Tag: Max Life Insurance

Max Life Insurance extends ‘Buy Now, Pay at Approval’ facility to wider modes of online transactions

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Max Life Insurance Company Ltd has enhanced its ‘Buy Now – Pay at Approval’ feature available on term insurance purchases for customers to include more modes of online transactions.

Launched last year for policies purchased online, the feature allows customers to apply for a policy through a digital payment method. This helps ensure that the premium amount is not deducted until the proposal evaluation by the insurer, the company said in an official release.

Previously, the feature was only available on credit card payments last year. With the increase in digital transactions and diversification of payment options, the facility now applies to transactions made through Credit Cards, Debit Cards, and UPI platforms.

Manu Lavanya, Director and Chief Operations Officer, Max Life said, “The ‘Buy Now – Pay at Approval’ feature attempts to simplify policy buying through a digital payment instrument while avoiding the risk of money being withheld in the event of a delay in policy issuance.”

“By extending the facility to wider modes of online transactions, we look forward to delivering hassle-free customer experience and mitigating any negative impact likely to occur due to cancellations/underwriting concerns. Since the introduction of this feature last year, we have seen an uplift in customer experience, with a reduction in grievance and refund-related issues, that we aim to continue with the newer augmentations,” he added.

The feature recorded a 25 per cent customer penetration last year. Introduced across varied payment modes of Credit, Debit cards and UPI for the customers, the enhanced iteration aims to increase its penetration to around 20 per cent over the next couple of months.

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Nation Pension System AUM likely to rise 30% to Rs 7.5 lakh crore by FY22, says PFRDA chairman, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority (PFRDA) Chairman Supratim Bandyopadhyay on Friday said that the corporate sector is showing greater interest in the National Pension System (NPS), which may lead to an on-year 30% rise in assets under management (AUM) on year to Rs 7.5 lakh crore by FY22.

Other key takeaways from the speech

  • Total NPS corpus was at Rs 6.67 lakh crore as on September 25, 2021, up from Rs 5.78 lakh crore as on March 31.
  • Private individual enrolments (excluding Atal Pension Yojana) grew 35% on year to 18.28 lakh as on September 25, 2021, while corporate sector subscribers have shown 20% growth to 12.59 lakh during the period.
  • The Central government employee subscribers grew 4.4% on year to 22.24 lakh as on September 25, 2021, while state governments subscribers grew 10% to 53.79 lakh during the period.

Addition of new fund managers

PFRDA has recently given approval to two new entrants – Tata Asset Management and Max Life Insurance – into fund management of NPS. Axis Mutual Fund is also in the process of joining as a fund manager, Bandyopadhyay said.

Currently, there are seven fund managers – HDFC Pension Management, ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Company, Kotak Mahindra Pension Fund, LIC Pension Fund, SBI Pension Funds, UTI Retirement Solutions and Aditya Birla Sun Life Pension Management.

Individual Subscribers

In June, PFRDA permitted the engagement of individuals who are working as business correspondents or agents within their existing business structure for facilitating the distribution of pension schemes.

Bandyopadhyay said individual distributors would play a key role in the expansion of NPS among the masses. The regulator is also examining if the fees paid to distributors could be enhanced from the current rate of 0.25% of the contribution by a subscriber.

With longevity of life and working life going well beyond 60 years, the regulator has enhanced the entry age for NPS to 70 from 65 and exit age from 70 to 75 years, in all citizen and corporate schemes.



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How Max Life wants to leverage AI/ML to improve customer experience

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Max Life Insurance, a private life insurer, wants to leverage Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to ensure that at least 70-75 per cent of the policies are auto underwritten for retail business, a top official said.

This is part of the company’s aspiration to build an industry-best underwriting capability that would help it manage underwriting risks better without compromising on issuance speed to customers, Manu Lavanya, Director and Chief Operations Officer, Max Life Insurance, told BusinessLine.

Sharing the various facets of the AI/ML initiatives of the company that are being embedded in its underwriting and onboarding processes, he said currently, the company manages to do auto underwriting for about 55-60 per cent of policies. “We are also the only company in the industry that does auto underwriting for protection (policies),” he said.

The key AI/ML initiatives that are embedded in the processes of the company are Vision AI for fraud detection of prospective sales to check for existing comorbidities; Using ML for Diagnostic centre fraud detection; Leverage of intelligent ICR and OCR for seamless recognition of onboarding documents and Intelligent analytics for upfront auto underwriting of new business.

“These initiatives are driving significant improvement in straight-through processing that in turn uplifts our ability to reduce issuance turnaround time for the customers,” he said.

