LIC's micro finance

India’s largest government owned life insurance company, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), set a new target of selling 4 million micro insurance policies this year. In a speech given at the SKOCH Banking, Financial Services and Insurance Summit, LIC Chairman TS Vijayan said that two years ago, the corporation had sold 0.8 million micro insurance policies and this year, planned to increase its sales five fold.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has generated Rs 16,600-crore valuation surplus, or profit, in 2007-08, a 10 per cent rise o

ver 2006-07 figures, sources familiar with the development said.

A formal announcement is expected soon. Of this, the insurance behemoth will pay 5 per cent, or Rs 830 crore, to the government as dividend and will distribute the balance among its policy-holders as bonus.

In the previous year, the dividend was Rs 760 crore. Private insurers pay 10 per cent of their valuation surplus to shareholders. Though LIC is yet to arrive at a figure regarding the bonus, “It will not be less than last year’s,” a source said.

In 2006-07, LIC had declared a bonus of Rs 70 rupees per Rs 1,000 sum assured. In 2007-08, LIC’s solvency margin has also increased to 152 per cent or Rs 42,250 crore as compared with 150 per cent in the previous financial year.

New business premium stood at around Rs 58,000 crore. LIC is aiming for a 30 per cent increase in its new business premium in 2008-09.

Top 5 Private Life Insurance Companies in India

Top 5 Life Insurance Companies in India at the end of April-2008 are:

ICICI Prudential Life - 22.1%
Bajaj Allianz - 13.8%
SBI Life - 9.8%
Reliance Life - 8%
Max New York - 8%

Top 5 Gaines in Life Insurance Business in a Year:
Reliance Life +3.9% gain in total private life insurance market share
Birla Sunlife +3.3% gain in total private life insurance market share
Met Life +2.8% gain in total private life insurance market share
Aviva +2% gain in total private life insurance market share
SBI Life +1.7% gain in total private life insurance market share

Top Losers in Life Insurance Business in a Year:
ICICI Prudential Life - 8.3% loss in total private life insurance market share
Bajaj Allianz - 2.4% loss in total private life insurance market share
HDFC Standard Life - 1.2% loss in total private life insurance market share

ICICI Bank is financially strong

State Bank Of India is India’s largest Bank. Just on its heel is ICICI Bank, India's second largest Bank. Recently, there has been a lot of rumor about ICICI Bank suffering due to its severe losses. In the past one year thanks to the after effects of sub prime effect and loss faced by their Derivatives department, ICICI Bank has been the talk of the town. The fact that they curtailed bonus this year and freezed recruitment, added fuel to the fire.ICICI Bank has declared that they are extremely healthy and have adequate capital This was declared by their  chief executive on Friday in order  try to allay fears about the bank's exposure to the global credit turmoil. ICICI Bank Has gone one step further and had made a  public disclosure of its exposure and has also analyzed the impact of this exposure on its Balance Sheet. Mr K V Kamath, has declared that the exposure is minimal and its impact on profit and balance sheets, is negligible.

ICICI Bank that has just lost its position to State Bank of India and insists that people are spreading malicious rumors to tarnish the reputation of ICICI Bank and create panic. Time and again in various television interviews, ICICI Bank has publicly declared that the impact of holding Lehman Brothers assets is less than 0.1% on their profit and balance sheet. They have made various public appearances in various television channels and newspapers reiterating the fact time and again.

 

This is what K V Kamath had to say:

"I just want to reiterate ICICI Bank is an extremely healthy institution," he said. "We literally doubled our capital last year. It is sitting with us." The bank has a net worth of Rs 47000 crore ($10.2 billion), he said. ICICI shares fell more than 22% in the seven sessions ended Wednesday on concerns about its exposure to the global financial crisis system could hurt it. The stock hit a two-month low on Thursday before recovering to end the day up 2.8%. 

On Friday, the shares had risen another 6.5% to Rs 613 in a Mumbai market that was up 4.6%. "Indian banks are in a different position, and indeed ICICI Bank, being an Indian bank with limited exposure to the global market place, a strong balance sheet and a strong capital adequacy position, is different from a global bank," 

Again in throe endeavor to prove themselves sound and rubbish away the rumors doing round, ICICI's joint managing director, Chanda Kochhar, on Thursday gave an interview in an television channel stating that the bank's total exposure to foreign markets was equal to about 4% of its total balance sheet and bank could still post healthy profits and maintain capital adequacy.

 

In order to make their picture clear in front of their investors and remove all doubts and rumors going round in the market- ICICI bank declared its holding in Lehman Brothers on its website www.icicibank.com.The first of its kind of step from any financial institution in India