LIC

‘What is your father doing?’, ‘Working in LIC’ – the usual conversation of grown-ups with a toddler.  Thus, LIC got etched in my mind at a very young age.  My father joined LIC in 1956 when it was founded.  He worked in LIC for 38 long years and retired in 1994.  Those were the days when nobody thought of ‘changing jobs’.  Once somebody joined an organisation, he/she used to work there till retirement.

Among our friends and relatives, my father was the first to work for an insurance company.  During the initial years, in order to promote life insurance products, LIC used to allow its employees working in operations to act as agents and sell insurance policies.  So, my father worked towards creating awareness about life insurance among the people in and around Kochi and also sold policies to many people during late 1950’s and early 1960’s.  My father came to be known as ‘LIC Kamath’ in our community.  Even today those belonging to his generation recognise him by that name. 

My father was very traditional in many aspects, including his dressing, lifestyle etc.  At the same time, he was very much modern and ‘ahead of his times’ in some other aspects.  One such aspect is equity investing.  He started investing in equity shares in late 1970’s, when the middle-class in this country hardly used to look at equity as an investment alternative.  In fact, most of the middle-class people did not even understand the mechanics of equity investing and stock market operations.  My father was not an active trader in the secondary market.  He used to carefully invest in IPOs of companies and hold the investment for long periods.  Those days the companies used to send printed copy of their annual reports to all shareholders.  My father used to get a dozen of such reports and we, the kids, used to love those reports, because they were all printed in glossy paper and carried beautiful pictures of the products of the companies!

Following my father’s footsteps, I too got attracted towards equity investment early in my life.  There is one rule that I always follow while picking stocks – ‘Don’t pick stocks based on emotions.’  Recently, for the first time, I broke that rule.  When the IPO of LIC opened for subscription, within first few hours, I submitted my application.  No analysis, no research, no comparison with peers, I did not even bother to read the recommendations given by leading investment advisors! I was very happy when I got allotment of shares of LIC, because if my father was alive, he would have definitely invested in LIC.  I was connecting my father’s commitment to his organisation with his passion of investing in equity shares.  My status got elevated from the son of an ex-employee of LIC to one of its shareholders. 

For me, investing in LIC was more of an emotional connect than an economic decision!