Life Corporation of India’s Fiji Operations paid out $34 million in insurance claims during the first eight months of this year, said general manager LICI Fiji Operations Pradeep Shenoy.
Speaking at the celebration in Suva of its parent company’s 67th birthday in India, Mr Shenoy said this was the value of 5000 maturing policies and also included 115 death claims worth $2.7m.
“During the same period, 9000 policy holders have availed the facility of loan under their policies and the amount of loan given was $25m,” he said.
In 2022, LICI Fiji paid out close to 8000 claims worth $46 million.
Mr Shenoy said since the Fiji office opened in 1956, LICI Fiji has been a “consistent market leader in terms of the number of policies being serviced”.
“According to the latest data, 65.5 per cent of life insurance policies of Fijians are with LICI. It has 230 agents spread throughout Fiji,” he said.
He also revealed the life insurer’s latest project, where it has started digitising all its over 70,000 physical paper policy files for efficiency.
“There will be no need to refer to the paper file for any purpose as all the details, including the signature of the customer will be visible on the computer screen on the policy number being keyed in. This is a big exercise which involves scanning more than 3.5 million pages,” he said, adding that the exercise will take four months to complete.
LICI not only pumps money into Fiji’s economy through double digit millions in policy claims settlements each year, it is also a regular investor in the Fiji Infrastructure Bonds (FIBs), which the Fiji Government issues through the Reserve Bank of Fiji to help finance its capital projects.
In the first eight month of this year, it has invested $64m in FIBs, bringing its total investments in FIBs so far to $900m, Mr Shenoy said.
LICI operates in 14 countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and Oceania.
