Aviva may exit India life insurance business: sources

Aviva PLC (AV.L) may pull out of its Indian insurance joint venture, valued at more than $500 million, as the British insurer retreats from less-profitable markets where it has struggled to expand, people familiar with the matter said.

Aviva, which aims to cut costs by 400 million pounds by year-end, is in the process of hiring corporate advisors to find buyers for its 26 percent stake in Aviva Life, its venture with Dabur Group, the sources told Reuters.

The insurer is considering various options, including selling its stake to Dabur Group if it fails to find a foreign buyer, one of the sources said. Dabur Group owns personal care and food products manufacturer Dabur India (DABU.NS).

Aviva would be the third foreign insurer to quit India since 2012, stymied by regulations that restrict foreign ownership and fierce political opposition to changing those limits.

Aviva declined to comment. Mohit Burman, a director of Aviva Life who represents Dabur Group, was not immediately available for comment. The sources also declined to be identified due to the confidential nature of the matter.

The insurer had identified China and India as "high priority" and "must win" markets, but the move to sell out of India signals a change in that strategy.

Last year, Aviva hired former AIA Group (1299.HK) CEO Mark Wilson to lead a turn around in its business which was hit by slower growth in its main market Europe.

Wilson joined after spiralling costs and poor share price performance triggered an investor revolt in 2012 that forced out then-CEO Andrew Moss. This year, Aviva pulled out of its Malaysian insurance joint venture and exited from Russia.

TOUGH MARKET

Like many other foreign insurers, Aviva rushed into India after the government allowed foreign investment in the $40 billion-plus insurance market in 2000, lured by low penetration rates and the high savings rate in Asia's third-largest economy.

Life insurance penetration in India is about 3.4 percent of gross domestic product in terms of total premiums underwritten in a year, much lower than 8.8 percent in Japan and 8.7 percent in Britain.

Regulatory uncertainty, however, has proved tough for foreign insurers while insurance in general has failed to take off as expected among the public - the whole industry logged an accumulative $3 billion loss over the last decade.

Indian laws limit foreign ownership in domestic insurers to 26 percent. Government approval for a proposal to raise the limit to 49 percent has been pending for a long time due to opposition by nationalist politicians.

Insurers were also hit by a 2010 clamp-down on the sale of lucrative equity-linked products. Foreign firms remain overshadowed by state-owned Life Insurance Corp of India, which holds an almost 75 percent market share.

Source :  http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/aviva-india-dabur-idINDEE97406Y20130805

Card Protection Plan-Insure your Debit and Credit Cards

Suppose you are carrying multiple credit/debit cards in your wallet and lost it then what will be your situation?  It may happen to all of us. It is such a situation that scares all of us as lost cards may be utilized to any extent causing huge financial burden. The solution to this will be having an insurance cover for your debit or credit cards from the Card Protection Plan.

This plan is best suitable for persons who uses multiple credit/debit cards, keep all of them in their wallet all the time, frequent traveler or chances of losing/misplacing are high. CPP or Card Protection Plan is a comprehensive plan which protects card in the event of card loss, theft and related fraud. This product is designed to help you safeguard all your Credit, Debit and ATM Cards. If you loss the card then you can use their 24 hour helpline number and inform the same. Once you report them then CPP will inform all card issuers to cancel the cards as they lost. Let us see few benefits of this service.

Benefits-

• One call is enough to block all your cards.
• If you are registered your car or bike break downs, CPP will assist by providing roadside assistance service. But do remember that this service will be available with selected cities in India and also within 50 km range of cities.
• In case you lost the cash along with cards then CPP will provide you the emergency cash assistance of Rs.20,000. This advance is interest free and you need to repay it within 28 days.
• In case you lost the PAN card along with cards then CPP will facilitate free PAN card replacement. They will coordinate on behalf of you in getting PAN card.
• If you register your mobile phone with them and you lost then CPP will help you in blocking SIM.

Few Conditions you must know-

• This facility is available to Indian resident whose age is above 18 years.
• You need to report of loss within 24 hours of discovering the card loss.
• You can cancel the service within 30 days of buying. If you do so then they will refund the amount.

