Indian life insurance sector logs 14.01% growth in new business in Sept

Indian life insurers logged 14.01% growth in their new business premium income last month as compared to the corresponding period in previous year, said the industry body Life Insurance Council. It said, 25 life insurers in the country had earned Rs.35,020.28 crore new business premium in September 2024 up from Rs.30,716.29 crore earned in September 2023.

The total new business premium earned this fiscal stands at Rs.1,89,214.04 crore, up from Rs.1,58,376.81 crore during the same period previous fiscal.

Driven by strong demand for enhanced insurance protection from individual consumers, new policy issuances too increased by 45.49% on a year-on-year (Y-o-Y) basis in Sept’24, resulting in the addition of new 32,17,880 policies vis-à-vis 22,11,680 policies in the year ago period, the Life Insurance Council said.

The life insurance sector saw individual single premiums growing by 13.04% on a Y-o-Y basis to close at Rs.5,141.99 crore for Sept’24 while year-till-date (YTD) growth stood at 14.99%.

Individual non-single premiums came in at Rs.11,500.11 crore and grew by 35.23% in Sept’24, even as YTD collections settled at 20.93% higher than the corresponding period last year, the  Council said.

This strong performance can be ascribed to the fact that life insurers are increasingly focusing on encouraging first-time life insurance buyers to buy essential life insurance solutions, contributing to the 27.50% growth in combined individual premium collections for Sept’24 and 18.96% growth on a YTD basis, the industry body added.

In the Group policy segment, single premiums grew by 6.06% with monthly collections coming in at Rs.17,052.25 crore. In fact, the Group policy category witnessed a 4.04% growth in premiums collected in Sept’24 while new policy issuances expanded by 7.89% on a Y-o-Y basis.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be reached at venkatacharijagannathan@gmail.com)