State-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) believes that its strategy to restructure the product portfolio by introducing more non-participatory products and increased focus on the bancassurance channel will yield the desired results in terms of growth and market share. "We intend to sharpen the focus on bancassurance to steadily and considerably increase its volume, thereby its share in our business," M R Kumar, LIC Chairperson said at the insurance major's first-ever annual general meeting on Tuesday. "Our tie-up with banks continues to be robust. We intend to work with all partner banks, and at the same time strengthen the IT processes between the banks and us. In LIC 3.0, we shall re-align our activities in a manner that generates exponential growth and close the second quarter ending September with enhanced market share," he said. To increase profitability and higher margins, LIC has introduced several non- par products to its product portfolio. Traditionally, LIC has focused more on participating products, such as endowment and money-back plans. On an annualized premium equivalent (APE) basis, non- par was 7 per cent of LIC's portfolio but it plans to take it up to 12-15 per cent in three-four years. In non-participating policies, profits are not shared and no dividends are paid to policyholders. LIC had a single "life fund" until the LIC Act was amended to bring its surplus distribution mechanism on a par with private life insurers. After the amendment, the life fund was divided into two funds - Participating Policyholders' Fund and Non-Participating Policyholders' Fund. As a result, the surplus distribution in the participating policyholders' fund has been gradually revised to 90:10, of which 90 per cent will be given to policyholders and 10 per cent to shareholders. Also, 100 percent of surplus goes to shareholders. LIC's April-June quarter (Q1) net profit was Rs. 682.88 crore has been recorded, driven by its non-par business. LIC's mainstay has been its agency force of 1.34 million. However, it is now trying to focus more on its bancassurance partners to drive its non- par business. On the bancassurance side, the corporation has around 62,000 outlets. It has 14 major banks including IDBI Bank, 13 regional rural banks and 45 cooperative banks as partners. Also, there are 71 corporate agents, 35 insurance marketing agents and 63 brokers. "The opportunities of digital engagement and digitised delivery of services with migration of the customer from physical to digital or phygital mode are widely seen. A strategy of deploying bionic agents by extending tech support in the form of digital tools and analytics to the agency force will surely go a long way in building the core digital sales capabilities, exploring a win model, where there's a convergence of digital along with the best human qualities of advice and engagement," Kumar said. He stressed the fact that despite two decades of opening up of the insurance sector, LIC still remains the market leader and holds a major market share of 63.25 per cent in first-year premium income and 74.62 per cent in number of policies as of March 31, 2022. As of Q1FY23, LIC's market share in terms of first-year premium income was 65.42 per cent.