Life cos’ premium grows up to 7-fold

Chennai: Life insurers saw an increase of up to seven times in premium collection to Rs 6,700 crore for the month of November as more people took to buying policies, according to Irdai data. Post demonetisation, there was 50% growth year-over-year at private insurers, even as LIC saw total premiums rise 141%. While a majority of this could be due to people wanting to move to safer havens of investment given the market turmoil, an executive from fraud management firm LexisNexis said that a percentage like this could be explained by people using the insurance route to convert black money to white. "The government, however, is keeping a tab on those purchasing high-value insurance policies," said Shivakumar Shankar, MD, LexisNexis, which currently provides fraud management solutions to more than 13 life insurers in India. Mohit Rochlani, director (operations and IT), IndiaFirst Life Insurance, said, "Most insurance companies will ask for PAN card number for high-value cash payments of single-premium policies. Also, we highlight any suspicious transaction to the financial intelligence bureau." And it's these single-premium policies that have seen an upsurge. At LIC, a whopping Rs 6,438 crore was booked in individuals buying single-premium policies in November 2016, compared to Rs 899 crore for the same month in the previous year — a sevenfold increase. The regulator, in a bid to track high-cash transactions, has mandated that insurers cannot accept more than Rs 50,000 in cash. For accepting premiums above Rs 50,000 in cash, the prospective customer will be asked to furnish their PAN card. For a 30-year-old who wants to buy a Rs 1-crore life insurance policy, that would mean he can pay Rs 3.7 lakh in one shot, provided he fulfils all KYC requirements. While single-premium policies are paid in lump sum, non-single premium policies can be paid monthly, quarterly or in annual mode of payment. Under this category, however, LIC saw nearly flat premium income of Rs 1,365 crore, compared to Rs 1,362 crore in the year-ago month. Credit rating agency Experian MD Mohan Jayaraman said that using the insurance route to turn black money into white was very popular a few years ago. "In recent years, however, insurers have clamped down a lot on the free-look option. It is possible for black money hoarders to pay for a single-premium policy in cash up to Rs 50,000. They can later cancel it before the free-look option expires in 15 days. The insurer will then have to credit that sum to the person's bank account, which to the I-T department could look like a normal transaction — maybe a bonus or maturity amount from the life insurance company," said Jayaraman of Experian, which handles the fraud data repository for more than 17 life insurance companies in collaboration with the Life Insurance Council. Private life insurers, however, did not see any significant upsurge in individual single-premium policies. The premium collected for the month of November rose only 24% to Rs 254 crore from Rs 204 crore. A Max Life Insurance company executive, however, said it would not have been a cakewalk for hoarders at some insurance houses. "Our agents cannot collect money in cash. They are authorised only to accept cheques. Now to purchase a policy in cash, one would have to visit our branches," said the executive.