State-owned insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) is looking to reduce share

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of unit-linked insurance policies (Ulips) in its product mix to 65 per cent by end of calendar year 2010, a top official said.

“It was a conscious decision by us to cut down on Ulips and focus on conventional products. In the past two years, the share of Ulips in our product mix has come down to 73 per cent from 88 per cent and the trend would continue,” D K Mehrotra, managing director of LIC, said.

Meanwhile, LIC is on course to achieve its target of Rs 48,000 crore in first premium and Rs 4.38 crore in number of policies sold. It has already achieved 52 per cent of the target for premium and 55 per cent for policy sales till December 2009.

According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda), LIC mopped up first premium income of Rs 5,978.37 crore in November 2009, against

Rs 3,346.39 crore in the corresponding period in 2008. Private insurance companies collected

Rs 2,689. 74 crore in the same period.

For the eight months up to November, LIC’s growth was 44.5 per cent, while private sector insurers continue to be in the red. New premium income of private players fell 6 per cent in the first eight months of the present financial year, although the pace of decline had dropped from the level seen last month. The growth of the entire sector till November was 22 per cent Mehrotra said that LIC would look to maintain its market share of 66 per cent and extensively focus on agent training and innovative product laun

ches.

“Since there are 25 life insurers in the space, competition has become stiff. Since insurance is a push product, agent training and retention becomes important part of planning,” he added.

LIC has added 150,000 agents till December 2009, with net additions of 20 per cent. Its agent attrition rate stands at 10-12 per cent, versus the industry average of 15 per cent.

The company also launched its sales training centre in Chennai, its fourth in the south zone. It has 680 agent training centers and 33 sales training centers across the country.