LIFE insurance policies being serviced in Fiji by Life Insurance Corporation of India (LICI) Fiji always hover around 61,000 to 63,000 policies, with new policy sign-ups of some 6000 to 6500 each year.
Last year, LICI recorded between 6200-6400 new policies.
For August this year alone, around 800 new policies were recorded compared to around 650 policies for the corresponding month last year.
LICI Fiji general manager Pradeep Shenoy said the total number of policies they serviced had been stagnant and the same trend of an increase by 1000-2000 and a decrease of 500-1000 each year would continue.
He said in a period of five to six years, new policies had increased from 60,000 to 62,000 policies, which he added were not very significant.
“If you look at the total business done in one year, in any financial year, it is always in the range of 6000-7000. In 2025, we hope to cross 7000, so we’ll be growing by around 10-15 per cent of new businesses,” Mr Shenoy said in an interview.
He said while they would sign up 6000 new policies, it would not translate to 60,000 policies in 10 years because all policies did not continue, with some being discontinued before maturity, and some policies would mature and paid out.
He said the total policies would almost remain the same with very marginal growth in coverage, which he attributed to financial illiteracy of people in the country.
“They are not worried about savings, they do not focus on saving and they are more keen on spending,” Mr Shenoy told The Fiji Times.
“Savings is something Fijians in general are not very keen on.”
Mr Shenoy said the same attitude also contributed to immature termination of insurance policies, coupled with reasons like job termination, switching jobs, family issues, and extra household expenses.
He said close to 30 per cent or one-third of serviced policies did not continue beyond two years, and 15-20 per cent did not continue after one year.
“That means around 75-80 per cent continue; and another 10 per cent go out after one year, and another 5-10 per cent go out after another year.
“So every year in the first five years, a lot of policies go out because customers don’t continue to pay the premium,” he said.
Mr Shenoy said while some discontinue paying premium, many failed to resume payments.
However, he said a trend they now observed was customers who owned bigger policies and paid bigger premiums would not get discontinued, compared to ‘small ticket’ policies that tend to lapse more, attributed to attitudes that did not deem savings important.
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Note: This article was first published under the headline: Stagnant growth in Page 13 of the print version of The Fiji Times dated Wednesday, September 3, 2025
