The life insurance industry registered 35.13% growth for new business premium till January 2017, largely due to the high growth in the group as well as individual single premium policy. While private insurers saw their growth at 26.31%, state run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) registered higher growth at 39.06% in the current financial year.
According to the latest data by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai), life insurance industry saw new business premium at R1.29 lakh crore up to January in current financial year against R95,871.62 crore in the previous year.
Private insurers saw new business premium at R37,306 crore in the current fiscal against R29,535.92 crore seen in the previous financial year. Officials in the insurance industry added that though life industry has seen a growth of 35.13%, bulk of this has come from selling single premium insurance policies. “Even as we have seen smart comeback of unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) and traditional plans in the last few months, even now growth is coming more from single individual as well as group insurance policies,” said a CEO of top fund house.
LIC saw its new business premium at R92,248.99 crore up to January compared to R66,335.70 crore last year. But even for LIC, growth of 154% came from individual single premium policies, show Irdai data. “At the start of the current financial year, things look difficult for LIC. But we have seen some tremendous growth in the past few months and we hope to continue this way in future. This is one of the year, where we have been able to meet our internal targets of first year premiums,” said a senior member of LIC on condition of anonymity.
Several of the big private players like Birla Sun Life, HDFC Standard Life, ICICI Prudential Life, SBI Life, among others, posted growth in the range of 13-5% in the current financial year.
Irdai data also show that, in January, life insurance industry saw first year premium at R13,138.10 crore against R10,283.89 crore in the past fiscal year.