Life insurance in the slow lane

By: Pravin Palande/ Forbes India

The sluggish life insurance sector may be headed for better times.
A series of investor-friendly rules framed by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), coupled with lacklustre equity markets over the past one year, is choking the life insurance industry. During April-May 2011, first premium income for private insurers fell 23 percent while that for Life Insurance Corporation, the biggest and only state-owned life insurer, went down by 8 percent.

Much of the crash can be blamed on the industry