Business performance for nine months ending December 2017 displayed ‘impressive’ growth of 19.47% in its first year premium at Rs 99,783.33 crore.

LIC has already achieved its Single Premium Target for FY 2017-18 as on December 31, 2017, he said, adding that LIC’s Gross Total Income rose by over 12.19% to Rs 3,78,599 crore for Q3 2017-18 from Rs 3,37,466 crore in December 2016, while Total Assets grew by 16.75% to Rs 28,51,190 crore by December 2017 from Rs 24,41,946 crore for the corresponding period and Net NPAs to Rs 23,127 crore in 2017.

Premium Income collection showed robust growth of 11.47% at Rs 2,23,854 crore at December 31, 2017, as against Rs 2,00,818 crore in Dec 31, 2016. Total policy payouts were up by 8.73% to Rs 1,21,986 crore upto December 31, 2017, as against Rs 1,12,194 crore for the corresponding period last year.

Replying to questions, he said LIC’s non-single premiums have witnessed growth greater than expected with 17 lakh ‘Jeevan Labh’ policies being the largest-selling product and Rs 3,000 crores worth being sold this year. “LIC is pursuing Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s dream of ‘Digital India’ and only 40% of Premiums are collected from related collection points with the remaining done online. While our Cancer product sold online 185 policies, our recently-introduced new mobile App witnessed 10 lakh downloads in barely one month,” he said while noting that LIC had also launched a digital ‘Online Revival’ facility for customers to revive their policies.

“Again, we will be ‘overshooting our targets our targets like we did last year. We embarked on renewing LIC and — under the four pillars – have undertaken new programmes including one “Mission 5 lakhs” (that included employing young people and renewing LIC through them). Today   we are 100% online and one of the largest such organisations in the world servicing total 29 crore policies,” he said.

Elaborating on LIC’s long-term investments, he said “We have an appetite for long-term and medium-term instruments and we keep on purchasing them – irrespective of whether they are going up or down. We are getting major premiums income through our online platforms.”

About linking Aadhaar to LIC policies, he said “We have introduced online Aadhaar linkage and will ask the Government to extend this time limit beyond March 2018. However, settling LIC claims will be done only after verifying Aadhaar numbers and we have so far settled 51,000 claims worth Rs 1,000 crore,” he said.

Highlighting LIC’s investments, he said “We have two kinds of investments of which Consortium is the major one worth Rs 23,000 crore. Technology’s delivery reach will make the difference in revenue and other things, besides also providing a big ‘fillip’ – especially in crop insurance.” LIC has over 11 lakh agents and had recruited 1,30,000 agents this year itself, he said, adding that these included agents in both rural and city segments that included young people.

To a question about any proposal to get LIC ‘listed’ on the stock exchange, Sharma quoted the story of the “Golden Goose’ saying, “All of us have studied the story of the Golden Goose. Who can value trust, love? In the entire economic scenario, this is one of the bright spots and anchor which has stood for the companies and the nation.”