HDFC Life Bullish On Annuities

KR Srivats HDFC Standard Life Insurance Company (HDFC Life), a leading private life insurer, is “gung-ho” about its growth prospects in the Indian annuities market, a top official said.

Although it is a long distance away from industry leader LIC in the annuities space, this company’s strategic intent is to “grow big” by riding on both immediate annuity products as well as its recently launched “deferred annuity” product, Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Chief Actuary, HDFC Life, told BusinessLine.

To the uninitiated, the goal of annuities is to provide a steady stream of income during retirement. It is the form of insurance or investment entitling the investor to a series of annual sums. For the nine months ended December 2017, HDFC Life had written annuities business (new business corpus) of ₹417 crore. For the entire 2016-17, it was ₹346 crore and for the nine months ended December 2016, it was ₹213 crore, according to Parthasarathy.

A deferred annuity product is a sort of defined benefit product that gives the investor the certainty of the annuities he would receive after a particular period. Explaining the features of the HDFC Pension Guarantee Plan (Deferred Annuity), Parthasarathy said: “If you give ₹10 lakh to the company today, we will tell you what annuity you will get 10 years from now. This is a single premium product and the minimum age of entry is 45 years. It gives you right now visibility of how much annuity you get after 10 years.”

Going forward, HDFC Life is also working to introduce new annuity products, including market-linked annuity products. As on date, there is no insurance company in the country that offers market-linked annuities.