State Bank of India's doors may well remain closed for other insurance companies for distribution as it may take time for it to educate its staff about insurance even as sale of policies of its own subsidiary SBI Life is just limited to a few thousand branches.
Roughly, only a quarter of the branches of SBI are “active“ at present. For a branch to be active, it has to sell 2-3 policies a month.
“Currently, SBI's view is that they will not open up the branches to other other insurers for at least the next financial year,“ said a source close to the development. “SBI Life is not expecting any change in 2017-18.“ State Bank of India has close to 16,000 branches. All its associate banks has another 6,000 branches.Today, bancassurance channel is the fastest growing channel for SBI Life, growing at around 50% while agency channel is growing at 28%.The bancassurance channel contributes 55% of the total premium income for the life insurance company.
