'Ceylife Online' to cater to new IT-savvy customer segment

Sri Lanka's first online life insurance plan, which could be applied for and purchased entirely via the Internet, has been launched by Ceylinco Life, establishing yet another industry milestone.

Portrayed aptly as 'Protection at Your Fingertips,' Ceylife Online is a simple Term Insurance Plan with optional Accidental Death Cover, offered on www.ceylincolife.com to a new generation of IT-savvy Sri Lankans seeking convenience and cost effective life insurance.

The product, which becomes available from November 22, 2012, is for persons aged 18 to 60 and carries a minimum Basic Sum Assured (BSA) of Rs 1 million and minimum accidental death cover of the same amount for terms of 5 to 30 years, the company said.

Its principal selling point is unparalled convenience: a prospective policyholder can navigate and complete an online application in less than 10 minutes, any time of the day or night, seven days a week, pay by credit card via a highly secure Internet Payment Gateway and in cases where no medical reports have been required, receive his or her policy via courier within four days.

Since it is offered online, policyholders would benefit from significantly lower premiums and receive instant printable receipts and automatic confirmation of transactions via email and SMS.

"We are excited by the potential for this new distribution channel for life insurance," Ceylinco Life's Managing Director and CEO R. Renganathan said. "While insurance agents, our traditional distribution channel, would continue to be our mainstay for many years to come, the importance of the online customer segment is growing rapidly and would be addressed by Ceylife Online."

A wholly in-house designed web solution, Ceylife Online, automatically calculates and displays the applicable premium payment as a potential customer inputs his details and requirement of insurance cover.

The new product is supported by Ceylinco Life's reinsurance partners, led by Munich Re, one of the world's leading reinsurers, with premium income of around 27 billion from reinsurance alone.

The leader in Sri Lanka's life insurance industry for the past eight years, Ceylinco Life has more than 850,000 lives covered by active policies.

Gross Written Premium Income for the six months ending June 30, 2012 was Rs 4.9 billion and the value of the company's Life Fund stood at Rs 41.778 billion at that date. Ceylinco Life accounts for 28 per cent of Sri Lanka's life insurance market, according to a news release.