Limited upside for life insurance-related stocks

Segment needs fresh triggers as valuations are already at reasonable multiples

The bullish view of the Street on the life insurance space may be petering out. For instance, stocks of Max Financial Services and HDFC, which saw an exponential rise in their prices when the HDFC Life-Max Life merger was announced, haven’t seen much incremental gains after the initial surge. Likewise, stocks such as Aditya Birla Nuvo and Exide Industries, after re-rating of 7–15 per cent following the merger of HDFC Life and Max Life, are just about sustaining gains. 

Also, ICICI Prudential Life is marginally above the upper end of its IPO price. In fact, State Bank of India,