INSURANCE
LIC’s market share comes down to 69.36% in FY18: IRDAI
Jan-14-2019

The market share of state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has come down to below 70% in the financial year 2017-18 (FY18). The share came down as private insurers get more aggressive. As per the annual report of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), LIC’s market share fell to 69.36% in FY18 from 71.81% in FY17 on the basis of total premium income, while private insurers’ market share jumped to 30.64% in the year under review, from 28.19% in the corresponding previous year.

The data further showed that private insurers’ market share in new business premium also saw an increase during 2017-18 over the previous year. In the case of renewal premium, LIC had a share at 69.35% (down from 72.31% in the previous year). This compares with 30.65% (27.69% in the previous year) share of private insurers. During 2017-18, life insurers issued 281.97 lakh new individual policies, out of which LIC issued 213.38 lakh policies or 75.7% of the total new policies issued, while the private life insurers issued 68.59 lakh policies (24.3%).

As per the report, the private sector achieved a growth of 8.47% in the number of new policies issued against the previous year, LIC achieved a growth of 5.99%. At the end of March 2018, there are 68 insurers operating in India, of which 24 are life insurers, 27 are general insurers, 6 are standalone health insurers exclusively doing health insurance business and 11 are re-insurers including foreign re-insurer branches and Lloyd’s India.

Of the total insurers currently in operation, eight are in the public sector and the remaining are in the private sector. In life insurance business, India is ranked 10th among the 88 countries, for which data is published by Swiss Re. The country's share in global life insurance market was 2.76% during 2017.  However, during 2017, life insurance premium in India increased 8% (inflation adjusted) when global life insurance premium rose by 0.5%.

  RELATED NEWS >>