Siddhartha Mohanty, CEO & M D, Life Insurance Corporation

On the proposed health insurance joint venture, Siddhartha Mohanty, CEO & M D, LIC, said, “ We are yet to finalise our plans to foray in to health insurance. The proposal has to be taken to the board, which may take another 2/3 months. We are in advance stage in pursuing the proposal for taking some stakes in a health insurance venture.”

Mumbai: Life Insurance Corporation(LIC) , the country’s biggest insurer, reported a 38% rise in fourth-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by lower employee-related expenses.

LIC’s profit after tax rose to Rs19,013 crore ($2.23 billion) for the quarter ended March 31 from Rs 13,763 crore a year earlier.

The corporation’s board has recommended a final dividend of Rs 12 per share for the financial year 2024-25 subject to approval of shareholders.

The total premium income for year ended March 31st 2025 was Rs 4,88,148 crore as compared to Rs 4,75,070 crore for the year ended March 31st 2024.

Its employee remuneration and welfare costs fell to Rs 5,928 crore from Rs 13,750 crore year earlier.

However, net premium income dropped 3% to Rs1.48 trillion during the reporting quarter.

The corporation has declared bonus of Rs 56,190.24 crore to policyholders.

On the proposed health insurance joint venture, Siddhartha Mohanty, CEO & M D, LIC, said, “ We are yet to finalise our plans to foray in to health insurance. The proposal has to be taken to the board, which may take another 2/3 months. We are in advance stage in pursuing the proposal for taking some stakes in a health insurance venture.”

On LIC’s performance in FY 2024-25 , Mohanty said, “ After registering a very strong performance in the first six months, we had to redesign and relaunch products to comply with regulatory changes. However, we are very happy to state that this year, we have achieved many milestones.

First, we have achieved Individual New Business Premium of Rs 62,495 crore, in a single year. Second, our net value of new business(VNB) for the year is Rs 10,011 crore, i.e. over Rs 10,000 crore for the first time.

Third, our VNB margin has risen by 80 basis points, reaching 17.6% as at 31st March 2025.

Fourth, our strategy to increase Non Par share is further getting consolidated.”

In FY 2024-25, Non Par APE share within the individual business has risen to 27.69%. .

LIC’s policy sales in the quarter were under pressure due to new regulations implemented earlier in the fiscal year, which reduced the charges policyholders paid if they closed their policies before maturity.

The insurer had boosted sales before the norm changed from October.

In terms of market share measured by First Year Premium Income (FYPI), LIC continues to be the market leader by market share in Indian life insurance business with overall market share of 57.05%.

For the year ended March 31st 2025, LIC had a market share of 37.46% in Individual business and 71.19% in the Group business.

Indian Embedded Value (IEV) increased by 6.81% YoY to Rs 7,76,876 crore, while the company’s Assets Under Management (AUM) expanded by 6.45 per cent YoY to Rs 54,52,297 crore. 

Its solvency ratio, the measure of an insurer’s ability to meet its long-term financial obligations, rose to 2.11 during the quarter from 1.98 a year earlier and 2.02 in the prior quarter.

LIC’s total Individual Business Premium for the year ended March 31st 2025 increased to Rs. 3,19,036 crore from Rs. 3,03,768 crore for the comparable period of previous year. The Group Business total premium income for year ended March 31st 2025 was Rs. 1,69,112 crore as compared to Rs 1,71,302 crore for the year ended March 31st 2024.

A total of 1,77,82,975 policies were sold in the individual segment during the year ended March 31st, 2025 as compared to 2,03,92,973 policies sold during the year ended March 31st, 2024.

On an Annualized Premium Equivalent (APE) basis, the total premium was Rs 56,828 crore for the year ended March 31st 2025. Of this 67.25% (Rs. 38,218 crore) was accounted for by the Individual Business and 32.75% (Rs. 18,610 crore) by the Group Business.

Within the Individual Business, the share of Par products on APE basis was 72.31% (Rs. 27,636 crore) and balance 27.69% (Rs. 10,581 crore) was due to Non Par products. The Non Par APE has increased from Rs. 7,041 crore for the year ended March 31st, 2024 to Rs. 10,581 crore for the year ended March 31st 2025 registering a growth of 50.28%.

Shares of the insurer ended 0.14% higher ahead of results.