news bulletin - NFIFWI

strength of agents of LIC. At such a juncture theLIC management should have opted for some specialdrive of recruitment of agents by offering somespecial incentives and monetary benefits to theDevelopment officers for making such recruitments.Instead the LIC management took away some senioragents of almost all the Development officers andoffered them to be the CLIA’s.The CLIA’s had been offered to make furtherrecruitment of the agents for LIC and not for hisdevelopment officer and get Rs.1000 per recruitmentas incentive. This scheme looks to be very innovativeinitially. It is worth mentioning here that it is nothingbut a copy of the BA Model of the Tata AIG LifeInsurance Company Ltd. The business associate ofa Tata AIG is also an agent and is rewardedhandsomely if he makes a successful recruitment ofan agent. The BA is rewarded by a sum of Rs.9, 000per agent plus other normal incentives on theproduction of new business. But this scheme ofTataAIG has almost failed and the rank of TataAIGhas further slipped to lower ranks in the privateinsurers in terms of production of new business.Similarly the scheme of CLIA’s of LIC of India shallalso die its own death soon.The LIC management overlooked the importance ofthe class of Development officers. One mustremember that if a child is born out it counts as onemember in the strength of the population, but to remainas member in the population the child requires propergrooming, care, service and investment in terms oftime and money, which only the parents and alonethe parents can provide. In the present scenario ofCLIA’s the agent who shall be doing his own personalbusiness too shall not be able to impart the practicaltraining and other helps required in the day-to-dayworking of an agent, which a professionalDevelopment Officer can render.The managers appointed to take care of the class ofCLIA’s are also the employees of the organizationas other class I employees who neither have theChapter III attached to their service conditions nordo they have any incentive scheme like we have forthe class of Development officers, with the resultthat their management shall fell sort of the expectedresults.This way it can safely be concluded that either thescheme of CLIA’s which has been introduced onlyas an alternate channel for the recruitment of agentsshall fail to deliver the results but in case it deliversthe results as per the wishes of the management,then soon we shall find that the new entrants in theorganization shall feel as orphans which will be morea liability than an asset for the corporation.(Contributed by : Com. Mohinder SinghKurukshetra BranchKarnal Division)LIC losing ground in overseas marketNew Delhi (PTI):The Hindu ;6 th July 2008.Country’s largest life insurer LIC is losing business in the overseas market year after year as it has failed toattract new customers amid stiff competition. The first premium collection from foreign operations which stoodat Rs 123.41 crore in 2004-05 declined to Rs 120.8 crore in the following year and further to Rs 108.67 crorefor the year ended March 2007, official sources told PTI. Thus, the new business in the overseas marketdeclined by nearly 12 per cent in a span of three years, they said. The decline in the first premium income insuccessive years is mainly because of failure of marketing strategies to attract new customers amid stiffcompetition, the sources said. The sources also attributed the decline to reduction in sale of single premiumpolicies by LIC Bahrain for 2004-05.However, on the back of old policies, renewal premium witnessed a growth. During 2004-05, LIC’s operationsabroad earned renewal premium of Rs 235 crore, which increased to Rs 292 crore the next year. Renewalpremium stood at Rs 341 crore in 2006-07. Despite falling first premium income, LIC has charted aggressiveforeign expansion plan with a view to increase bagging of new policies. The insurer is currently exploringopportunities for expansion in new territories, including Asian countries such as Singapore, the sources said.Besides, it has formed a new joint venture company Saudi Indian Co for Cooperative Insurance in SaudiArabia. The venture has already received certificate of registration.16