Mumbai:
Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) India's largest life insurer has invested Rs 44,000 crore in the equity market in April- November, 50 per cent jump over Rs 29,000 crore invested in the year ago period and it is likely that it may touch Rs 50,000 crore by end of the financial year.The life inbsurance behemoth,which is largely seen as a market stabilising entity,had invested Rs 47,000 in equities in 2016-17.
The profit on sale of equity stood at Rs 12,374 crore for first six months of FY18 as compared to Rs 10,643 crore in same period of FY17, showing a 16.3 percent growth.
The corporation will not be aggressive in the equity investments in the rest of the year as it is a contrarian player in the market. It will continue to to book profit as stocks go up and buy whenever it sees an opportunity.The corporation has an appetite to invest another Rs 10,000 crore to Rs 20,000 crore in government bonds this financial year and is talking to the government and Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for more long-dated securities, said . LIC Chairman VK Sharma on Tuesday
The life insurer has set a target of Rs 38,000 crore as first premium income for FY18 and has already collected Rs 27,694.45 crore till Sep 2017.“With regard to market share in premium income ,we have have already excelled our annual target of 70 per cent and current has 72 per cent,'' said Sharma.
“There was a large government disinvestment programme and we have contributed substantially in it. We have invested almost Rs 8,000 crore each in the IPOs of GIC Re and New India Assurance(NIA) and now hold almost hold 8 per cent of stakes in each of these insurers.We didn’t invest in these companies to sell them in three months. These are some of the best public sector companies, even much better than the public sector banks, in the country,'' said Sharma.
`LIC would like to announce higher bonus this year and its income from equity sales will facilitate that. As things stand today , we should be able to surpass our new business income target because there is positive environment for life insurance and the insurance regulator IRDAI is giving product approvals much faster, said Sharma.
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On the government securities side, LIC has an outstanding investment of Rs 16.15 lakh crore for H1 FY18 as compared to Rs 13.69 crore of same period last year.In terms of equity, the insurance company In FY17, LIC had invested Rs 47,000 crore in the equity market. Their outstanding equity investments stood at Rs 5.71 lakh crore for H1 FY18 compared to Rs 4.96 lakh crore in the same period last year.
The corporation as at September end 2017 collected over Rs 1,48,037 cr of total premium Income as compared to Rs 1,32,257 cr collected during the corresponding period last year showing a very robust growth of 11.95 per cent.The corporations gross total income grew from Rs 2,22,350 cr as at last corresponding period to Rs 2,50,267 cr showing a handsome growth of over12.56 per cent.
Total Assets of the Corporation including earnings from investment stood at Rs 27,25,808 cr as compared to Rs 23,90,056 cr for the corresponding period last year thus posting a growth of over 14.04 per cent.Total policy payouts amounted to Rs 76,126 cr for the period ending Sep 2017 as compared to Rs 73,546 cr for the corresponding period last year, showing an increase of 3.51 per cent. This includes a payout of Rs 35,482.07 cr for claims outgo covering 79,74,383 claimants for the half year ending in Sep 2017 as compared to Rs 35643.75 cr and 73,22,250 claimants in the corresponding period previous year.
New Business performance by the Corporation for six months ending September 2017, driven by Jeevan Akshay which has been repriced since December with lower returns, has shown an impressive growth of 23.68 % in its first year premium by posting a figure of Rs 68,224.29 cr.
LIC's Pension & group superannuation business mobilised Rs 47,078 as new business premium income as against Rs 37,136 crorte in the previous corresponding period, showing a growth of 27 per cent.