Shahid Aziz Siddiqi leads State Life turnaround

By Abdul Qadir Qureshi
(Pakistan News & Features Services)

Shahid Aziz Siddiqi has lived up to his huge reputation by leading the turnaround of the State Life Insurance Corporation of Pakistan (SLIC) in a matter of five years. The corporation, under his dynamic leadership, has registered impressive growth in this period as reflected in the statistics shared with the media recently.

Having help important governmental posts, after topping CSS exams, Shahid Aziz Siddiqi has not only revived the SLIC during his tenure as its Chairman but he has succeeded in taking it to new level. 

“State Life is one of the few government-owned companies that are actually profitable,” he remarked while disclosing that the annual profits that the Corporation remitted to the government in 2012 were Rs750 million. 

Instead of just comparing the yearly figures with those of the preceding year, the SLIC Chairman summed up the five-year performance which highlighted the company’s growth since 2008. State Life had remitted Rs296.22 million to the government in 2008, which showed that its payouts to the government increased at an average rate of 26.1% annually between 2008 and 2012.

State Life’s investment portfolio in 2012 consisted of Rs289.9 billion after being Rs275.1 billion in 2011. Its investment income also increased from Rs18.7 billion in 2008 to 35.8 billion in 2012, showing an annual rise of 17.6%. 

The equity portion in the investment portfolio remained Rs28.8 billion in 2012, which generated an income of Rs4.7 billion for the company. 

State Life’s total income, which included premiums as well investment income, increased to Rs89.7 billion in 2012, which was 18% higher than the total income of Rs75.7 billion in 2011. 

The total income of State Life was Rs 41.8 billion five years ago, which represented an annual increase of 21% between 2008 and 2012 while the average inflation during the same period remained 14.3%. 

State Life paid its policyholders Rs 24.3 billion in 2012 in claims as opposed to Rs12.8 billion that its policyholders received in 2008. The most recent year-on-year increase in total claims paid by State Life was 25%, as it paid Rs19.49 billion in claims during 2011.

Similarly, individual life first-year premiums in 2008 were Rs4.9 billion which, after increasing at an annualised rate of 29.4%, reached Rs13.9 billion in 2012. The year-on-year increase in individual life first-year premiums during 2012 was 16%, up from Rs12 billion in 2011. 

The individual life renewal premiums in 2008 were Rs13.4 billion rose to Rs30.6 billion in 2012, reflecting an annual growth rate of 22.8% between 2008 and 2012. The year-on-year increase in individual life renewal premiums in 2012 was 13%, up from Rs28.2 billion in 2011. 

The network of 155,000 State Life agents selling different insurance products nationwide played the pivotal role as they increased the number of total policies that are in force to 4.25 million in 2012 from 2.57 million in 2008 with the number of new policyholders in 2012 alone being 752,448. 

The most significant increase was witnessed in group life premium income, as it increased from Rs3.8 billion in 2008 to Rs8 billion in 2012, showing an annual rise of 20%. After the year-on-year increase of 69% in 2012, the company’s group life premium income rose to Rs8 billion, up from Rs4.7 billion in 2011. The number of lives covered under State Life’s group life insurance also increased from 3.8 million in 2008 to 7.8 million in 2012.