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BANGALORE, May 20

NAGPUR'S largest taxpayer, Mr Bharat Parekh, 35, is no businessman, CEO or trader. He is your friendly neighbourhood LIC agent - with an income exceeding Rs 80 lakh in 2001-02. Mr Parekh is part of LIC's star agent brigade that is all set to attend the Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) - a US-based millionaire agent club - in Nashville, Tennessee later this year.

Demolishing the picture of the shabby, unscrupulous salesman (with the talents of a barnacle) are these suave, jet-setting millionaire agents. And there are more of them than you would think.

Mr Jaydeep Kashikar, 26, only started selling life insurance when he was 25. He became the youngest-ever qualifier for the `Top of the Table' honour at the MDRT - a sort of high table where the super-achievers among the millionaire agents sit - he sold policies for a sum assured of Rs 15.22 crore last year.

There are prolific business developers within LIC as well. The Contai branch of LIC in Midnapur, West Bengal, for instance, is responsible for over 50,000 policies last year - "At a time when all the 12 private life insurance players in India sold 3,00,00 policies last year,'' said Mr R.C. Sharma, Managing Director, LIC. One development officer in Tamink in West Bengal is responsible for over 15,135 policies, he said.

Further, if one LIC development officer was responsible for Rs 100 crore of business last year, this year, there are five. "We expect new premium income to grow by 40 per cent in 2002-03,'' Mr Sharma said.

"Our agents and officers are responsible for our leadership position in the market and our performance,'' said Mr A. Ramamurthy, current-in-charge, and Managing Director, LIC.

Last year, LIC had about 429 qualifiers for the Million Dollar Round Table while the number has tripled this year, he said. According to Mr Sharma, LIC is probably next only to New York Life in the number of millionaires among its agency force.

If there are over 1,400 MDRT agents among LIC's agency force, there are about 17 of them who have earnings six times or more the qualifying level for millionaire agents - qualifying for the Top of the Table slot.

LIC itself, with over 2.32 crore policies sold last year and annually servicing about 12 crore could qualify as the largest life insurer said Mr Ramamurthy. "We settled 85 lakh claims last year, and over 85 per cent of them before the due date,'' he said. LIC's agency force of 7.9 lakhs - easily among the largest in the world - is set to rise to nine lakhs in the current year, Mr Ramamurthy said.

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