Reliance Life to hire 50,000 advisors this fiscal

India's leading private sector insurer Reliance Life will hire nearly 50,000 advisors and 5,500 full-time insurance consultants this fiscal to negate any impact of high attrition and to sustain growth.

The company, part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's financial services arm Reliance Capital, plans to hire 5,500 full-time advisors by September 2012 itself as part of its efforts to improve customer services.

Reliance Life Insurance Company (RLIC) is planning to hire over 50,000 advisors this fiscal so that net employee addition remains positive, the company's President and Executive Director Malay Ghosh told reporters here.

The company is also focusing on hiring employees on fixed salary basis to lower the attrition rate.

"We are thinking to provide a minimum fixed salary to advisors, especially in semi-urban and rural areas, to retain the talent and provide better services," he said, after launching a post-sales customer support initiative by the company, which would be first for any Indian insurer.

The announcement was made at the company's off-site event being held here.

Ghosh said that Reliance Life has already hired around 7,000 advisors in April and May and the company expects the number to cross 50,000 persons in the entire fiscal, ending March 31, 2012.

The industry is facing high attrition rate due to a host of reasons such as slow growth and increased regulation, he said.

The company had a total of about 1.2 lakh advisors as on June 30, 2012, down over 1.5 lakh advisors in the year ago period.

More people left the organisation due to challenging environment and changes in regulations, Ghosh said, while adding that the the environment would continue to be challenging this fiscal.

"The life insurance industry is expected to have a moderate growth of 10 per cent in new business premium this fiscal. Growth and profitability would be driven by renewal premium from existing customers," Ghosh said.

Reliance Life's total premium (net of reinsurance) in the last quarter ended June 30, 2012 was Rs 810 crore, while total funds under management stood at Rs 18,586 crore.

It recorded its first full-year net profit at Rs 373 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2012. It had sold over one million policies in 2011-12 and garnered a total premium of Rs 5,498 crore during the year.