Max New York Life Insurance (MNYLI) - a 74:26 joint venture between Max India and New York Life - will hike its capital by another Rs 100 crore this fiscal. The fresh capital would be ploughed in to sustain growth in business.

"We will have to raise our authorised capital to Rs 500 crore. In the next board meeting, we will take it up," Max NY Life vice-chairman Anuroop Tony Singh said after he launched the company's first unit-linked product, 'Life Maker', today.

MNYLI has a capital of Rs 387 crore, which is slated to go up to about Rs 500 crore by March-end '05. MNYLI has been growing at a fast pace. For the year '03-04, MNYLI has registered a growth of 122% in its total premium income at Rs 214 crore from a total premium income of Rs 97 crore in '02-03.

The life insurance company has sold cumulative insurance (sum assured) worth Rs 11,000 crore against a sum assured of Rs 5,400 crore last year. The number of policies sold by the company has been more than 2,85,000.

The capital infusion would be to keep pace with the growth in business. The life insurance company is the last one to add a unit-linked product to its portfolio. Elaborating on the new product, Mr Singh said, "Life Maker" is MNYL's first unit-linked investment plan that provides customers a lot of flexibility to manage their financial needs including protection, investment and liquidity.

The product offers customers the choice of two benefits - 'level insurance cover' and 'increasing insurance cover'. In level insurance cover nominees will receive higher of the insurance cover or value of units. In the increasing insurance cover, the nominees will receive the insurance cover plus the value of the units in the plan.

"The customer can switch from increasing insurance cover to level insurance cover and has the flexibility of increasing or decreasing their sum assured during the tenor of the plan in a unit-linked product," Mr Singh said. The product can further be customised using two riders - personal accident benefit rider and dreaded disease rider.

The fund has options like secure, conservative, balanced and growth. The plan empowers customers to manage their investments by switching between funds without any tax liability and offers flexibility to pay their premiums based on their cash flows.

Max NY Life has appointed Franklin Templeton as the manager of the fund and depending upon their advice, it will take decisions.