Om Kotak launches Chennai operations

By Our Corporate Reporter

CHENNAI, AUG. 29. OM Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company, a joint venture between Kotak Mahindra Finance and the Old Mutual plc (an international financial services group based in London), launched its services in Chennai. The company, which started its operations in Mumbai in May this year, has already expanded to Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Baroda.

It has entered the market with three products - Endowment product, Moneyback product and Insurance Bond - and so far covered 2,000 policyholders.

Addressing presspersons here today, Mr. Shivaji Dam, Managing Director, OM Kotak Mahindra, said the intention was to increase the policyholders base to 30,000 by March next. Asked about the launch of new products, he said more schemes were slated for the future. But the launch of pension products would not probably be possible this year. The guidelines for pension funds have to be finalised by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) and the necessary legislations would have to be put in place by the Union Government, he said. But the company has introduced some novel features in its existing products by bringing in the concept of `accumulation account' helping the policyholders to track their investments on an annual basis.

Mr. Shivaji said the company had also come out with a unique customer friendly concept `Automatic non-forfeiture', which would allow continuity of the life cover as long as there were funds in the accumulation account even in the case of non-payment of premium.

Explaining the salient features of the product `Insurance Bond', the MD said the plan would act as a fixed deposit which would enable doubling of investment on maturity. In case of death, the beneficiary would get the death benefit immediately. The bond would be appropriate for those investing in bank and company deposits or those wanting to invest VRS proceeds or any on-time inflow of money. It would give an attractive tax free fixed return between 7 to 8.33 per cent per annum for a period of ten years in a declining interest rate scenario, he said.

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Section  : Business
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