Premiums rising, not policies

The insurance industry's actual growth is not only measured by new business premiums in life insurance, but also by the number of new policy sales that have happened in a particular period. While overall the industry has seen a healthy growth in new premiums, new policy numbers have remained flat.

Among private life insurers, at least 10 companies had reported a decline in the number of policies. Some saw a decline of as high as 30 per cent while their new premium collections were on the rise. Industry experts said that while the size of the covers have seen a rise leading to new premium collection growth, the number of new policies being sold haven't gone up dramatically.

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During the last financial year too, insurers had ended the year with a steep 37 per cent drop in the number of new policies. Here, both public sector and private sector insurers saw a decline in the number of policies. This was primarily due to the fact that a new traditional product regime had led to product refiling by insurers, leading to a dearth of products available for customers.