The agency force of India's largest life insurance company, the state-owned LIC, is being roped in to sell mutual funds.
LIC's mutual fund arm plans to tap more of its parent's large base of around 1.1 million agents to boost its sales, reports The Telegraph.
LIC Mutual Fund is looking to build a base of 7,500 key business partners (active LIC insurance agents) over three years from around 1,200 now.
"The number of LIC agents interested in selling mutual funds is increasingly going up. LIC already has a huge base of agents and we are looking at only a small part of it," said Rajesh Patwardhan, chief marketing officer of LIC Mutual Fund.
A combination of increasing demand for systematic investment plans as an investment strategy involving mutual funds along with the lure of additional earnings from commissions has generated interest among insurance agents.
According to LIC agents, the insurance commission ranges between 5% and 25% (of premium), depending on the type and tenure of the policy. For policies with tenures of at least 12 years, the commission would be 35% of the premium.
With mutual funds, the commission could be around 1.5% of accumulated assets.