At a time when a couple of US life insurance companies have set up shops in India with ease, LIC has to bide its time - at least one year - after applying for licence. And unlike India, where an insurer has to get licence from just one regulator, in the US insurance business licence has to be obtained individually from various state regulators.

The easier way is to take over an existing insurer, but LIC is not contemplating that route. US and Japanese insurance markets are heavily protected markets for insurers of other countries, says LIC executive director (marketing and international operations) T K Banerjee.

Banerjee says LIC has decided to become a corporate agent for a US-based life insurer till it gets the green signal to operate on its own. We are talking to a couple of insurers for that purpose. The US insurers with whom we are talking to are the ones who are not interested in entering the Indian market.

LIC will initially start its operations in New Jersey and California, which have a sizeable Indian population, and the two regions will be the target segment, says Banerjee. LIC is also interested in entering Canadian and Australian markets.

But the immediate plan before the corporation is to ink a joint venture deal with a Sri Lankan company. Though Sri Lankan regulations permit a foreign company to take up to 90 per cent equity in joint ventures, Banerjee says LIC will be content with 55 per cent. LICs interest in Sri Lanka comes at a time when the Sri Lankan government is said to be nurturing ideas of divesting some stake in its Insurance Corporation of Sri Lanka.

But an industry watcher is of the view that LIC should first pep up its operations in London. The corporations London branch has been churning out insipid performance for the past 15 years. A posting in London branch is generally looked seen as a passport to settle in the UK.

About LICs performance Banerjee says the fresh premium accrual is around Rs 15,000 crore from selling 2.31-crore new individual and pension policies. While single premium policies like Bima Nivesh contributed heavily to the premium accretion, he says the growth is over 70 per cent even if one knocks off single premium and pension policies sold in the last fiscal. LICs total income will be around Rs 50,000 crore for the year 2001-2002.

Earlier, speaking at the bancassurance seminar organised by the Indian Institute of Bankers and SBI Life, he said Indian banks are identifying only urban branches to sell insurance policies and not the ones located in rural areas, including the banks with which LIC has inked distribution pacts. Cost of operations, accessibility, low per capita income at villages, seasonality of income, migration and the need to invest in land upgradation are the issues impacting rural sales.

LICs rural business is 18 per cent of the total business, if one goes by the insurance regulators definition of rural area. For the year 2000-2001 LIC earned Rs 611 crore from rural areas.

Banerjee says LIC has reintroduced the concept of Bima Gram. Under this scheme, LIC adopts those villages that generate not less than 100 policies per year and where there is at least one policyholder in every house. The corporation provides incentives to such villages in the form of community assets.