Health, motor continue to drive general insurance, Q1 sales jump 17.9%

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

premium income in the first quarter of the current fiscal to Rs 64,262.8 crore, a growth of 17.9 per cent on-year when the industry had clipped at 23 per cent. The spike in sales of motor policy, which used to be the largest segment of the industry but is now pushed down to the second slot behind the health segment, is easily understood given the vrooming automobile sector that has sold more than 2 million units in the June quarter.

The robust double-digit growth for the general insurance industry comes in sharp contrast to a 0.8 per cent decline that life insurers logged in the reporting quarter, driven down by the massive poor show by the industry leader LIC across its business verticals. In June, the non-life insurance industry reported a premium of Rs 20,451.9 crore growing by 14.8 per cent on-year compared to 20.6 per cent in the same period last year, according to the data collated by Care Ratings.

The 17.9 percentage point incremental jump in premium collection, thus helping them log double-digit growth can mostly be attributed to the continuing demand for health policies, especially in the group segment, and motor insurance. The only laggard is the fire segment which continues to underperform with a subdued 5.9 per cent growth in sales.

Of the Rs 64,262.8-crore total premium income, as much as Rs 56,917.3 crore came in from the full-service players, Rs 6,657 crore came in from standalone health insurers which was 26.5 per cent more than the year-ago period. The remaining Rs 688.5 crore came in from specialised public sector general insurers which sold as much as 87.6 per cent more than what they did in the same period previous fiscal when their income had declined by 8.3 per cent to Rs 367 crore.