Life Insurance Corporation Celebrating glorious 63 years

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC)
is an Indian state-owned insurance group
and investment company headquartered in
Mumbai. It is the largest insurance
company in India with an estimated asset
value of ₹3,111,847 crore (US$450 billion)
(2019).
[1] As of 2019 it had total life fund
of ₹28,28,320.12 crore and total number of

policies sold coming in at ₹214.33 lakh
that year (2018-19). LIC settled 259.54
lakh claims in 2018-19. LIC has 29 crore
policy holders.

Life Insurance Corporation of India
Yogakshemam Vahamyaham
Type Statutory Corporation
established by An Act
of Parliament- LIC Act
1956
Industry Financial services
Founded 1 September 1956
Headquarters Mumbai, India
Key people M. R. Kumar
(Chairman)
Products Life insurance,
health insurance,
Investment
management,
Banking,

Mutual fund
Total assets ₹3,111,847 crore
(US$450 billion)(2019)
Owner Government of India
Number of employees 111979 (Mar 2019)
[1]
Subsidiaries LIC Housing Finance
LIC Pension Fund Ltd.
LIC International
LIC Cards Services
LIC Mutual Fund
IDBI Bank
Website http://www.licindia.in

The Life Insurance Corporation of India
was founded in 1956 when the Parliament
of India passed the Life Insurance of India
Act that nationalised the private insurance
industry in India. Over 245 insurance

companies and provident societies were
merged to create the state owned Life
Insurance Corporations.

LIC Zonal Office,
‘Night View From Connaught Place
Park’

Founding organisations
The Oriental Life Insurance Company, the
first company in India offering life

insurance coverage, was established in
Kolkata in 1818. Its primary target market
was the Europeans based in India, and it
charged Indians heftier premiums.
[3]
Surendranath Tagore had founded
Hindusthan Insurance Society, which later
became Life Insurance Corporation.
[4]
The Bombay Mutual Life Assurance
Society, formed in 1870, was the first
native insurance provider. Other insurance
companies established in the pre￾independence era included
Postal Life Insurance (PLI) was
introduced on 1 February 1884

Bharat Insurance Company (1896)
United India (1906)
National Indian (1906)
National Insurance (1906)
Co-operative Assurance (1906)
Hindustan Co-operatives (1907)
Indian Mercantile
General Assurance
Swadeshi Life (later Bombay Life)
Sahyadri Insurance (Merged into LIC,
1986)
The first 150 years were marked mostly by
turbulent economic conditions. It
witnessed India’s First War of

Independence, adverse effects of the
World War I and World War II on the
economy of India, and in between them the
period of worldwide economic crises
triggered by the Great depression. The first
half of the 20th century saw a heightened
struggle for India’s independence. The
aggregate effect of these events led to a
high rate of and liquidation of life
insurance companies in India. This had
adversely affected the faith of the general
in the utility of obtaining life cover.

Nationalisation in 1956

In 1955, parliamentarian Feroze Gandhi
raised the matter of insurance fraud by
owners of private insurance agencies. In
the ensuing investigations, one of India’s

wealthiest businessmen, Ramkrishna
Dalmia, owner of the Times of India
newspaper, was sent to prison for two
years.
The Parliament of India passed the Life
Insurance of India Act on 19 June 1956
creating the Life Insurance Corporation of
India, which started operating in
September of that year. It consolidated the
business of 245 private life insurers and
other entities offering life insurance
services; this consisted of 154 life
insurance companies, 16 foreign
companies and 75 provident companies.
The nationalisation of the life insurance

business in India was a result of the
Industrial Policy Resolution of 1956, which
had created a policy framework for
extending state control over at least 17
sectors of the economy, including life
insurance.
The LIC’s executive board consists of
Chairman, currently M R Kumar, and
Managing Directors, Vipin Anand, and T. C.
Suseel Kumar.
[5][6]
Structure
LIC’s Contribution to the five
year plans over the years

Plan Year Investment
2 1956-1961 ₹184 Cr
3 1961-1966 ₹285 Cr
4 1969-1974 ₹1,530 Cr
5 1974-1979 ₹2,942 Cr
6 1980-1985 ₹7,140 Cr
7 1985-1990 ₹12,969 Cr
8 1992-1997 ₹56,097 Cr
9 1997-2002 ₹1,70,929 Cr
10 2002-2007 ₹3,94,779 Cr
11 2007-2012 ₹7,04,720 Cr
12 2012-2017 ₹14,23,055 Cr
13 2017-2022 ₹7,01,483 Cr
Growth as a monopoly
From its creation, the Life Insurance
Corporation of India, which commanded a
monopoly of soliciting and selling life
insurance in India, created huge surpluses
and by 2006 was contributing around 7%
of India’s GDP

