LIC: Elephant Learning To Dance

The debutant that ranks at No.2 on Fortune 500 India list comes with a rich legacy, but post listing it needs to prove its chops.

- V. KESHAVDEV

MK GANDHI'S autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth - translated from the Gujarati original, Satya Na Prayogo is a confession of all things personal and gives a glimpse into how the biggest persona of India's tryst with freedom dealt with his own prejudices and established dogmas. The book touches on every aspect of Gandhi's life, including his brush with life insurance! The chapter titled, 'Quickened Spirit of Sacrifice', reveals how Gandhi, then a practising lawyer in Bombay, was cajoled into buying a policy by an American insurance agent. But after paying the initial premium, Gandhi discontinued the policy worth 10,000 as he felt that "the real protector was neither I nor my brother, but the almighty... What happened to the families of the numberless poor in the world? Why should I not count myself as one of them?" wrote Gandhi.

Even today most Indians - either by choice or socio-economic compulsions - would be following Gandhi's philosophy, yet life insurance penetration in the country stands at 3.2% - close to the global penetration level of 4.4% with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) commanding a lion's share (67.72%) of the market as of October 2022. The life insurer - an amalgam of 154 Indian and 16 non-Indian insurers besides 75 provident societies - has held sway over the business since 1956 with a million-plus agency force. The trust in brand is evidenced from the 275 million individual policies in-force, as of March 2022.