Metlife To Infuse Rs 120 Cr

MetLife India Insurance is likely to infuse around Rs 120 crore of fresh capital to fund the company's expansion plans. The decision will be taken at next week's board meet.

The company's capital stands at Rs 761 crore now.

The private sector life insurer has also entered into a tie-up with Axis Sales, a subsidiary of Axis Bank, to target new segments including the bank's asset and credit card customers.

Rajesh Relan, managing director, Metlife India Insurance, said, "We had tied up with Axis Bank a year back. At present almost 25 per cent of our total premium is contributed by the bank. Our tie-up with Axis Sales now will help us deepen and build on our relationship with the bank further "

"Axis Sales, with about 4,500 employees and a presence in 22cities, would provide us yet another untapped customer segment towhich we can provide customised and bundled insurance solutions," Relan said.

The premium income is likely to be around Rs 600 crore in the current fiscal. Almost 50 per cent of the total premium of Metlife comes from bancassurance, which includes tie-ups with banks such as J&K Bank, Karnataka Bank, Dhanalakshmi Bank, Axis Bank and Barclays Bank.

MetLife has also ramped up its agency force from 8,000 to 31,000 to take care of its current and proposed network expansion over the next few months. This is a part of the insurer's strategy to use a multi-distribution channel. It intends to add 25 additional branches in the next quarter to take its total branch count to 111 by the close of the financial year.

MetLife India Insurance is a joint venture of Metlife International Holdings Inc, J&K Bank, M Pallonji and other Indian investors.

Almost 90 per cent of MetLife's offerings are unit-linked policies at present. Asked whether the company has apprehensions on the stock market volatility, Relan said: "We have a balanced portfolio of products, whether they are unit-linked or traditional. And considering the earlier downturns in the stock market, which has not impacted ULIPs, there are no apprehensions on this front".