INSURANCE
Life insurers’ first-year premium collection rises 2.41% in April-December of FY19
Jan-17-2019

Life insurers witnessed a marginal growth of 2.41 percent in the first-year business premium collection during the period of April-December in FY19 over the same period last financial year. The total first-year business premium collected by the life insurers stood at Rs 1,41,584.30 crore in the first nine months of FY19 as compared to Rs 1,38,254.06 crore in the same period last financial year (FY18). The drag in the performance of the life insurers is mainly due to the decline in growth of the state-owned insurance behemoth, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).

Out of 24 life insurance companies, the largest life insurer in the country, LIC saw a reduction of 5.65 percent in its first-year business premium. In absolute terms, LIC earned first-year business premium worth Rs 94,140.79 crore in the first nine months of FY19 whereas, in the same period in FY18, it could garner Rs 99,783.33 crore. The drag in the performance of LIC has been mainly because of the huge decline in its individual single premium and group non-single premium. LIC’s individual single premium declined 22.50 percent and group non-single premium declined 67.14 percent. On the contrary, the private insurers reported a steady growth of 23.33 percent with their first-year business premium amounting to Rs 47,443.51 crore in FY19 as opposed to Rs 38,470.73 crore in the corresponding period of FY18.

Top four private insurers, in terms of their market share in premiums collection, have registered positive growth. HDFC Life, Max Life and SBI Life have registered double-digit growth of 40.68 percent, 17.49 percent, and 31.59 percent respectively in FY18. ICICI Prudential, on the other hand, reported a tepid growth of 4.07 percent.

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