The broking licence will enable Centrum to sell products from the country’s largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), as well as GIC and large private insurers.
“The broking licence will help us expand our insurance business and we believe there is bright future for insurance and risk management advisory in India, an underpenetrated country,” Centrum Group executive chairman Jaspal Bindra told Indian financial newspaper The Economic Times.
The firm got into the insurance business in April 2016 as a composite corporate agent. As such, it could only sell select insurance products from a maximum of nine companies, whereas it can now expand the network to a maximum of 50 companies.
“Once we strengthen our distribution network, we may think of floating a standalone business on insurance,” Bindra, a former chief of Standard Chartered Asia, added.
Aiming for growth
Centrum Group currently has strategic tie-ups with seven companies including HDFC Life, Bharti Axa Life, ICICI Lombard, Tata AIG and Cigna TTK.
In 2016/17, the company generated IDR400m (£4.8m, $6.2m, €5.3m) worth of insurance premiums.
The group aims to double the sum in the current fiscal year and to generate IDR5bn of revenue from insurance premiums over the next five years.
