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Postal Life Insurance (PLI) was introduced on 1st February 1884
with the express approval of the Secretary of State (for India) to Her Majesty,
the Queen Empress of India. It was essentially a scheme of State Insurance
mooted by the then Director General of Post Offices, Mr. F.R. Hogg in 1881 as
a welfare scheme for the benefit of Postal employees and later extended
to the employees of Telegraph department in 1888. In 1894, PLI extended
insurance cover to female employees of P & T Department at a time when no other
insurance company covered female lives. It is the oldest Life insurer in this
country.
In the beginning, the upper limit of life insurance was only Rs 4000/- which has
now increased to Rs 10 lacs (Rupees Ten Lacs) for all schemes combined -
Endowment Assurance and Whole Life Assurance. Over the years, PLI has grown
substantially from a few hundred policies in 1884 to 42,83,302 policies as on 31.03.2010.
It now covers employees of Central and State Governments, Central
and State Public Sector Undertakings, Universities, Government aided Educational
institutions, Nationalized Banks, Local bodies etc. PLI also extends the
facility of insurance to the officers and staff of the Defence
services and Para-Military forces. Apart from single insurance policies, Postal
Life Insurance also manages a Group Insurance scheme for the Extra Departmental
Employees (Gramin Dak Sevaks) of the Department of Posts.
PLI is an exempted insurer under Section 118 (c) of the Insurance Act of 1938.
It is also exempted under Section 44 (d) of LIC Act, 1956.
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