Life insurers' new business premium rises 22% to ₹38,958 cr in July

Driven by LIC's group single premiums and private sector's individual policies, life insurers posted 22.4% YoY NBP growth in July despite a dip in total policy count

New business premium (NBP) of life insurance companies rose 22.4 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) in July to ₹38,958.1 crore, aided by robust growth of state-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC).

 

While LIC recorded 22.72 per cent Y-o-Y growth in NBP to ₹22,617.64 crore in the month supported by healthy growth in group single premiums, private life insurers posted 22.02 per cent Y-o-Y growth in NBP to ₹16,340.41 crore, aided by growth in the individual segment.

 

SBI Life Insurance, the largest private sector life insurer, posted 27 per cent Y-o-Y growth in NBP to ₹ 3,802.6 crore in July. HDFC Life Insurance recorded 13.16 per cent Y-o-Y growth in NBP to ₹3,054.15 crore during the same time, and ICICI Prudential Life Insurance clocked 8.31 per cent Y-o-Y growth to ₹1,906.3 crore.

 

Other major players including Axis Max Life Insurance posted 13.3 per cent Y-o-Y growth in NBP, while Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance saw 3.70 per cent Y-o-Y drop in premiums. 

 

Interestingly, the life insurance companies posted nearly a 4.6 per cent drop in sale of policies to 22.8 million in July, with LIC reporting a 10.2 per cent decline in policy sales to 14.62 million while private sector insurers reported a 7.23 per cent increase in policies sold to 8.16 million.

 

In the April-July period of FY25, premium of life insurers grew by 9 per cent Y-o-Y to ₹1.35 trillion, with LIC reporting 8.11 per cent Y-o-Y growth to ₹82,028.32 crore and private insurers reported a 10.5 per cent YoY increase in premium to ₹50,474.3 crore.

 

So far in FY25, market share of LIC stood at 61.9 per cent as compared to 62.4 per cent in corresponding period last year. The share of private insurance companies accounted for 38 per cent of the NBP as compared to 37.6 per cent last year.