Reliance Life net profit more than doubles in Q1

The company recorded its first full-year net profit at Rs 373 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2012

Reliance Life Insurance has recorded a whopping 140% jump in the first quarter net profit to Rs 19 crore in the current financial year.

In the three-month period ended June 30, 2012, the company recorded a net profit of Rs 19 crore, as against Rs 8 crore in the year-ago quarter.

Reliance Life is part of Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group's financial services arm Reliance Capital Ltd.

Reliance Life's total premium (net of reinsurance) in the last quarter was Rs 810 crore, while total funds under management stood at Rs 18,586 crore as on June 30, 2012, its parent company said, while announcing its quarterly results.

Reliance Life recorded its first full-year net profit at Rs 373 crore for the fiscal ended March 31, 2012. It had sold over one million policies in 2011-12 and garnered a total premium of Rs 5,498 crore in that year.

The total number of insurance agents at Reliance Life stood at about 1.2 lakh, a decline of one-third from the year-ago levels, as part of the company's focus on improving productivity and performance of agents.

Reliance Life also helped Reliance Capital post a consolidated net profit of Rs 45 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2012, representing an increase of 30%.

Reliance Capital's consolidated total income rose 12% to Rs 1,676 crore in the quarter, which was also helped by increase in topline for commercial finance and general insurance businesses.

Nippon Life, Asia's largest private life insurer and seventh biggest globally with an asset size of USD 650 billion, has acquired a 26% stake in Reliance Life for Rs 3,000 crore.

Recently, Nippon Life Insurance Company's President Yoshinobu Tsutsui had said it will put to use all its resources to help its Indian partner become the country's top life insurance company.

While state-run LIC is the country's largest life insurer overall, Reliance Life Insurance has been the largest private life insurance company in terms of number of policies (over nine million) for two consecutive years as on March 31, 2012.

However, Reliance Life was the country's seventh largest private life insurer in terms of total new business premium and sixth in terms of individual new business premium for the last fiscal ended March 31, 2012.

Nippon Life has also acquired 26% stake in RCAM, Reliance Group's mutual fund business, for about Rs 1,500 crore.