Life insurance companies saw a 37.2 percent year-on-year (YoY) growth in their eight-month (April to November) period new premiums at Rs 1.69 lakh crore compared to a year ago.
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) yet again beat the industry in the collections with a 44.5 percent YoY growth in new premium at Rs 1.2 lakh crore. Private insurers saw a 22 percent YoY growth in the first-year premium at Rs 49,078.27 crore.
Though the first half of the financial year is a slower period for life insurers, this year the companies saw a healthy double-digit premium growth.
An Emkay report said after two months of tepid growth, the life insurance sector has rebounded with strong premium growth in November 2019, helped by the push toward the sale of traditional products.
Private players grew 25.9 percent YoY, registering strong performance across the board and largely from the likes of Bajaj Allianz Life, HDFC Life, Kotak Life and Tata AIA Life which grew more than 40 percent.
The retail annualized premium equivalent (100 percent of regular premiums plus 10 percent of single premiums) for private players grew 26.9 percent YoY. The Emkay report said that in November LIC had a bumper month with APE growth of 215.3 percent YoY driven by the push toward the sale of traditional products.
About eight products of LIC are going off the shelf under the IRDAI new guidelines, the deadline of which has been now extended to January 31, 2020.
On an absolute new premium collection basis, HDFC Life Insurance saw a 26.5 percent YoY rise in new premiums to Rs 10,772.9 crore for the April to November period.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance saw a 20.3 percent YoY rise in new premiums in the April to November period to Rs 7,060.2 crore. SBI Life Insurance saw a 38.7 percent YoY rise in the eight-month period to Rs 10,715.72 crore compared to a year ago.
The January to March period is the most crucial for life insurance companies from a policy issuance perspective. This is because the fourth quarter is when salaried professionals buy insurance for tax saving purposes.
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