Mumbai, Mar 23 (PTI) Shriram Life Insurance, which already nets 44 per cent of its premium from rural markets, is planning to maximize rural penetration and hopes to grow its assets under management by 45 per cent to Rs 13,000 crore by FY25.

Started in 2005, Shriram Life began as a joint venture between the Shriram Group and the South African financial services group Sanlam.

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As of December 2022, the Chennai-based company's assets under management (AUM) stood at Rs 8,573 crore, down from Rs 8,900 crore a year ago and hopes to close the current fiscal with Rs 9,000 crore AUM, up from Rs 7,683 in March 2022.

"We're maximizing our rural penetration on the heels of our digital processes and platforms. Already we get almost 44 per cent of our business from the rural markets, and with the new push, we hope to take this to 50 per cent by FY25," Casparus Kromhout, the managing director and chief executive of Shriram Life, told PTI from Chennai on Thursday.

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A major element of this growth will be doubling of our individual premium collection to Rs 1,000 crore over the next two years from Rs 525 crore in FY22.

This should also help us grow our AUM by 45 per cent to Rs 13,000 crore by fiscal 2025, Kromhout said.

In terms of policies sold, the company stood at the sixth position among the private players with 9.2 lakh live customers, while in terms of assets under management (AUM), it is at a distant 16th place.

Kromhout attributed the low AUM/market of the company to the low average premium of its customers, which is only around Rs 19,700 with the average sum assured being Rs 4.5-5 lakh, while the industry average is Rs 75,000.

He also claimed that they are adding 3 lakh customers annually, which gained 13 per cent so far this fiscal yet AUM plunged to Rs 8,573 crore from Rs 8,900 crore. The company's solvency ratio stood at 2.18 in December 2022.

On the product side most of the sales are in endowments/savings policies, he said.

Currently, Shriram Life employs several digital channels through which its agents and customers can access its products and services.

In the first nine months of the current fiscal alone, 80 per cent of new retail customers sourced digitally, reducing the on-boarding turnaround time to 7 minutes from 24-48 hrs earlier. Also, he said they carry out 48 per cent of all payments digitally.

By FY25, the company wants to reduce the on-boarding time further down to 4 minutes and make the entire process completely paperless.

Kromhout said their digital initiatives are focused to extend life insurance to the segments of society that need it most, especially the mass market segment in the rural areas. It has 423 branches across 23 states.

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