The corporation, which started its
business with around 300 offices, 5.7
million policies and a corpus of INR 45.9
crores (US$92 million as per the 1959
exchange rate of roughly ₹5 for US$1),
[7]
had grown to 25,000 servicing around 350
million policies and a corpus of over
₹800,000 crore (US$120 billion) by the end
of the 20th century.
Liberalisation post 2000s
In August 2000, the Indian Government
embarked on a program to liberalise the
insurance sector and opened it up for the
private sector. LIC emerged as a

beneficiary from this process with robust
performance, albeit on a base
substantially higher than the private sector.
In 2013 the first year premium compound
annual growth rate (CAGR) was 24.53%
while total life premium CAGR was 19.28%
matching the growth of the life insurance
industry and outperforming general
economic growth.
[8]
Today LIC functions with 2048 fully
computerized branch offices, 8 zonal
offices, around 113 divisional offices,
2,048 branches and 1408 satellite offices

and the Central Office;
[9]
it also has 54
customer zones and 25 metro-area service
hubs located in different cities and towns
of India. It also has a network of 1,537,064
individual agents, 342 Corporate Agents,
109 Referral Agents, 114 Brokers and 42
Banks for soliciting life insurance business
from the public.
Now LIC also has the 1899 branches of
IDBI bank at its disposal thus it can carry
out its insurance business through these
branches of the bank.
Slogan

LIC’s slogan yogakshemam vahaamyaham
is in Sanskrit which loosely translates into
English as “Your welfare is our
responsibility”. This is derived from ancient
Hindu text, the Bhagavad Gita’s 9th
chapter, 22nd .
[10] The slogan can be seen
in the logo, written in Devanagari script.
This line means “I carry what they lack, and
I preserve what they have” (refers to
Krishna speaking to Arjuna), when taken in
context of the entire verse.
The Economic Times Brand Equity
Survey 2012 rated LIC as the No. 6 Most

Trusted Service Brand of India.
[11]
From the year 2006, LIC has been
continuously winning the Readers’ Digest
Trusted brand award.
Voted India’s Most Trusted brand in the
BFSI category according to the Brand
Trust Report for 4 continuous years –
2011-2014 according to the Brand Trust
Report.
[12]
As on 31 March 2018, LIC had 1,11,979
employees, out of which 24,510 were
wome

Category of employees Total Number No. of Women
Class-I Officers 32,803 7,041
Class-II Development Officers 22,830 1,148
Class III/IV employees 56,346 16,321
Total 1,11,979 24,510
Agency strength
The total number of Agents on our Roll is
11,48,811 as at 31.03.2018 as against
11,31,181 as on 31.03.2017. The number
of Active Agents is 10,71,945 as at
31.03.2018 as compared to 10,46,484 as
on 31.03.2017.
[13]
Now IDBI bank Employees have also joined
the work force of LIC. However they are

not treated as same as LIC employees.
Golden Jubilee Foundation
LIC Golden Jubilee Foundation was
established in 2006 as a charity
organization. This entity has the aim of
promoting education, alleviation of poverty,
and providing better living conditions for
the under privileged. Out of all the
activities conducted by the organisation,
Golden Jubilee Scholarship awards is the
best known. Each year, this award is given
to the meritorious students in standard XII
of school education or equivalent, who

wish to continue their studies and have a
parental income less than ₹100,000
(US$1,400).
[14]
LIC holds shares worth about ₹2.33 lakh
crore in all the Nifty companies put
together, but it lowered its holding in a
total of 27 Nifty companies during the
quarter.
The cumulative value of LIC holding in
these 27 companies fell by little over
₹8,000 crore during the quarter shows the
analysis of changes in their shareholding
patterns

Individually, LIC is estimated to have sold
shares worth ₹500-1,000 crore in each of
Mahindra & Mahindra, HDFC Bank, ICICI
Bank, Tata Motors, L&T, HDFC, Wipro, SBI,
Maruti Suzuki, Dr Reddys and Bajaj Auto.
The insurance behemoth also trimmed
holdings in Ambuja Cements, Cipla, TCS,
Lupin and Asian Paints. A marginal decline
was also witnessed in its stakes in
companies such as IDFC, Hindustan
Unilever, Grasim, ACC, BPCL, Bank of
Baroda, Punjab National Bank, Sun Pharma
and Tata Power

On the other hand, LIC further ramped up
its stake in a total of 14 Nifty constituents
with purchase of shares worth an
estimated ₹4,000 crore.
The major companies where LIC has
raised its stake include Infosys, RIL, Coal
India Ltd and Cairn India. Other such
companies are ITC, Power Grid Corp,
NTPC, Siemens, Bharti Airtel and Hero
MotoCorp.
The state-run insurer also marginally hiked
its exposure in Ultratech, Gail India,
Ranbaxy, Kotak Mahindra Bank and HCL
Technologies, while its shareholding

remained almost unchanged in companies
like ONGC, Tata Steel, BHEL and Reliance
Infra.
Among the Nifty companies, LIC’s holding
in terms of value in 2012 were estimated
to be the highest in ITC (₹27,326 crore),
followed by RIL (₹21,659 crore), ONGC
(₹17,764 crore), SBI (₹17,058 crore), L&T
(₹16,800 crore), and ICICI Bank (₹10,006
crore). its
[15]
The share price drop in ITC on 18 July
2017 had caused LIC a major loss of
around 7000 Crores.

LIC now also holds 51% stake in IDBI bank
thus making it the only insurer in india to
own a bank , since regulations prohibit
insurers from holding more than 15% stake
in any company ,LIC will have to decide a
timeline for paring its stake in IDBI bank
also LIC will have to pare its stake in LIC
housing finance Ltd as a company cannot
be promoter of 2 finance companies
carrying out same housing finance
business so either LIC has to sell its stake
in LIC housing or close down housing
business of IDBI bank.
[16]
See also

Insurance in India
Insurance
LIC Housing Finance