‘We are going full throttle on new bank partnerships’  

Although Axis Bank contributes around 40 per cent of total sales under bancassurance channel, Axis Max Life Insurance has no over-dependence on any of its distribution channels, says the insurer’s Senior Director and Chief Distribution Officer Sumit Madan. He says for listing of its shares on bourses, the company is awaiting the passage of the Insurance Amendment Bill, which will simplify its ownership structure by allowing non- insurance companies to merge with insurance entities.

Edited excepts:

We have always maintained that we look at the way the markets are growing, given the way the competition is, and the needs of the customers.

For the annual premium equivalent, internally, the benchmark and the guidance we have always given is that we will grow 3-5 per higher than the rate at which the industry is growing. That is the guidance which we will go by.

If you look at the adjusted first-year premium (AFYP) numbers, also what the industry looks at, we have grown 23 per cent for Q1. And when you look at the same number for the private life insurance industry, the industry has actually grown by only 8 per cent.

For us, both partnership (bancassurance) and proprietorship (agency, direct sales force and e-commerce) channels are actually growing at a very good pace. Proprietorship channel grew 26 per cent y-o-y in Q1 in terms of adjusted first-year premium (AFYP). Within it, the agency side almost grew 13-14 per cent for us.

There is a detailed strategy in place in the proprietorship channel to grow across all channels. For the agency, we are putting specific focus around tier-3 and -4 cities. In some of the prime catchment markets of Delhi, Mumbai, Gurugram and Kolkata, which are doing exceptionally well, we want to continue to stay invested and invest more in some of these markets. What we have also done is a bit of a deep dive with the help of both data and digital.

Our partnership channels delivered a strong 20 per cent y-o-y growth during the first quarter. While Axis Bank is doing exceptionally well for us, the story is also about some of the new banks partnerships that we have done for bancassurance.

If you look at the numbers of the new bank partnerships that we have done over the last 18-24 months, now they are actually going full throttle. In many of the new banks, we are now the number one player as far as our counter share is concerned.

So, I think we are in a bit of a very good space as we have a good momentum going on both partnership and proprietorship channels. Our partnership channel constituted around 49 per cent of APE in Q1, while proprietorship channel would be around 48 per cent. So it is a good mix between the two.

We are in the situation where there is no over-dependence on any of our channels which is a great starting point and that is something that we have built over a period of time.

With the brand refresh, obviously the brand recall in the industry or across markets becomes much larger, more than contribution of Axis growing, I think the pie largely grows.

Because today, for example, when we go to tier-3, tier-4 markets with the brand refresh, we are a far more popular name than what we used to be. Axis Bank has an excellent branch network, some great quality of people and some very productive client base. Purely because of that what typically happens is you get a certain predictability around the sales. So, I think from that perspective it is a great partnership. Axis Bank is our largest bancassurance distributor, contributing around 40 per cent of our total sales under this channel. We are consistently maintaining a counter share at Axis Bank within 65-70 per cent.

We are awaiting the passage of the Insurance Amendment Bill, which will simplify our ownership structure by allowing non-insurance companies to merge with insurance entities.

We are optimistic about the passage of the Bill whenever it gets tabled in Parliament.

Published on August 8, 2025