New Delhi, March 5: SBI Life Insurance, which aims to draw on the client base of parent State Bank of India, will shortly introduce a group pension scheme.

The insurance regulator — Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) — gave its approval to the scheme yesterday.

Addressing a press conference in the capital today, R. Krishnamurthy, managing director and CEO of SBI Life, said: “The group pensions will form a very important part of our product portfolio. We will shortly start covering various groups under the scheme.”

Under this scheme, the employer of an organisation will deduct a certain amount as premium from the salary of his employee in order to avail of the benefit of the pension cover.

However, a unique point of this cover is that even if the employee quits his organisation, he can continue to avail of the cover by seeking a transfer to his individual personal account. This will prevent the lapse of the pension cover for the policyholder.

SBI Life also announced the launch of its bancassurance services in the Delhi region. Under the bancassurance scheme, select branches of State Bank of India and its other associate banks will start selling two products — the endowment policy (Sudarshan) and the newly-introduced pension policy (lifelong pensions) — directly to the customers of the bank. The insurer has 12 products in its kitty.

Krishnamurthy said: “In the first phase, branches spread over Delhi, Rajasthan, parts of Haryana and western Uttar Pradesh will be covered. The number of branches providing such services will be increased rapidly in the near future.” SBI and its associate banks have more than 13,000 branches and a captive client base of Rs 10 crore.