Plenty of Indian Card issuers have tied with CPP and few of them are as below.

1) SBI Credit Card Insurance

2) ICICI Card Protection Plan

3) Induslnd Bank

4) Kotak Credit Cards

5) HSBC Credit Cards

6) Standard Chartered Bank

Currently CPP offers three plans which are called 1) Classic-Rs.1,145+Taxes, 2) Premium-Rs.1,495+Taxes and 3) Platinum-Rs.1,745+Taxes.

Source : http://basunivesh.com/2013/10/08/card-protection-plan-insure-your-debit-and-credit-cards/

EPF Online Transfer Claim Portal (OTCP) -Transferring is now online !!!

Recently EPFO (Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation) started online transfer of your old employer EPF account in new EPF employer account online. I hope with this initiative lot of hurdles of the EPF members will get resolved.  Let see the procedure and guidelines of this account transfer.

The first step before proceeding to apply for online transfer is, you must have an online registered account on EPFO site. To do registrations follow the process provided “HERE“. Once your account is registered then you need to apply for transfer of account by first visiting the Online Transfer Claim Portal (OTCP) portal.For detailed instruction of how you can apply for transfer visit “HERE” where they provided the detailed instruction of applying.

Few points you must know before proceeding this online apply.

• You must be a registered member of the EPFO portal before proceeding.
• Both your previous employer as well as present employer must be available on EPFO database.
• The employer must register for the digital signature process of EPFO.
• You can check your eligibility for transfer by visit OTCP site ”Here“.
• You can’t edit any of your personal details as well as the details like joining or exit dates.
• But suppose if you found any discrepancy in the details then you can do editing so by clicking the tab called “The following information in incorrect”. Once you do the editing, take the printout of the pdf form. Self attests the same you need to submit it to the EPFO office through your current employer.
• You can submit for transfer once these rectifications are done properly.
• You can change your DOB (date of birth) also but the restriction of attempting to change is only about 3 times.
• If both your previous as well as current employer registered digital signatures with EPFO then you can submit this claim form either with previous or current employer for employer attestation.
• Even if your previous employer registered with EPFO then too you can submit form with either of them.
• If your previous employer not registered then also you can submit with either of them but it will take time to transfer as the process of verification data will be done.
• You can submit online transfer only in case your previous employer registered with EPFO for digital signature.
• The same way your present employer registration also mandatory for online transfer.
• Once online submission is done, you need to take the printout of the same and submit it with employer with self attestation.
• You have the option to choose for submitting your form for attestation either with previous or current employer.
• Within 15 days of online submission you need to submit claim form with your employer.
• If any rejection from the employer then it will be after 15 days only.
• You can view the status of claim online also.
• Below are the few reasons for rejecting your claim.

1. The claim already submitted previously and EPFO not yet rejected it.
2. You have not submitted the signed online claim transfer form with your employer within stipulated 15days period.
3. Records mismatch.
4. Signature mismatch.

FM has asked Life Insurance Corporation of India to appoint board members in 50 companies

NEW DELHI: The Finance Ministry has asked Life Insurance Corporation of India to appoint board members in 50 companies in which it has a stake and no representation. 

The insurance behemoth has stakes in about 123 companies, of which it has board members in 73 firms, while there is no representation in 50 companies, a senior Finance Ministry official said. 

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/policy/finance-ministry-asks-lic-to-name-board-members-in-50-firms/

Life Insurance Certificates to be in D-mat format

One of the easiest and convenient way of handling the documents will be in electronic format or in dematerialized format. Advantages are already known to all by having stocks, FDs, Mutual Funds or Bonds. Now the turn is for your Insurance Policies.

To secure the policy documents and serve the clients in a better way IRDA recently launched the Repository system which will keep all your Insurance Policy documents into electronic format. Let us see the procedure and how we can convert our policies to E-Insurance.

