Farmers will no longer have to wait endlessly for claiming their payments from the government.
The total number of Indian agents registering with the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT), a prestigious international trade association of insurance agents, has more than tripled to 1,931 agents for 2007 compared with 532 in 2006. To qualify for the MDRT, an Indian insurance agent has to get a premium (read business) of Rs 23.92 lakh to his insurance company or earn a commission of Rs 5.98 lakh.
Faced with abundant liquidity and flat credit off-take, banks are reversing interest rate hikes charged to large companies.In the first three months of this fiscal, most blue chips could access loans at a maximum of one to two percentage points below the PLR. Today, short-term loans (that is, for less than one year) for such companies are available between 7.5 and 9 per cent.
IFCI, say sources, owes nearly Rs 500 crore in debt to LIC, which has the option to convert it into equity and take its total stake from 8.4 per cent now to 49%. IFCI's proposed strategic sale has attracted expressions of interest from 10 entities.
The loan portfolio of banks has grown by Rs 54,908 crore (Rs 549.08 billion) till September 14, representing only 3.6 per cent growth. During the same period last year, banks had lent Rs 147,657 crore (Rs 1,476.57 billion), a rise of 10.5 per cent.
SBI Life, ICICI Pru have seen their valuations increase by 33 per cent and 35 per cent recently. SBI Life Insurance has seen its valuation soar after just 3 months while ICICI Prudential's valuation has increased in just 5 months.
The high sum insured will allow the insurer the luxury of taking treatment in a deluxe room in premium priced hospitals and cover high-cost medical expenses for critical illnesses.
Insurance agents of all life insurance companies selling unit linked insurance plans will now show rate of returns ranging between 6 and 10 per cent to customers.
Prudential ICICI's managing director, Shikha Sharma, talks about how the journey has been so far and also why she thinks unit-linked insurance plans are the best allocators of long-term funds.
Central bank fears corporate credit is finding its way to the bourses.
An increasing number of contractors managing parking lots at malls, multiplexes and five-star hotels are buying parking insurance covers
State Bank of India's investment kitty now includes Rs 300 crore (Rs 3 billion) worth of shares of its competitor and the second largest lender, ICICI Bank.
For a larger pie in business opportunities thrown up by the rising cross-border acquisitions by Indian companies, the country's largest bank, State Bank of India, is looking to acquire a small investment banking firm in Europe.
The Life Insurance Corporation has decided not to nominate any retired employee as a director on the board of the almost 90 companies in which it has equity or loan exposure.
The code of market conduct is being prepared under the aegis of the General Insurance Council (a self-regulatory body of the 12 non-life insurance companies) in this regard.
The finance ministry is having a relook at the entire financial sector regulations and legislations to determine how they compare with the global standards.
T S Vijayan has completed a year as chairman of insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation of India. In an interview with Business Standard, he speaks about the targets set by LIC, its plans to beat competition and overseas and future plans.
The general insurers have sought well-crafted strategies from interested consultants to withstand competition from the private sector which is more customer-oriented in terms of both services and products.
As soon as general insurers are freed from the shackles of standard products, they could offer a motor insurance policy that provides for settlement of full claims amount without any deductions for depreciation as per the current practice.
"We have written to all the companies in which we have nominee-directors, asking them not to give Esops," said LIC managing director D K Mehrotra. He said there were more than 100 companies in which LIC had nominee-directors.
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