Despite nationwide lockdown, life insurance industry has added 7,423 insurance agents in the first two months of FY 2020-21 i.e. between April and May, shows the latest data issued by Life Insurance Council, a trade body of the life insurance industry.
While LIC India has added 13,740 agents during nationwide lockdown, private life insurers have seen a reduction of 6300 agents. This indicates the life insurance saw a net addition of 7500 agents in two months.
While the life insurance industry has added 1904 new agents in April 2020, the industry saw an addition of 5500 new agents in May 2020. In FY 2019-20, the life insurance industry had added 7500 new agents each month on an average.
This is largely due to the temporarily suspension of examination due to lockdown in most locations. However, after resumption of examinations in some locations especially in green and orange zones, LIC India, which has presence in these locations, has managed to bring new agents to the life insurance industry.
Last year, the Rs.40 lakh crore life insurance industry added close to 90,000 agents in just one year.
Currently, agents dominate life insurance sales for individual investors. Individual agents sold 62% of the new life insurance policies in FY 2018-19. While the state owned LIC receives 96% of its new business through the agency channel, the private players have less dependence on them, with just 26% of their new business coming through the agency channel.