SBI Life outsmarted other private sector peers under group insurance by covering 4,73,526 lives or about 14 per cent of the total 35,39,648 lives covered by all insurers and stood next to the public sector monolith Life Insurance Corporation till December 2003.

Of the 35,39,648 lives covered under group insurance, LIC's coverage was 23,70,922 lives, which was 67 per cent of the total coverage during the first nine months of the current financial year, according to the data available with the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

The remaining 33 per cent market share under the group insurance scheme went to 12 new generation players.

Among the new players, SBI Life's coverage was about 14 per cent and industry sources told PTI it was due to the vast network of SBI and its associate banks across the country.

"It is a fact that we cannot match the network of SBI and what we are trying to do is to expand the bancassurance mode by incorporating more NGOs," a top official of a private sector life insurance company, told PTI in New Delhi.

Industry sources said SBI Life could enlighten the rural and cooperative banks and that was one of the reasons why it could grab a "substantial" stake in group insurance scheme.

Otherwise a topper in premium income, ICICI Prudential could cover only 18,321 lives under group insurance, which was mere 0.52 per cent of the total lives covered under such a scheme.

The other toppers like Birla Sun Life, HDFC Standard Life and Tata AIG could cover 1,50,658, 35,042 and 1,23,032 lives under group insurance, cornering 4.26, 1.0 and 3.48 per cent market share respectively till December 2003.

Max New York Life could, however, cover 1,97,823 lives or 5.59 per cent of the total lives covered by group insurance scheme.

Allianz Bajaj's coverage of 28,446 lives was 0.8 per cent of the total lives covered under group insurance.

ING Vysya's coverage of 996 lives was mere 0.03 per cent of the total lives covered.

Sources said "poor" show in the group insurance scheme by many of the new generation players was due to the fact that the customisation in the segment had not kept pace with that in the individual segment.

Though LIC had the maximum coverage due to its gigantic size, industry sources said the performance was solely due to single premium for the group.

Citing this, sources said in this regard SBI Life was "rather more reality-oriented" since the company's coverage included non-single premium, which was the prime reason for the enhanced coverage.

Of the 4,73,526 lives covered by SBI Life under the group insurance scheme, about 94 per cent of it came from non-single premium policies.