SBI Life, the leading new generation life insurer, has launched a variable non-participating insurance plan – Flexi Smart Insurance. The product is designed to provide safety for customer’s investment and stable returns to risk-averse customers having preference for non-market linked plans. Interim and additional interest rates, flexibility of premium holiday option, facility of increasing or decreasing the sum assured as per the changing needs and an option of Top-up Premium are some of the customer-friendly features of Flexi Smart Insurance.

The premiums paid by the policyholder will earn an interim interest rate of 7% during the financial year 2011-12. The interim interest rate will be declared at the beginning of each financial year. Depending on the investment returns in the fund, an additional interest rate may be declared at the end of the financial year, on 31st March, which will be credited along with the interim interest rate to the policy holders’ account.

The product is available at an affordable minimum premium amount of Rs. 1,500 per month. The policyholder can opt to pay premiums at yearly, half-yearly, quarterly or monthly mode of payments.

M N Rao MD & CEO, SBI Life said, “Flexibility, affordability and innovation are the hall marks of the Flexi Smart. Overall, we will continue to strengthen our series of “Simple and Smart” series of ULIP and traditional products so as to cater to the protection and savings needs of multiple customer segments with varied risk-appetite.”

Another customer-friendly feature incorporated in Flexi Smart Insurance is the availability of Premium Holiday option. In case of any unforeseen financial problems, the policy holder can conveniently take a break from paying premium payments upto three years during the policy term. However, the life cover will continue to be available to the policyholder during this premium-holiday period, without deduction of mortality charge.

Further, Flexi Smart Insurance provides the policyholder the option of investing any surplus money in the form of Top-up premium. Also, depending on the changing protection needs, customer can choose to increase or decrease the Sum Assured without increasing the regular premium, from the 4th Policy Year onwards.

Catering to the insurance and long-term investment needs of varied customer segments, SBI Life has wide range of “Simple and Smart” products including new IRDA guidelines compliant ULIPs, Pure Protection and Traditional products. These include HNI-targeted Smart Elite, NAV-Guaranteed Smart Performer, No Medicals ULIP – Saral Maha Anand, Flexible ULIP – Unit Plus Super, Child Plan – Smart Scholar, pre-determined NAV ULIP – Smart Wealth Assure, Pension ULIP – Smart Pension and ULIP with Automatic Asset Allocation – Smart Horizon. Innovatively-featured, non-ULIPs rolled out during the last financial year were No-Medicals, pure protection plan – Saral Shield, HNI targeted, pure protection plan – Smart Shield and No Medicals, traditional savings plan – Saral Life.

During the last financial year 2010-11, SBI Life Insurance posted a record profit of Rs.366 crores, increasing by 33% and collected total premium of Rs.12,912 crores, growing by 28% over the last financial year 2009-10. The new business premium collection stood at Rs.7,572 crores, an increase of 7% over last financial year 2009-10. This was supplemented with a whopping growth in renewal premium collection of 74%, to Rs. 5,340 crores in FY 2010-11 from Rs. 3,063 crores in FY 2009-10. The persistency level, as per the standard 13-month industry measure, increased by 11 % points to 69 %, in FY 2010 – 11, from 58%, in FY 2009-10. The Asset Under Management jumped by 40 % to Rs 40,163 crores from Rs. 28,703 crores as on 31st March, 2010.

Testifying all round excellence, SBI Life won several prestigious recognitions during the last financial year, 2010 11. The company was declared “Life Insurer of the year” by Bloomberg UTV Financial Awards, 2011. Being adjudged the best, SBI Life’s annual report has won Gold Shield from Institute of Charted Accountants of India (ICAI) for excellence in Financial Reporting. Also, International Certification Services (ICS) awarded SBI Life “ICS Quality Champion Award – 2010” for continual improvement in the Quality Process. NDTV Profit Business Leadership award and Best Life Insurer 2010, Runner Up, award by Outlook Money are the other key media recognitions that were conferred to SBI Life. Retaining the ISO 9001:2000 Certification for superior claim settlement process, globally topping the prestigious international MDRT Table and reaffirmation of CRISIL “AAA/Stable” rating are other key distinctions achieved by the company during FY 2010-11.

SBI Life ranks number one amongst private players, as per the latest IRDA report, May 2011. The company has a market share of 19.84% among private life insurers and a total market share of 4.83%.