Intelligent Sales Management platform

Meanwhile from September 1 rollout (phase 1), Max Life will launch its new Intelligent Sales Management platform that will leverage AI and ML to drive higher sales productivity and process excellence. “ This will make sure we have customised nudges, customised pings to our front end sales agents, measuring their learnings and progress, doing analytics on it and predicting their success”, he noted.

“What we are trying to do is instead of focusing on offline AI, can I do the decision making at the point of transaction. Can I embed AI to be part of the transaction event itself. I don’t think AI by itself will not be a differentiator. What will be the differentiator is who builds the smarter model and smarter context and who has better scalable data infrastructure to truly gain the benefit of AI. Will AI itself become a differentiation, I don’t think so,” he said.

He highlighted that Max Life Insurance — striving to be a digital-first company—was an early adopter of AI and had set up a dedicated team (AI Works) as early as 2011. Over the last decade, the company has come up with several digital-led initiatives for serving customers and using AI for the purpose of improving customer experiences.

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Max Life to digitally hire 40,000 agent advisors this fiscal

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Max Life Insurance Company Ltd (Max Life), a private life insurer, on Friday said that the company has digitised its entire recruitment process and targets hiring of nearly 40,000 agent advisors in current fiscal.

Launched last year, in the backdrop of Covid-19, a new recruitment approach was designed and implemented to digitally enable quick, seamless identification, verification, and onboarding of prospects.

The new process enabled the it to recruit more than 23,000 agent advisors in FY21, out of which 38 per cent were diverse candidates. Bolstered by the success of last year, the company now aims to build the agency force with even more efficiencies in place to recruit a record number of agent advisors.

V Viswanand, Deputy Managing Director at Max Life Insurance said in a statement: “The digital recruitment journey of our agency workforce has not only helped bring in top-quality talent to the business, but also ensured greater agility, speed and effectiveness in the entire onboarding journey. As a strong advocate for diversity, Max Life also aims to target a more diverse group of people in its recruitment strategies who are more representative of our customers.”

Under its digital recruitment push, Max Life initiated a comprehensive ‘Web-to-Recruit Program’ to enable quality agent recruitment. Built with an always-on approach, the program has enabled the agency with a reliable process of recruitment that has helped establish a healthy agent advisor talent pool. Similarly, mobile-based “Smart Banners” customised with the recruiter’s coordinates have enabled sending out clear communications to the prospect agent and engaging with them on a one-on-one basis.

The company recently launched a new training transformation program for its agency channel with the ‘Max Life Ace Talk’ initiative, the statement added.

The talk series aims to showcase inspirational stories by Max Life’s agent advisors to a network of upcoming agent advisors, fuelling inspiration from personal stories of success and professional journeys, driving a culture of heroes and evangelising the profession.

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Axis Bank stake in Max Life likely to rise to 20 per cent in 12-18 months, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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In line with the proposed deal, Axis Bank is likely to raise its stake in Max Life Insurance to about 20 per cent over the next 12-18 months, said the insurance company’s CEO Prashant Tripathy said. Currently, Axis Bank and its two subsidiaries — Axis Capital Ltd and Axis Securities Ltd — collectively own 12.99 per cent in Max Life Insurance post approval of the deal in April this year.

With this, Axis entities have now become co-promoters of Max Life with three board seats.

“Axis Bank is to increase to 19.99 per cent in tranches. Thirteen per cent is already done over the next two quarters, we will seek approval for the balance seven per cent. So, it will reach about 20 per cent and that will be the ownership of Axis Bank,” Tripathy told.

When asked about the timeline for the completion of the remaining stake transfer, he said: “It should happen in the next 12 to 18 months.”

Under the deal, the Axis entities also have the right to acquire an additional stake of up to seven per cent in Max Life, in one or more tranches, subject to regulatory approvals.

Tripathy said there is no change in brand but the tagline will have the name of Axis Bank as the joint venture partner.

Talking about synergy, he said, “We are coming up with a new strategy for future growth. We are working together as a common team to ensure that Max Insurance life grows faster than the industry. We are working together to look at product mix to drive Axis channel so outcome is favourable for both customers and the company.”

Besides, he said working on analytics areas to leverage on each other’s capabilities.

He said the company launched 14 products or product variants last year and increased the margin by 3.60 per cent in 2020-21.

Max Life Insurance recorded a 22 per cent rise in its total new business premium (individual and group) to Rs 6,826 crore in the financial year ended March 2021.

