Sidharatha Mishra, chief operating officer of ICICI Life Insurance,who has been named as new managing director and CEO of the company “Our commitment is to deliver sustainable VNB growth while balancing business, profitability and risk and prudence.”
New Delhi: ICICI Life Insurance on Tuesday reported a 25% rise in profit after tax to Rs 374.22 crore for the September quarter of FY27, driven by higher premium income.
The private insurance firm had posted a PAT of Rs 299.26 crore in the year-ago period.
The company’s net premium income rose 16.5% to Rs 13,804 crore in the July-September quarter against Rs 11,843 crore a year ago, ICICI Life Insurance said in a stock exchange filing.
The life insurer’s expenses of management(EoM) has risen from 17.5% in Q2FY26 to 18.6 % in Q2FY27.
Sidharatha Mishra, chief operating officer (COO), of ICICI Life Insurance, who has been named as new managing director and CEO of the company, said , “Protection and annuity remain at the heart of our long-term strategy, addressing deeply underpenetrated needs in India. Backed by a well-diversified distribution network,innovative and customer-centric product portfolio, customer-first sales and service, industry leading quality parameters, strong risk and capital metrics, we are a resilient organisation that can successfully capitalise on emerging opportunities.”
“Our commitment is to deliver sustainable VNB growth while balancing business, profitability and risk & prudence,” he added.
The insurer’s embeded value grew by 12.2% year-on-year from ₹ 505.01 billion at Sept 30, 2025 to ₹566.69 billion at Sept 30, 2026.
It’s value of new business (VNB) grew by 22.3% year-on-year from ₹ 10.49 billion in H1-FY2026 to ₹ 12.83 billion in H1-FY2027, with a margin of 26%.
The life insurer said that its tight cost control made it “well placed” to navigate proposed regulatory changes to insurance commissions, after it reported a rise in second-quarter profit earlier in the day.
Commissions are a major expense for life insurers and changes to the rules could affect their profitability and distributors’ incentives to sell different types of policies.
“I think you should just look at our cost-to-premium metrics and you will see that we’re very well-placed (to navigate commission changes),” ICICI Life CFO Dhiren Salian said in a post-earnings call.
However, the company said it was too early to assess the full impact of the proposed changes, with the regulator yet to finalise the rules.
In September, India’s insurance regulator proposed overhauling commission rules to cap payouts and link them to product complexity, in an effort to curb costs that have ballooned since commission limits were relaxed in 2023.
ICICI Life’s cost-to-premium ratio, which measures expenses including commissions as a share of premiums collected, excluding goods and services tax, fell 30 basis points year-on-year to 18.3% in the first half of the current financial year.
Its cost-to-premium ratio stood at 18.2% for fiscal year 2026, compared to 21.2% for larger peer.
Margin misses expectations
The insurer’s value of new business (VNB) margin fell to 25.4% from 26.7% in the preceding quarter, according to Reuters calculations.
The VNB margin fell short of analysts’ expectations of 25.5% to 26.5%, according to estimates from at least five brokerages.
VNB, which measures the expected profit from new policies sold, rose 24.7% sequentially to 7.12 billion rupees.
The shift towards higher-margin insurance products to offset pressure from the loss of tax benefits did not occur as expected. The share of higher-margin protection policies fell sequentially, while that of market-linked policies rose.
The assets under management of the company stood at ₹ 3.29 trillion at September 30, 2026. The company has a debt-equity mix of 59:41, and 95.2% of the fixed income investments are in sovereign or AAA rated instruments.
The company’s net worth was ₹ 146.33 billion at September 30, 2026. The solvency ratio was 229.9% against the regulatory requirement of 150%.
The 13th month and 49th month persistency ratio stood at 84.5% and 71.6% respectively at
September 30, 2026.
with inputs from Reuters