SBI Life Insurance to relaunch 10 plans by January 1

SBI Life Insurance plans to relaunch about 10 products by January 1 as part of regulatory compliance to make the policies more customer-friendly.

"We have some approval from the regulator IRDA. I think we would relaunch about 10 products," SBI Life Insurance Managing Director Atanu Sen told PTI.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) had extended the deadline for implementation of new individual product regulations for the life insurance industry by three months to December 31 to enable insurers to cope with the system readiness.

The new guidelines are aimed at making insurance policies more customer-friendly.

"All the existing group policies and all the existing individual products not in conformity with the provisions of this regulation shall be withdrawn from August 1, 2013 and January 1, 2014, respectively," IRDA had said in a circular.

With regard to group policies, the life insurers have been asked not to enroll these policies after the immediate policy anniversary falling due after July 2013.

However, it had said, all group policies at the time of renewal of such policy shall be given an option to switch over to the modified version of the group product, if any, once introduced.

During 6 months ended September, 2013, the new business premium of SBI Life declined by 8.3 per cent to Rs 1,726.77 crore as against Rs 1,884.76crore in the same period of the previous fiscal.