Mumbai, June 7:
Despite witnessing a fall in profit, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance on Monday declared its highest-ever annual bonus of Rs 867 crore for the policyholders for FY21.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has announced an annual bonus of Rs 867 crore for all eligible participating policyholders for FY2021. The bonus declared is the highest ever by the company till date and is also 10 per cent higher than the bonus announced in the last fiscal" it said in a release.
The life insurer's net profit had declined by 64.2 per cent to Rs 64 crore in January-March 2021 from Rs 179 crore for the year-ago quarter while the same for the full year slipped to Rs 960 crore from Rs 1,069 crore in the previous fiscal.
However, a Rs 7,400 crore of investment income — gains from the market–as against a loss of Rs 18,000 crore in January-March 2020 due to the pandemic, has helped it cushion the hit.
Il participating policies in force as of March 31, 2021, are eligible to receive this bonus and will be added to the policyholders' benefits, said the insurer.
A total of 9.8 lakh participating policyholders will benefit from this, taking them closer to their long-term financial goals.
"We are delighted to announce that the annual bonus for FY2021 is the highest ever in the history of the company. What gives us special satisfaction is the fact that it coincides with the 20th anniversary of our operations.
It demonstrates our customer focus, resilience and ability to navigate through the unprecedented challenges posed by the pandemic," N S Kannan, MD and CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, said.
The life insurer had an accelerated provisioning of Rs 200 crore for the pandemic in the January-March quarter.With the additional Rs 200 crore provisioning for the pandemic in the March quarter, the total money set aside stands at Rs 300 crore.
The company has a solvency ratio to 217 per cent (well above the regulatory requirement of 150 per cent) with zero NPAs, well protecting its embedded value which rose 26 per cent to Rs 21,100 crore.
Bonus is the share of profits generated by the company's participating policyholder's funds, which are added to their guaranteed maturity benefits, thus enhancing the corpus.ICICI Prudential Life said this is the company's 15th consecutive year of declaring a bonus.
The stringent investment philosophy of the company has ensured zero defaults in its portfolio since inception and across market cycles. As of March 31, 2021, 96.8 per cent of the fixed income portfolio is invested in sovereign or AAA-rated paper.