Bhubaneswar, May 17 (IANS) Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance Company, one of the leading private life insurers of the country, on Thursday said it plans to open over 1,000 virtual sales offices spread across the country in next 12-18 months.
The Pune-based private company has already launched 14 such offices on a pilot basis.
"We have launched 14 virtual sales offices in Maharashtra and our experience has been good. We have planned to scale it up to over 1,000 across the country in the next 12-18 months," said Manish Sangal, Chief Agency Officer, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance.
He said that initially these virtual sales offices will be handled by trained sales officers while the digital machines will be handed over to agents in a later phase.
The company has planned to engage 35,000 new agents this financial year.
A virtual office is where digital machines are used by agents or sales officers of the company to reach insurance service to the doorsteps of customers. This obviates the need for setting up brick-and-mortar offices.
It will assist customers with an entire range of services such as obtaining premium payment certificates, procuring account statements, paying insurance renewal premiums and other service-related queries.
The company, which reported a growth of 38 per cent on individual rated new business premium for 2017-2018 financial year, aims to reach 45 per cent in the current financial year, said Sangal.
He also said the company's growth rate was highest amongst the top 10 private life insurers in the country.
On total new business premium, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance grew at a much faster pace at 29 per cent as against the industry growth of 11 per cent in last financial year.
The company aims to touch 35 per cent growth rate on the total new business premium, he added.