The renewal premium income of the insurer rose 15 per cent to Rs 12,192 crore, taking the gross premium to Rs 19,018 crore, up by 18 per cent from a year ago.

In terms of individual APE (adjusted premium equivalent), the company witnessed a growth of 19 per cent to Rs 4,907 crore.

Max Life’s post-tax shareholders’ profit fell six per cent to Rs 523 crore in 2020-21 as compared to Rs 539 crore in the previous year.



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Axis Bank stake in Max Life likely to rise to 20 per cent in 12-18 months

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Axis Bank is likely to raise its stake in Max Life Insurance to about 20 per cent over the next 12-18 months, said the insurance company’s CEO Prashant Tripathy said.

Currently, Axis Bank and its two subsidiaries — Axis Capital Ltd and Axis Securities Ltd — collectively own 12.99 per cent in Max Life Insurance post approval of the deal in April this year.

With this, Axis entities have now become co-promoters of Max Life with three board seats.

“Axis Bank is to increase to 19.99 per cent in tranches. Thirteen per cent is already done over the next two quarters, we will seek approval for the balance seven per cent. So, it will reach about 20 per cent and that will be the ownership of Axis Bank,” Tripathy told PTI.

When asked about the timeline for the completion of the remaining stake transfer, he said: “It should happen in the next 12 to 18 months.” Under the deal, the Axis entities also have the right to acquire an additional stake of up to seven per cent in Max Life, in one or more tranches, subject to regulatory approvals.

Tripathy said there is no change in brand but the tagline will have the name of Axis Bank as the joint venture partner.

Talking about synergy, he said, “We are coming up with a new strategy for future growth. We are working together as a common team to ensure that Max Insurance life grows faster than the industry. We are working together to look at product mix to drive Axis channel so outcome is favourable for both customers and the company.” Besides, he said working on analytics areas to leverage on each other’s capabilities.

He said the company launched 14 products or product variants last year and increased the margin by 3.60 per cent in 2020-21.

Max Life Insurance recorded a 22 per cent rise in its total new business premium (individual and group) to Rs 6,826 crore in the financial year ended March 2021.

The renewal premium income of the insurer rose 15 per cent to Rs 12,192 crore, taking the gross premium to Rs 19,018 crore, up by 18 per cent from a year ago.

In terms of individual APE (adjusted premium equivalent), the company witnessed a growth of 19 per cent to Rs 4,907 crore.

Max Life’s post-tax shareholders’ profit fell six per cent to Rs 523 crore in 2020-21 as compared to Rs 539 crore in the previous year.

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Max Life eyes VNB growth of 26 per cent in FY21-22

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After clocking a robust 39 per cent growth in ‘Value of new business’ (VNB) in 2020-21, Max Life Insurance, a private life insurer, is now eyeing a VNB growth of at least 26 per cent this fiscal, its Managing Director & CEO Prashant Tripathy has said.

Seen globally as the true measure of a life insurer’s profits, the VNB as a concept is the profit the company (insurer) hopes to make on policies written during the year after accounting for all the costs incurred and assuming future persistence and mortality.

For 2020-21, Max Life Insurance’s VNB came in at ₹ 1,249 crore, up 39 per cent over previous fiscal and almost doubled in last 3 years. The average VNB growth for the company over the last five years stood at 26 per cent.

“Maintaining VNB growth at 39 per cent will be difficult. However, our aspiration this fiscal is to achieve VNB growth of atleast 26 per cent, which has been our last five years average,” Tripathy told BusinessLine in an interaction post the announcement of financial results for 2020-21.

Asked as to how Max Life achieved strong growth in VNB in a pandemic year, Tripathy said that the company sold more protection policies and changed product mix and sold more non participating products. There was also some base effect that aided such growth, he noted.

Tripathy highlighted that VNB —and not statutory profits —is true reflection of an insurer’s profitability.

Statutory profits dip

As regards statutory profits, Max Life on Tuesday reported that it has recorded net profit of ₹523 crore in FY’20-21. This reflected a decline of 3 per cent over the net profit of ₹ 539 crore recorded in the previous fiscal.

In 2020–21, total new business premium (individual and group) of Max life increased 22 per cent to ₹ 6,826 crore. In terms of individual adjusted premium equivalents (APE), the company recorded 19 per cent growth to ₹ 4,907 crore. Further, the renewal premium income (including group) grew 15 per cent to ₹ 12,192 crore taking gross written premium to ₹19,018 crore, an increase of 18 per cent over the previous financial year.

