Max New York Life: the winner of four awards in last six months

Max New York Life-India’s one of the leading private insuring companies has once again proved itself by winning four awards in brand building, social media and customer loyalty section in last six months. This proves that the company has done innovative work in the area of brand building.

Max New York Life Insurance has been awarded ‘Star Brand’ for year 2010-2011 by Planman Marcomm. The award was given after considering four parameters – innovation, product, recall perception and impact on consumers.

The company’s product ‘Igenius’ has received third prize in the category of ‘Best Strategic Program on Social Media Platform’ out of 150 participants. 

Igenius also succeeded in winning the second ‘CMO Asia Awards’ for Best use of Social Media in marketing category. 

Max New York Life also won the much coveted ‘Customer & Brand Loyalty Award’ in the Life Insurance class at Loyalty Summit conference beating off ICICI Prudential, HDFC Metlife and LIC.

InsuringIndia.com has finally arrived

India’s first multilingual online insurance portal-InsuringIndia.com has finally arrived in the market with a goal to help its customers’ total Insurance requirements.

InsuringIndia.com is an online insurance aggregator from where the users can get free quotes and the best insurance plans from the best companies at the best rates in the market.

The company is the first in India to offer a policy managing facility “Manage My Policy” in which customers will get timely reminders so that they never miss a payment. The company offers experts advice to help its customers’ queries. All the services are free.

Credit insurers wary after New India Assurance debacle

Credit insurers are being wary after the firing of the New India Assurance chairman for providing credit insurance to private airline ‘Paramount Airways’ without enough reinsurance cover.

Credit insurance is generally bought by companies to insure the credit that they have to pay off to their lenders. It is still a small business in India with a calculated underwritten premium of Rs. 300-350 crore for fiscal year 2010-11. 

Paramount Airways got a credit risk cover from Oriental Insurance, which was utilized by the company as a surety to get bank loans. When Paramount was not able to repay loans of Rs. 400 crore, the liabilities burden came down to Oriental Insurance as a claim. Oriental Insurance also had no reinsurance cover.

IRDA has now prohibited all forms of credit insurance. This event has made the credit insurers more cautious.

LIC targets 3000 clients in Fiji

LIC launched its microfinance product “Microlife” four months back in Fiji and since then has sold it to approximately 300 clients.  LIC now has an aim to increase this to 3000 by the end of this financial year.

The premium of Microlife is 2 dollars a week for a minimum cover of 2000 dollars, and the maximum cover is 7000 dollars. In the insurance cover, natural death, accidental death, permanent disability and funeral are covered for a period ranging from 5 to 10 years. Anyone between the age group of eighteen to sixty years can purchase this policy with no need of medical examination.

LIC has partnered with Vodafone to pay the policy premium through its mobile money platform “M-PAiSA”. This action will result in LIC’s widened reach to far-flung areas, rural areas and outer islands.

LICI presently has 59% market share in Fiji and is also the biggest insurance company in the country with a balance sheet of 302 million dollars.

LIC policy holders in Fiji can pay their insurance premium through M-Paisa

Now Indians residing in Fiji and having insurance policy of Life Insurance of India can now pay their premium through M-PAISA. Currently, there are 49,171 LIC insurance policy holders in Fiji.

Indian High Commissioner Vinod Kumar officially launched LIC’s premium payment scheme using M-Paisa platform. Now LIC policy holders can conveniently pay their premiums from their mobile phones.  

M-PESA (M stands for mobile, pesa means money in Swahili) is a mobile-phone based money transfer service from Vodafone.

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance’s ‘Money Secure Insurance Plan’ offers minimum guaranteed return

Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Co. Ltd has launched a new product by the name of 'Bajaj Allianz Money Secure Insurance Plan'. The product was launched keeping in line with changing trends and new horizons. This investment plan furnishes dual advantage of planning for financial security and getting the best returns possible.

It is a Type I unit-liked insurance plan offering a minimum guaranteed return of three percent per annum. This scheme gives out higher of the fund value or sum assured as death benefit. 

It is a unique plan as it allows for protection from downside market risk. Presently, it doesn’t have any equity exposure. MSIP is the lowest ticket size product available in the ULIP category.