By IANS
Chennai : Life Insurance Corp of India (LIC) will soon cross swords with domestic non-life insurers by launching a health insurance policy.
T.S. Vijayan, chairman, LIC, said the corporation would launch the product by this yearend. He was speaking to reporters here Thursday at the launch of a critical illness rider for group insurance policies.
He said LIC has filed the health cover product with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and expects a green signal anytime now.
“We don’t have any plans to have a separate health insurance subsidiary,” Vijayan added.
LIC is also finalising its credit card business venture with GE Money. “We are in the process of setting up the company,” affirmed Vijayan.
However, he did not see any value in LIC floating a bank in order to be present in the entire financial services spectrum.
The life insurer is also signing referral agreements with several banks. In such an arrangement, an insurer gets customer leads from a bank.
LIC is the country’s second largest real estate owner after Indian Railways. In the recent past the corporation has been signing new rental agreements to increase revenues.
Last year LIC earned a rental income of Rs.2.2 billion.
Vijayan said the corporation would soon complete a new commercial property in Madurai.
The corporation is an active land acquirer in North India. “We look at government land as the deals are transparent,” he said.
LIC acquires land for two purposes. The first is to build commercial complexes to be let out on rent. The second is to build apartments to be sold to its policyholders.
In Chennai, the corporation is in the process of constructing a residential complex for its policyholders.