For the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2021, Max life recorded a gross premium of ₹ 7,106 crore, an increase of 21 per cent from ₹ 5,873 crore in the same quarter last year. Individual APE grew 35 per cent in the quarter to ₹ 1,893 crore from ₹ 1,398 crore in the year ago period.

Second wave

Tripathy said that despite the second wave, situation in April-May 2021 is not that bad as last year when it came to industry. In 2020-21, the company received 1,762 Covid death claims and out of which 1,746 claims were settled with an amount close to ₹ 200 crore. For the current fiscal, the company has made ₹ 500 crore provisioning towards likely Covid claims.

“Despite Covid claims, our claims payment ratio has improved. We have kept ₹ 500 crore extra provision. We will not have P&L impact if extra claims is less than ₹ 500 crore in 2021-22. Of course, claims are going to go higher and our financials are protected. Covid has impacted balance sheet marginally, but we have enough resources to take care of that,” Tripathy said.

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BFSI firms put employee health as top priority as Covid rages, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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The second wave of Covid-19 pandemic, which put a severe strain on the healthcare infrastructure across India, has made BFSI firms put their employee’s health and safety on top priority.

From helping employees source beds in hospitals, oxygen facilities, critical medicines to financial assistance, BFSI firms will continue to keep their employees’ well-being even as business takes a little hit.

Max Life Insurance

Speaking at the 2nd ETBFSI Virtual Summit, Prashant Tripathy, MD & CEO, Max Life Insurance said, “Things have gotten really difficult in the last few weeks and we have had to change our course on the health, safety and well-being of our employees. We have been helping our employees in whatever way we can to tide through these difficult times.”

The private insurer has set up a platform – Call Health – which provides round-the-clock service like telephonic assessment of Covid-19 symptoms and consultations with empanelled doctors. It has also set up a dedicated helpdesk to provide reliable information about network hospitals and Covid testing labs.

Equitas Small Finance Bank

P N Vasudevan, MD & CEO, Equitas Small Finance Bank, says, “We have to go beyond the new normal as the reality has hit us hard. The first wave was unique, new for all of us and we weren’t familiar with lockdowns and everyone was taken aback. But thankfully, last year the impact of the virus wasn’t that strong as compared to the current time.”

He adds, “We’ve already lost about eight employees and it’s not possible to digest and there’s no way we can ask anyone to go out and do the job.”

He explains that businesses have to work on a different level substantially as compared to last year. The bank is internally preparing for a 3-4 year horizon and long-term timeframe as situations keep evolving.

Vasudevan adds, “Health and well-being of our staff is of paramount importance and we have set up a war-room to ensure we can do our best to support our staff.”

Muthoot Finance

Kochi-headquartered Muthoot Finance echoes the thought that the safety of employee and staff is of paramount importance.

George Alexander Muthoot, MD, Muthoot Finance says, “We’ve more than 5,000 branches across the country, some locked down, some not in lockdown. We can’t force staff to come to the branch but in the head office most of the work has gone in digital processes.”

Muthoot Finance is paying two years’ salary to the dependents of employees who have succumbed to Covid-19. In Kerala, it has tied up with two hospitals to ensure if any of their employees seek any medical assistance the same can be availed.

Muthoot adds, “Encouraging staff to go ahead for vaccination and it is the thing which will keep us going ahead and tackle the pandemic. Business will eventually come back to normal but employees’ safety and well-being are of utmost importance for now.”

Fino Payments Bank

Fino Payments Bank, dependent on its vast rural network, is also finding it hard to tackle the ongoing situation. Rishi Gupta, MD & CEO, Fino Payments Bank, says, “Everything has taken a backseat, what is not normal is that employees are getting impacted due to Covid. Our operations are spread across rural areas, we can’t tell our partners and employees to go out and get the business done in times like these.”

He believes that these will have a long-term impact on how businesses are being done and will change dramatically as situations evolve.

Gupta adds, “For now the priority is to ensure employee safety and wellness with a high level of communication throughout the time. Trying to move as much as we can towards digital operations and processes along with empathy & assistance towards employees and their families.”



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Axis Bank to become co-promoter of Max Life Insurance, BFSI News, ET BFSI

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Axis Bank has become a co-promoter of Max Life Insurance after a regulatory go ahead from the Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India (Irda).

The private sector lender will also nominate three representatives to the board of Max Life Insurance post this development. The three representative are Rajiv Anand, Rajesh Dahiya and Subrat Mohanty.

Anand heads the retail banking portfolio of Axis Bank while Dahiya heads multiple functions such as audit, human resources and compliance. Mohanty is the head of banking operations.

