Bharti AXA Life new business premium rises 25% in FY19

Private insurer Bharti AXA Life Insurance on Monday said its new business premium increased 25 per cent growth at Rs 911 crore in the financial year 2018-19 against Rs 731 crore in the previous fiscal. Its annualized new business premium rose 31 per cent to Rs 640 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2019, from Rs 489 crore in 2017-18. The company registered a 22 per cent growth in its renewal premium to Rs 1,164 crore in FY 2018-19, as compared to Rs 954 crore in the previous fiscal.

Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and French insurance company AXA, said its total premium grew 23 per cent to Rs 2,076 crore in the fiscal year ended March 2019 from Rs 1,684 crore in the previous fiscal. "The overall growth was driven by both higher new business as well as healthy renewal collections in the last fiscal," said Vikas Seth, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Bharti AXA Life Insurance. Asset under management of the company witnessed an increase of 27 per cent from Rs 4,496 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 5,699 crore as on March 31, 2019.

The company set up 50 new branches during the year, taking its distribution network to 236 branches across the country . Bharti AXA Life Insurance took its net advisor force by 10,750 to 39,400 agents in the financial year ended March 31, 2019, higher by 38 per cent on a year on year basis.

Seth said: "As part of our aggressive expansion drive to strengthen operation and enhance distribution footprint in the country, we increased our advisor base and branch count in the last financial year with a view to creating a large pool of productive agents and reaching out to every nook and corner of the country." He said the company has a big expansion plans in the current financial year in terms of recruitment of fresh advisors and setting up of more branches for new customer and business acquisition. It will further strengthen its agency model for selling various insurance products and servicing customers efficiently.

"Apart from focussing on quality business and sustainable growth with an emphasis on protection and saving segments, we will continue to strengthen digital and data analytics deployments for providing the best value proposition to our customers and efficiency in our operations," he added.