The company has created a special team to target corporates in six major cities including Delhi and Kolkata, where it does not have a presence in the retail segment. The company offers schemes like group term assurance, group superannuation and group gratuity.

Says chief operating officer B Nataraj, "The six-city thrust does not mean a change in our original focus on semi urban and rural areas. As per our original plan we will continue to concentrate on the  south and by this September we will have our points of presence in every southern city."

Adds Graham Meyer, managing director, "The corporate segment is a slow market to develop but an important one."

Regarding the unit-linked market, AMP Sanmar has launched the Kanaka Shree a flexible scheme. According to Meyer, the company has trained its agents / advisors in counseling on investment opportunities to help a prospect in making an investment decision.

Meyer says that the company hopes to increase the agency force to 15,000 from 5,000 agents at present. Expressing satisfaction on the performance of the agency force he says, "The average premium per policy in the case of traditional products (endowment, term assurance and others) is around Rs 7,500. In respect of pension and single premium policy it is Rs 4,500 and Rs 45,000 respectively."

According to Meyer, the company plans to hike the branch network to 100 branches by the end of this fiscal. Presently AMP Sanmar has 47 branches. In order to meet the increased expenditure, AMP Sanmar projects an addition capital infusion of around Rs 40 crore this year.

Meyer hopes to increase the company's premium income by 350 per cent this fiscal from Rs 31.1 crore booked last year.

Speaking about the claims outgo, he says the company settled Rs 50 lakh worth of claims. "The claims experience in the social sector is slightly higher than what we had expected. Otherwise the claims experience is in line with our expectations."