ING Vysya Life appoints Madras Fertilisers as its corporate agent

Our Banking Bureau
01 July 2004

Chennai: The Bangalore-based private life insurance company, Ing Vyas Life, has appointed Madras Fertilisers Limited — a central government company — as its corporate agent to sell life insurance policies to farmers and other segments of the rural population.

The two companies signed an agreement to this effect here on 30, June, 2004.

According to ING Vysya Life's managing director and CEO, Frank Koster, "We firmly believe in tapping the huge potential that exists in the Indian rural market. The alliance is to accelerate the development of rural insurance market in South India."

According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority's (IRDA) stipulations, every life insurer has to procure a minimum of 15 per cent of policies from rural areas. And the tie up with the fertiliser company is expected to ease ING Vysya Life fulfilling that norm. Last year, out of 90,976 policies ING Vysya Life sold just over 12,000 policies in the rural areas.

Adds Madras Fertilisers' chairman and managing director Sukumar N Oommen, "We have 6,500 dealers in the south and over 1,000 field staff covering more than one lakh farmers. We will leverage this reach in selling the life insurance policies."

However, both the corporatre heads refused to specify any numbers of the first year targets. ING Vysya Life has launched a special policy called Safal Jeevan for the rural market.