Eyes Tk 8.8b premium, 1.5m policy-holders by 2015

Sonia H Moni:

The Jiban Bima Corporation (JBC) is going to implement a five-year plan for the first time to make the state-run insurer operationally sound and financially vibrant, officials said.

"We are going to adopt a five-year plan to modernise the company's activities, increase its manpower, and ensure smooth services to the clients," JBC Managing Director Parikshit Datta Choudhury told the FE.

"We are going to finalise the draft of the five-year plan within a few days. After that it will be approved in the next board of directors meeting."

Mr Dutta said, "Now 17 life insurance companies, including the JBC, are operating in Bangladesh. However, most of the people of the country are out of insurance coverage. We are planning to increase the number of our policy-holders to 1.5 million by 2015."

The state-run JBC is also planning to earn Tk 8.80 billion from premium by 2015, with an estimated growth rate of 20 per cent. In next three years it has a plan to launch five new schemes - on social security, education, rural health, and for overseas workers and fishermen, he said.

Now the corporation has sales offices in 40 district headquarters. It is going to set up sales offices in all the districts by 2015, according to the draft five-year plan.

For intensive business observation, 15 branch offices, under the JBC's seven regional offices across the country, will be selected as model branches by this year.

The JBC MD said, "If we can increase the number of model branches to 75 by 2015, it will help earn Tk 528 million extra in next five years."

"Gradually we will make our entire system online to minimise paperwork in the sales offices."

He said, "The JBC will soon start disbursing bonus and profit of various schemes directly to the bank accounts of its policy-holders. Besides, we will introduce short message services (SMS) for our clients from this month to enhance connectivity with them."

The JBC had 17 buildings across the country, and it is planning to set up new establishments in different places like Barisal, Sylhet, Gopalgonj, Faridpur, Pabna and Tangail.