Chennai, April 29 (IANS) Private life insurer Max New York Life Insurance will focus on increasing operational efficiency and cutting costs this fiscal, while pushing health, pension and traditional policies, a top official said here Wednesday.
“The focus this year will be on improving the efficiency of our agents and cutting costs by outsourcing non-core activities. We will also focus on pension, health and traditional insurance policies,” Rajit Mehta, executive director and chief operating officer, told reporters.

Asked about the impact of last year’s stock market crash on the company’s policy sales, he said: “The per-policy size has reduced a bit but there is no increase in policy lapasation. Our policy persistency ratio is around 85 percent.”

According to Mehta, the company derives 74 percent of its premium income from selling unit-linked insurance policies (ULIP) and the balance from a mix of traditional, health and pension products.

“Our agent productivity is 2.54 policies per active agent and the average premium per policy (APPP) is around Rs.18,000. Around 50 percent of our 84,300 agents are active,” he added.

Mehta, however, ruled out adding any new branch this year to its existing 581 offices in 382 cities.

In 2008-9, Max New York Life earned a total premium of Rs.3,857 crore.

The company has launched a pilot project in Uttar Pradesh, under which it started selling its newly launched Max Vijay policy through small neighbourhood shops.

“The pilot project has been rolled out in 30 districts, involving 100 shops. The shopkeepers have been trained to explain the product features, while the sale will be closed by a qualified agent,” Mehta said.