6 important sections of reorganize branch officers of the LIC

The reorganised branch offices of the LIC have the following sections:

1. Sales Section:

This section is responsible for supervision of development officer’s agents and for building up the agency force in its jurisdiction. It has to plan and review business performance and takes remedial action where necessary. It registers new proposals, settles commission and makes all payments to agents and development officers.

2. New Business Section:

This section is responsible for underwriting all new business and issue of new policies. It sends recommendations and obtains approval for business beyond its permissible limits, from higher authority.

3. Policy holders’ Servicing Section, Including Claims:

This section is responsible for total servicing of policies, including loans and clams and to obtain approval from higher authority for matters beyond their sanctioned powers. A separate section for claims and salary saving scheme is created, if the volume of work justifies.

It is responsible for providing the required support to all departments. An in-house machine will be provided only where size justifies it. In other cases, such support will come from the divisional office.

4. Office Service Section :

It is responsible for establishment and personnel matters in the Branch.

5. Accounts Section :

This section is responsible for Cash and Banking, preparation of trial balance of the branch, reconciliation of various accounts and issue and control of premium, receipts.

6. Branch Management Committee :

This committee consists of the Branch Manager and all the heads of sections and has higher financial powers. The members of the Branch Management Committee are Section Heads, Higher Grade Assistants, and Superintendents, Assistant Administrative officers or Administrative officers.

The Committee has also been vested with a financial authority beyond the power of the officer in charge of the branch in matters relating to underwriting and policy-services. The decisions of the Management Committee on all matters have to be unanimous and in case of differences in the committee the matters have to be referred to the Divisional office.

The basic function of the Committee is to review the performance of the branch, discuss its work-status and evolve methods to overcome problems facing the branch. The review of the performance of the branch has to be made in relation to some standards.

The performance budget for the branch, agreed between the Division and the Branch provides the yardstick for this comparison.

This review would be meaningful if the planning and budgeting itself is done after a thorough discussion at the Management Committee, so that all members of the Committee have a sense of commitment and identity with the plan.

The review of the performance at the Branch Management Committee provide feedback for future planning and enables suitable measures to be taken speedily wherever necessary to bring performance in line with plans, by a careful analysis of the reasons for its deviation.

The performance plan and budget evolved, after a discussion in the Management Committee provides common goals for the branch to reach and the involvement of individual departmental heads in evolving these goals.

It brings in them a sense of commitment so that when reviews are made individual departmental heads become prepared to sacrifice narrow departmental interests, whenever required, in the interest of the branch attaining the common objectives.

The review of performance and analysis of the problems faced which the Committee does enable emergence of a problem-solving culture. It leads to a realisation that operational problems can be solved primarily by putting heads together, identifying the causes and tackling the issues that provide the cause and not by referring to higher officers and awaiting their advice or directions.

Only those matters are referred to higher authority, which are beyond the powers and levels of expertise available at the branch.