The advantages of having your policy documents in Demat form-

• It provides fair treatment to policy holders as there will be no possibility of loosing your documents.
• This facility totally eliminates paper and storage risk of your policy documents.
• It automatically improves the speedy genuine claim settlements and present frauds.
• One time KYC for insurance buying irrespective of company product you want to buy.
• Change in address, nominee or other related services can be done at a single point of service. These changes will automatically update all your insurance policies irrespective of company.
• It will drastically reduce of mis-selling. Currently few agents used to keep the policy documents with them till the expiry of 15 days free look period, which will not be possible from now.
• It will reduce your policy maintenance expenses drastically. For example LIC spends around Rs.500 to Rs.600 in storing a policy.
• Your premium may get reduced. But don’t to what level as insurers need to pay to demat providers also.
• You can pay for all your demat policies at one point by login to your account.

What do you mean by Insurance Repositories?

These are the registered companies who got approval from IRDA to maintain the data in demat form on behalf of insurance companies. Below is the list of such repositories who currently got approval from IRDA.

1) NDSL Database Management Limited

2) Central Insurance Repository Limited

3) SHCIL Projects Limited

4) Karvy Insurance Repository Limited

5) CAMS Repository Services Limited

Below are the few points related to this service

• You can keep all your existing policies as well as future policies with anyone of the above repositories indemat format.
• As told above you can convert your existing physical documents of policies into demat format.
• Such account of holding in demat format is called as eIA (Electronic Insurance Account).
• With the click of button on your account, you can view all your existing policies.
• Repositories acting as single stop shop, you can change address, nomination and other service related request with speed and accuracy.
• You need one time KYC formalities while opening the account irrespective of Insurance Company you are dealing with.
• You can convert your Life Insurance, Health Insurance, Pension Policies and General Insurance Policies into eIA format. But currently you are able to convert only Life Insurance policies only.
• This facility is “Free of Cost“.
• You can nominate someone to operate this account in case of your demise or disability for further processing of claim settlement.
• If you are not satisfied with one repository then you can switch any other above listed repositories.
• You will receive the annul statement from repository about the details of holding policies.
• The above said repositories can only act as a service provider but can’t sell insurance policies to you. So feel free 
• Each user will have unique Login ID and Password which will also have unique Account Number.
• You can not open multiple e-Insurance Accounts.
• Approved Person (AP) is the point of sale from repository to serve you.
• You can get the E-Insurance Account opening form from your Insurance Company, Insurance Repository or with Approved person.
• Documents required for opening E-Insurance Account are

1. Photo ID (PAN CArd or Aadhar Card)
2. Recent Passport size photo.
3. Cancelled Cheque (to pay future benefit directly to your account).
4. Address Proof. (Ration card, Passport, Aadhar Card, Voter ID card, Driving license, Bank Passbook-not more than 6 months old, verified copies of -Electricity bill of not more than 6 months old, residence telephone bills of not more than 6 months old, registered lease or sale agreement, self declaration by High Court or Supreme Court judges, ID card with address of Central/State Govt Employees, Statutory/Regulatory Authorities, Public Sector Undertakings, Schedules commercial banks, public financial institutions, colleges affiliated to universities, professional bodies such as ICWAI, ICAI, Bar Council etc. to their members).

• You can open this account even without having a single insurance policy too. But after buying you need to give request for demat format.
• Once you submit all documents for opening E-Insurance Account your account will be opened within 7 days and you also receive the welcome kit which makes you familiar in dealing with this account.
• Once you have E-Insurance Account during future buying you just need to mention your unique E-Insurance Account number into proposal form so that your new insurance company issue it ineIA format.
• Authorized representiave of your eIA account will have only access to your account but not the policy benefit. But both nominee and authorized representative is same then he/she can get the policy benefits.
• You can change authorized representative at any point of time.
• You have the option to stay away from eIA account also. In such case your policy documents will be as is now in physical format.

T20 Cricket matches live from Srilanka

LIVE T 20 CRICKET MATCHES FROM SRILANKA

Bank branch in UNNAO,LIC, IFSC, MICR Codes, Address, All Bank Branches in India, for NEFT, RTGS, ECS: Bankcode.in

Bank branch in UNNAO,LIC, IFSC, MICR Codes, Address, All Bank Branches in India, for NEFT, RTGS, ECS: Bankcode.in