Postal Life Insurance (PLI), the oldest life insurance scheme in the country has completed 130th year of existence.
PLI, though started as an in-house life insurance scheme for the welfare of postal employees in February 1884, is now reachable to all employees of the Central and State Governments, including the Defence personnel and Paramilitary forces, employees of Public Sector Undertakings and Public Sector Commercial Banks, Autonomous Bodies and Universities, Government aided Colleges and Schools etc. In the recent past, PLI scheme has been extended to certain new categories of employees i.e. Deemed Universities, Educational Institutions accredited by AICTE, MCI, Central/State Boards Scheduled Commercial Banks, Co-operative Societies and Contractual Employees likely to be regularised etc. The scheme was further extended to Rural people which has been popularised as Rural Postal Life Insurance in the year 1995.
The strength of Post Office lies in its massive network of nearly 1.55 lakh outlets for sale of policies and collection of PLI premium. As a result, PLI gives the highest bonus to its customers. PLI customers have an easy option of paying premium through deduction from salary and also online through www.epostoffice.gov.in . As the sale, servicing and redressal of complaints is done through Department of Posts Network, keeping the cost of operation of PLI low as compared to other insurers and the surplus thus generated is passed on to the insurants in the form of higher bonus. PLI and RPLI are mandated to provide affordable insurance coverage to millions of its customers. PLI has taken several new initiatives, in the recent past for further broadening its reach to the customers and for providing better services to them. Instead of solely depending on its own employees, India Post has started procuring PLI policies through Agents, like any other Insurance Organization. This has enlarged its sales force, and has helped PLI to hold its niche market even after opening up of the Insurance Sector to Private players.
Today, number of live policies in PLI and Rural PLI is almost 28 million. The corpus size is more than Rs.49,000 crores. Total Sum Assured for all policies comes to Rs.199962.86 crores. PLI & RPLI is number two in terms of coverage /number of policies amongst all the insurers as on date. In its 130th Year, PLI has taken several steps for improving after sales services. Under Financial Services Project of the Department, Core Insurance Solutions system is being rolled out across all the 812 Head Post offices /CPCs and sub post offices . In the first phase Core Insurance Solution has been rolled out in more than 100 Head Post Offices successfully. As a token of recognition of the services rendered by the sales force and to focus the extraordinary efforts put forth by them in raising the Postal Department under Insurance Sector (PLI) the awards are being presented for the Top- performers under different categories. (NSS)
