Insurance cos join hands with Visa cards for premium payments

Visa and 20 insurance companies in India have joined hands to make paying life and general insurance premiums "faster and easier" through a range of new payment options for Visa cardholders.Participating companies are: Aegon Religare, Bajaj Allianz Life, Bajaj Allianz General, Bharti AXA Life, Birla Sunlife, Future Generali, HDFC Ergo, ICICI Lombard, ICICI Prudential Life, IDBI Fortis, ING Vysya Life, Kotak Life, Max New York Life, Metlife, Reliance General, Reliance Life, Royal Sundaram, SBI Life, Tata AIG General and Tata AIG Life. The consumers can pay their annual insurance premiums for participating companies with a click of a mouse and their Visa Debit or Credit card by logging on to or the participating insurance company websites, Visa said in a statement here. For cardholders who prefer other payment channels there are options to pay over the phone through their insurance company call centre or sign a standing instruction with their bank to pay their insurance company through their Visa card. Visas payment options also help insurance companies enhance operational efficiency by enabling timely payment, the statement said.Payment via Visa cards also helps insurance companies reduce handling costs through automating the payment process, which in turn can speed up customer service and improve consumer perceptions.

Birla Sun Life targets retirement, health areas

Birla Sun Life Insurance Company is planning to expand its product portfolio in retirement and health insurance segments in 2010-11, according to its Chief Financial Officer, Mr Mayank Bathwal.
“In the health segment, we will look at launching policies aimed at the unorganised sector and self employed persons, a segment vastly underserved as of now,” Mr Bathwal told media persons at a meeting here.
The health segment, currently contributing less than five per cent of the company's business, would be one of the fastest growing segment for the company in the future, he said.
In the retirement segment, he said, the company could look at launching products in tune with consumer demand in both the accumulation phase of the fund and its annuity component.
The company currently holds 3.6 per cent market share of the total life insurance industry.
Its loss account as on December 2009, had reduced by nearly 26 per cent over the same period last year to Rs 381 crore, he said.

Andhra Bank, BoB and L & G insurance venture gets final nod

Life insurance joint venture of Bank of Baroda, Andhra Bank and the U.K.-based company Legal and General (L&G) — IndiaFirst Life Insurance — has received final approval from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and will start operations in December. “We have received approval R3 (the final approval required for starting an insurance company) from the IRDA, and we will be in the market in December,” IndiaFirst Life Insurance Chief Executive Officer P. Nanadagopal told reporters here on Monday. Four products The latest entrant in the life insurance market, IndiaFirst had filed for four products, including three unit linked products, with the insurance regulator, he said. “Once the product approval from IRDA is received, we will start the operations,” Mr. Nandagopal said. 23rd player In the joint venture company, Bank of Baroda has a 44 per cent stake, Andhra Bank 30 per cent and Legal and General 26 per cent. The 23rd player in the life insurance market, IndiaFirst, has a capital base of Rs. 200-crore and plans to enhance it to Rs 2,500-crore over ten years. “Our initial paid-up capital is Rs. 200-crore. All the three promoters would increase the base to Rs. 2,500-crore over the next 10 years,” Mr. Nanadgopal said.

'Pvt insurance firms have more death claims than LIC'
New Delhi, Mar 16 (PTI) Private sector insurance firms have more than three times the outstanding number of death claims on individual insurance policies compared to state-owned LIC, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told the Rajya Sabha today.Replying to supplementaries during Question Hour, he said the outstanding number of death claims, as on March 31, 2009, as a percentage of total number of claims intimated to the companies in 2008-09 stood at 7.75 per cent for private firms.The same for public sector Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) was 2.21 per cent, he said.For group policies, private sector companies had 3.93 per cent outstanding claims while LIC had 0.24 per cent.Mukherjee said private sector insurance companies started operations eight years back while LIC has been in business since 1956.

Bharti AXA offers 10% discount on health plans for women

On the eve of International Women’s day, non-life insurer - Bharti AXA General Insurance offered 10 per cent discount on all its health Insurance products for women. The discount will be available till March 31, 2010.

The insurer said that the primary objective of the promotion is to increase awareness amongst women of the need for financial protection against health risks and other stress-related diseases that women today are prone to.
“With today’s fast paced lifestyles and nuclear families, women today are more prone to health related problems than they ever were before. High stress levels at the workplace and other lifestyle related health risks; all point towards the need for better health care & health insurance to provide much needed help is case of an unwelcome eventuality,” said Amarnath Ananthanarayan CEO, Bharti AXA General Insurance.