July 20, 2003	Sunday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 19, 1424

KARACHI, July 19: Falling rates of return on bank deposits and government securities have started telling on the operations of the insurance companies that are now giving a hard look at their investment portfolio and are in process of drawing up a new investment strategy.

“Our financial analysts are in process of exploring new investment avenues to ensure a fair return to the policyholders,” Rasul Baksh Baloch, chairman and chief executive of State Life Insurance Corporation (SLIC), told a press briefing on Saturday.

He informed reporters that the Pakistan Investment Bond and other government securities were the main investment avenues of the SLIC and source of income. After a fall in rate of return of these securities, he said, the financial analysts and experts of SLIC were exploring new avenues to ensure a fair return to the policyholders in terms of bonuses and profits on their premiums.

Responding to a question, Rasul Baloch said that SLIC was in process of designing new insurance products for pensioners and senior citizens.

Earlier, Rasul Baloch inaugurated a two-day SLIC’s third conference of regional and zonal heads where he informed senior executives of the corporation that SLIC had procured Rs650 million worth of new business in the last six months (January-June 2003).

He said SLIC sold away 75,765 new policies in the last six months, showing an increase of more than 35 per cent in business volume as compared to the business procured in the same period of 2002.

He expressed confidence of accelerating the pace of business in the next two quarters of 2003 and set a new record in booking insurance business.

In reply to a question, he said that about 23 per cent of Pakistan’s population had been brought under insurance cover if group insurance is taken into consideration. Minus group insurance the life insurance coverage ratio of the population is, however, small.

He agreed that life insurance prospects had tremendous potential after the 9/11 incident as pace of remittances flow has picked up. SLIC was carrying out business surveys in the district level and setting targets for the marketing staff.