Private life insurance company Aviva Life Insurance is planning to expand its reach to health and Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) segment. “Child plans, health and SMEs are segments we would want to focus on. As per our research, these are the areas where there are more opportunities to explore,” said Trevor Bull, MD and CEO, Aviva Life Insurance. In a interview M Saraswathy, Bull also spoke about the insurer’s growth prospects.
Q: How has growth panned out for the insurer considering you lost a bank partner in the first half of the financial year?
A: Overall, growth has stabilised and complaints have also gone down. Our complaints have reduced by 25 percent, while the net promoter score increased by 25 percent. For the 13th month, our persistency stands at 77 percent.
In the first half of the year, we saw some slump in new premiums after our bancassurance tie-up with IndusInd Bank ended. However, new premium growth came back in the second half of the fiscal. In fact, we grew by almost 59 percent in the month of February itself. Also, our partnership with DBS Bank is growing.
Q: Are you adding more number of agents to drive business?
A: We are driving productive growth, while we are adding about 500 agents a month. Now, agents are being given rewards and recognition based on how good their customer outcomes are, how they have performed in terms of persistency and also in terms of complaints. Due to this, we have a more productive group of agents and better customer outcomes.
Q: Online insurance seems to be the flavour of the system. Will you be driving products through this channel as well?
A: We have launched new online tools for relationship and engagement with customers. Our Aviva Heart Care product gave us some good traction online. We are not driving online yet, since we would want to use it for the education of customers.
Q: Would you want to create a niche for yourself in any particular segment?
A: We have partnered with Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to help its SME customers and bring relevant solutions to them.
Since we are already known for our child plans, we would want to do more in this, especially on the engagement front.
Overall, child plans, health and SMEs are segments we would want to focus on. As per our research, these are the areas where there are more opportunities to explore. We want to associate with individuals not just as a consultant but as an advisor on child, health and SME segments as well.
Source: Money Control
