Future Generali India to open 11 branches in FY18

Future Generali India Life Insurance is planning to open 11 branches this fiscal across the country and scale up its workforce by adding 400 executives, a top company official said.

"We are targeting to grow faster than the industry, for which we are focused on expansion. We will open 11 branches this year pan India, including one in Agartala, in Tripura and other emerging cities, where we see huge potential," Future Generali India Life Insurance Managing Director and CEO Munish Sharda told PTI here.

He said, the company is also looking at hiring 300-400 front line executives for this expansion.

Currently, the private insurer employs about 2,300 people, he added.

Further, the company, which is aiming to break even in the financial year 2018-19, is focused on strengthening its market share, profitability, bancassurance and digital distribution network, he said.

"With better growth and efficiency, we are looking to break even in the next financial year. For this we are building up our bancassurance and digital distribution channels," he said.

Sharda added, currently the company has 50:50 ratio of the and the rest distribution networks.

"This year we are hoping for few more bank and Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFC) partnerships, which may change this ratio. We are also investing heavily on technology and artificial intelligence (AI) that can provide information to agents and collect customer feedback and help us move towards paperless policies," he said.

"We have four products in pipeline, including two protection, one endowment and one unit linked," he said.

The company's product portfolio consists of 80-85 percent traditional and protection plans and 10-15 percent ULIPs.

"We are targeting mass affluent and middle-class customers with simple and easy to understand products. Our health products are doing well and we are planning another one in the second quarter of this financial year," Sharda said.

Future Generali India Life Insurance company is a joint venture between leading retailer Future Group, global insurance group Assicurazioni Generali and leading NBFC IITL.