Bangalore: Mukherjee further asked insurers to restrain from Mukherjee further asked insurers to restrain from unhealthy competition to ensure sustained business growth. "It is well understood that growth in top line cannot be at the cost of bottom line. The Ministry has suggested certain welcome steps to curb the unhealthy competition in underwriting premiums and it will help restore the sustained business growth," he added. Mukherjee said the insurers should appoint business correspondents as agents to increase coverage in rural areas. Besides, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) Chairman D K Mehrotra said the hour-long meeting reviewed the performance of the insurance sector. "LIC has been doing well. Certain suggestions came up for non-life segment and the message came that how to move forward. It is more about giving better servicing to policy holder and better penetration," Mehrotra added. Mukherjee further said that insurance companies should focus on other mode of distribution such as bancassurance. "Out of the available 80,000 bank branches, less than 7000 are being used by PSU insurers and we need to scale up Bancassurance immediately," he added. Mukherjee said that natural calamities and catastrophic events in Japan, Thailand and elsewhere during 2011-12 have affected Indian insurance companies. "I would advise LIC to work out "Kisaan Bima Yojana", a life insurance scheme for the farmers on the lines of JBY where the coverage can be extended up-to the age of 65 or 70 years and the additional premium could be borne by the farmers covered under the scheme," he said. He said insurers invest massively in infrastructure projects and the total investments of the PSU insurance companies in infrastructure (as on March, 2012) was to the tune of Rs 14.26 lakh crore. "While the loss of Rs 2,490 crore during 2011-12 is largely attributable to the natural catastrophes in Japan and Thailand and also due to the provisioning on account of motor pool, diversification of risk," Mukherjee added.