Max New York Life to have 1,600 offices

NEW DELHI: Intending to expand its footprint across the country, Max New York Life Insurance is planning to have around 1,600 offices in all major cities and towns over the next three years with a special focus on rural clients.
    
"We have plans to ramp up the branch network to 1,600 in the next three years," said Debashis Sarkar, the company's senior director and chief marketing officer.
    
He said that company has planned a hub-and-spoke distribution model where one hub and its spokes caters to 8 to 10 towns and about 1,000 villages covering about 20 lakh people. The agents will be recruited from local areas to maintain trust and personal relationships with clients.
    
Max currently has 366 offices in 233 cities. "We plan to have more than 1,600 offices and increase the number of agents to 3 lakh from the current 50,000."
    
Sarkar said the Indian life insurance market is still largely untapped. With penetration at a mere 4.1 per cent of the GDP, he said, the sector is going to witness high growth rates in coming years.
    
Private players have been steadily increasing their market share which currently stands around 50 per cent, said Sarkar. This will go up as private insurers increase their distribution footprint.
    
Max has also tied up with corporates like Indian Oil Corporation and Triveni Engineering and Industries which have a wide distribution network to sell life insurance products in emerging and rural markets.