LIC’s fall in premium income drags industry

financialexpress.com:

New business premium for the life insurance industry witnessed a 0.91% year-on-year fall to Rs 73,005 crore for the first quarter this fiscal due to around 7% Y-o-Y decline in premium income for state-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) during the same period.

Collective new business premium, or the first-year premium, of 26 private sector life insurance companies grew 10.58% YoY to Rs 28,167.66 crore during the quarter under review, according to data released by the Life Insurance Council.

Life Insurance Corporation of India’s new business premium witnessed a 6.98% decline to Rs 44,837.20 crore as in all the categories, barring group yearly renewable premium, incomes got reduced.

LIC, however, posted around 21% Y-o-Y growth in its new business premium for the month of June at Rs 24,970.82 crore. Notably, the insurance behemoth registered a decline in its premium incomes for April and May.

In terms of individual premiums, LIC experienced a marginal increase of 0.14% in June 2023. Regarding group premiums, the company’s collection for June amounted to Rs 20,630.58 crore, representing a growth of 26.39% year-on-year.

Among major life insurers in the private sector, SBI Life’s new business premium for Q1FY24 grew 11% y-o-y to Rs 6,205.71 crore, while for HDFC Life Insurance, it was up by 23.48% to Rs 5,990 crore. ICICI Prudential Life’s new business premium for the period fell 4.17% to Rs 3,051.23 crore. For Bajaj Allianz Life, it was down by 26.05% to Rs 2,156.58 crore and for Max Life, the same was up 24.90% year-on-year to Rs 1,853.46  crore.