Life Insurance Corporation: an overview

life insurance corporation

Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has made a debut in market listing after 65 years. An overwhelming response is received last week in the view of LIC’s IPO. On the account, a brief informative on LIC is reviewed here.

Life Insurance Corporation

LIC is an insurance and investment corporation of India. It is established and run under the aegis of Government of India, with its headquarters in Mumbai. It is set under the Act of Parliament- LIC Act 1956 on September 1st 1956. LIC provides insurance and financial services all over the country. According to the statistics in 2018-19 LIC claims approximately 290 million policy holders.

Slogan

yogakshemam vahamyaham”  is the slogan chosen by LIC. In Sanskrit it means,  “Your welfare is our responsibility”.

History

Initially, the first insurance company established in India was Oriental Life Insurance in 1818. It is a European based company headquartered in Kolkata. It charged hefty premiums for Indians. Later, Surendra Nath Tagore founded Hindustan Insurance Society. Eventually, it transformed into Life Insurance Corporation.

Eventually, as the Independence struggle increased after World War I and II, the awareness on the importance of Life Insurance also increased in the country. This sowed the seeds for the emergence of many Life Insurance companies across the country.

In 1955, parliament faced the challenge in the matter of insurance frauds by the private agencies. Henceforth, the Parliament of India passed LIC Act 1956 as a result of the Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956.

Structure

LIC has its central office in Mumbai and comprises a total of 8 Zonal Offices in the country. They are namely Delhi (North), Chennai (South), Mumbai (West), Hyderabad (South Central), Kanpur (North Central), Kolkata (East), Bhopal (Central) and Patna (East Central).

The executive Board comprises of Chairman, currently MR Kumar. It also has Managing Directors Vipin Anand, TC Suseel Kumar, Mukesh Kumar Gupta and Raj Kumar.

Growth

Initially, LIC started with around 300 offices. As of today, LIC has 2048 branch offices which are fully computerized. There are 8 zonal offices along with 113 divisional offices in addition to 1408 satellite offices and a central office. The business started with 5.7 million policies roughly, has managed to grow up to 350 million policies.

However, the main strength of LIC lies with their employees and agents. As on March 2020, LIC has a total of 1.2 million agents approximately.

Debut in the market

LIC’s IPO received a stupendous response. PTI reported that Tuhin Kanta Pandey, Secretary, Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM), said “People enthusiastically participated and 73 lakh applications were received a record, and possibly it is the largest in the world ever while 50 lakh demat accounts were opened since then”.

LIC has made its own mark as a trusted brand among the citizens in the country. According to PTI, Mohit Ralhan, Managing Partner, TIW Capital Group hoped, “LIC is a typical blue-chip company which is expected to give steady returns over a long period of time and therefore returns over a day is not relevant. He added, “It is expected to remain quite attractive for investors”.

Conclusion

LIC has proved its stand among the people since decades. It has faced many ups downs to stand where it is now. Although, the market is seeing negativity now, let us hope LIC can cope up and make its mark in the long run.

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