The Life Insurance Corporation of India is saying no to an initial public offering, no to it being listed, and no to corporatisation. It is, in fact, opposing the government's plan to corporatise the insurance entity.

"We have told the government that the structure of the organisation should continue in the current fashion," LIC Managing director RK Vashishtha told Business Standard on Saturday.

The finance minister had earlier hinted that profitable public sector undertakings could shed equity in the market to raise funds.

A report by consultant Deloitte Touche on the financial health of LIC had recommended the dilution of the government's holding in the insurance behemoth, as part of the restructuring of the state-owned life insurance entity.

A proposal had been forwarded to the former government for the corporatisation of LIC, with plans of accessing the capital market.

"As capital is not a problem for LIC, there is little need for it being listed," said Vashishtha. He, however, added that when capital became an issue, perhaps LIC's management could re-think on this.

"We are open to it if it brings benefit to the customer," he said, adding that LIC was gaining strength from being a public sector undertaking as customers had total confidence that their money was in safe hands.

Immaterial of whether an insurance company is private or publicly-owned, Vashishtha said it should be transparent, offer value-added services to customers and generate competitive returns to customers.

"So long LIC is able to meet all this in a competitive environment, it is immaterial what its structure is (public or private)," he added.

Contrary to private insurance companies, LIC has various social obligations to meet. This explains why LIC's average premium income per policy is far lower than that of private insurance companies.

The state-owned insurer cannot impose a minimum policy size as it caters to the less privileged.