Edelweiss Life Insurance, a joint venture between Edelweiss Capital and Japanese insurer Tokio Marine, is targeting a break-even in the sixth year of their operation.

The insurer plans to operate through agency channel and focus on productivity and efficiency of the agents. Speaking to ET, Shuzo Sumi president and CEO of Tokio Marine said: "We want to cover 10 million lives by 2015. We want to have a market share of 1.5% by then. Our focus is primarily on agency and we plan to invest in training the agency force."

The JV partners have committed Rs 550 crore of initial capital. "We have an initial capital of Rs 550 crore. The two partners will infuse a total of Rs 1,100 crore into the business in six years before the breakeven," said Rasheesh Shah, chairman, Edelweiss group. Edelweiss plans to break-even early by focussing on efficiency and productivity of the agents.

"We are happy to start operations after the regulator brought in changes. Now, unlike the early entrants we will not spend on opening 1000 branches and then closing them. Initially we plan to hire 3,000 agents," said Shah. The company plans to open another 22 branches next fiscal. Most insurance companies failed to turn profitable in 8-9 years of their operation. So far, seven life insurers have broken even.

The company commenced operations last month with eight branches and plans to extend the network to 22 this fiscal. It has appointed Deepak Mittal as MD and CEO. Shah added 30 branches of Edelweiss have started selling insurance products. "Tier-4 and 5 are the places where real growth will take place." Edelweiss has a total of 137 branches, which would be the possible channel for selling insurance. The insurer is trying to cross sell products to the existing customer base of Edelweiss.

Sumi said that the company is focusing on need-based selling and will devise products according to the need of the customers. It has got seven products including term, Ulip, endowment approved from the regulator.