Further, two additional independent directors will join the board of Max Life Insurance, according to sources in the know.

“Axis Bank has been a long-term partner to Max Life and together we have contributed to deepening insurance penetration in India over the last decade,” said Amitabh Chaudhry, managing director and chief executive officer, Axis Bank.

Axis Bank had announced its intent to purchase a 30% stake in Max Life Insurance for a sum of around Rs 1,530 crore in April last year. The transaction underwent some tweaks to adhere to Reserve Bank of India and Irda recommendations.

As per the current structure, Axis Banks now owns a 13% stake in the life insurer with the option to increase its stake to 20%.

“The conclusion of this transaction will bring added strength to Max Life and help it chart a new growth trajectory by combining the forces of the third largest private bank in India and the fourth largest private life insurer in the country,” said Analjit Singh, chairman of Max Group and Max Financial Services.

Max Financial Services, a listed company, owns around 87% stake in Max Life Insurance. The remaining stake is held by Axis Bank.

Analjit Singh and his family own a 17.3% stake in Max Financial Services. Mitsui Sumitomo owns around 20% stake in Max Financial after it swapped its stake in the life insurance arm with a stake in the parent company in December.

Max Life Insurance’s growth has outpaced its private sector peers in the first nine months of 2020-21.

The company has reportedly grown its individual adjusted new sales at 14% during this period.

“Axis Bank’s role as a co-promoter de-risks the business because 60% of our sales are contributed by the bank. That is one of the major positive outcomes of this transaction,” said Prashant Tripathy, chief executive officer, Max Life Insurance.

The insurance sector has witnessed sporadic deal making in the past 12 months. IDBI Bank sold its stake in its joint venture with Belgian life insurer Ageas and Federal Bank in a recent development. Ageas acquired IDBI’s Bank’s stake to consolidate its holding. Axa has also put its stake in an insurance broking JV with Mahindra group on the block.



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Women catching up on financial awareness…

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Women have become more aware financially and are taking out more loans but continue to lag behind men in terms of both savings and investments, as per data with several leading firms.

According to TransUnion Cibil, over the last six years, the share of women borrowers grew to about 28 per cent in September 2020 from 23 per cent in September 2014, in an indication of increasing inclusion of women in the country’s credit market.

There were 4.75 crore women borrowers by September last year, with a marked preference in demand for personal loans and consumer durable loans. Data from earlier years (2014, 2015 and 2016) shows that home loans were highest in demand for women consumers.

Data from CRIF Highmark also revealed that men outweigh women in terms of taking bank loans but surprisingly, the average home loan ticket size for women borrowers is higher than that for men.

“Size of home loans borrowed by women is 13 per cent higher than those borrowed by men,” it said. The average home loan ticket size for women was higher at ₹16.69 lakh (₹16.38 lakh as of December-end 2019) against ₹14.71 lakh (₹14.45 lakh) for men.

According to a survey by ANAROCK, real estate was the preferred investment asset for 62 per cent of the women while 54 per cent men chose it over the stock market, fixed deposits and gold

Insurance

Women also seem to have realised the importance of insurance, largely due to the Covid-19 pandemic but they continue to lag behind men.

Key findings by Max Life Insurance relating to urban Indian women’s financial protection revealed that urban Indian working women have become more financially resilient than men in the backdrop of the pandemic.

“While working women’s knowledge index (the degree to which they are aware about life insurance products) stood at 55 in comparison to 57 for working men, it improved by an impressive 11 points in comparison to last year,” said the survey, “Max Life India Protection Quotient 3.0,” which was done in partnership with Kantar.

Similarly, a survey conducted by Reliance General Insurance by Nielsen revealed that 57 per cent of the current women policies holders have purchased the policy in the last one year since the pandemic started.

However, only 43 per cent of women are involved in decision making for health insurance, but not on their own.

Further, 98 per cent of the women surveyed believe that there should be more women health centric add-ons in the health insurance such as menstruation/hormonal issues, PCOD treatment, mental illness related to postpartum syndrome and osteoporosis treatment.

Cryptocurrency

Even in terms of newer investment classes like cryptocurrencies, the participation of women is lower compared to men.

According to CoinDCX, women account for 20 per cent of its total customer base in 2021, slightly higher than 15 per cent last year.

According to Zebpay, about 10 per cent of investors on its platform are women. “The average ticket size for women investors was ₹3 lakh for the period of March to August 2020 which increased to ₹5.7 lakh from September to February, 2021,” it said.

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