Ageas Federal Life Insurance records ten consecutive years of profit
Pune, May 2022: Ageas Federal Life Insurance, one of India’s leading private life insurance companies, today announced its financial results for the 12-month period ending March 31, 2022, reporting a Net Profit of INR 94 crore. This is the 10th consecutive year of profit for the private Life Insurer since it first declared profit in FY2012-13.
Despite facing various challenges due to the continuing pandemic, Ageas Federal’s total premium rose by 13% to INR 2,207 crore in FY 2021-22 from INR 1,959 crore in FY2020-21. The growth was driven by a 27% rise in Individual New Business Premium to INR 639 crore and 5% rise in renewal premium to INR 1,391 crore.
The Company also benefitted from a strong growth of 23% in Individual New Business Premium from Federal Bank.
An understanding of customers’ needs during the pandemic and catering to them with the appropriate products and solutions has helped Ageas Federal to improve its VNB margin by 9% to 22.39%. Our superior customer service and focus on developing long-lasting relationships with our customers has borne fruit with the 13th month persistency reaching 79% and the Company being in the top quartile of all persistency buckets.
The average turnaround time (TAT) in resolving complaints for FY 2021-22 was 2 days which is among the best in the life insurance industry and considerably lower than the industry average of 5 days. This was the eight consecutive financial year end where the pending complaints were nil at the end of the year.
With the surge in claims on account of COVID, our focus was on further digitalising the claims process to make the journey better and more efficient. Average TAT from date of intimation of the claim to date of settlement of the claim for individual death claims (including COVID-19 death claims) was 16 days. The claim settlement ratio for individual death claims in FY 2021-22 was 97.03% despite the challenges faced on account of the pandemic. The repudiation ratio for FY 2021-22 was 2.12% as against 2.16% in FY 2020-21 for individual death claims, while the repudiation ratio specifically for COVID-19 claims was 0.81%.
Commenting on the financial performance during the year, Mr. Vighnesh Shahane, MD & CEO, Ageas Federal Life Insurance said, “Despite the uncertain COVID situation during the first few months of the year, we recovered strongly to declare profit for the tenth consecutive year. On the distribution front, bancassurance continued to contribute in a big way to our growth numbers during the year. We also focused on growing our proprietary channels – agency, group, online, and DST in a smart, calibrated manner.
On the products front, we saw an increased demand for term plans as awareness has grown over the last couple of years. Also, with the falling interest rate regime and the uncertain global economic scenario, customers are showing greater interest in guaranteed plans. Interestingly because the stock markets have been buoyant over the last 18 months, we have also seen a lot of new in-flows and renewals of ULIP plans.
We aspire to become a truly digital organisation and our focus this year was on making our IT infrastructure more robust. We aimed to leverage the power of automation including next-generation digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning, and Data Analytics to transform our interactions with customers, employees, distribution partners, vendors and other stakeholders,” Mr. Shahane further added
During the year, the Company sought to reinforce its new brand identity as Ageas Federal Life Insurance Company Limited through impactful marketing campaigns featuring its brand ambassador, Sachin Tendulkar.
The organisation’s commitment to creating an exceptional employee experience has earned it several accolades during the year. Ageas Federal was recognised as a Great Place to Work® for the third consecutive time and also featured among ‘India’s Best Workplaces in the Insurance sector’ by Great Place to Work® Institute (India). Additionally, the organisation was recognised as one of ‘India’s Top 25 Best Employers’ by Kincentric.