Mumbai:
The new business premium of life insurance companies grew 3.72 per cent at Rs 21,389.70 crore in January 2021, data from Irdai showed on Monday.
All the 24 life insurance companies had collected s total first-year or new business premium of Rs 20,623.01 crore in year-ago same period, January 2020.
Of these, the country' largest life insurer Life Insurance Corporation(LIC) registered a fall of 2.43 per cent in new business premium during the month to Rs 13,143.64 crore as against Rs 13,470.91 crore in the year-ago month, according to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) data.
The remaining 23 private sector players in the life insurance sector collected Rs 8,246.06 crore as first-year premium, up by 15.30 per cent from a year ago.
Overall growth in individual Annual premium equivalent (APE) was moderate at 7 per cent year on year yoy for private players in January 2021, higher than 3 per cent yoy growth in December 2020 and 7 per cent yoy decline in November 2020, says an analysis by Kotak Institutional Equities.
APE is a measure used for comparison of life insurance revenue by normalising policy premiums into the equivalent of regular annual payments. This is particularly used when the sales contain both single premium and regular premium business.
According to the report, moderation in retail protection has likely been arrested and traction in traditional business and pickup in ULIPs likely supported volumes.
Group APE remained strong (up 20 per cent yoy) likely led by the credit protect business.
Among major players,individual APE growth was strong for HDFC Life (up 24 per cent yoy), Max Life (up 15 per ent yoy) and
Bajaj Life (up 32 per cent yoy); SBI Life was muted while ICICI Prudential Life declined 7 per cent yoy.
Among those in the private sector, SBI Life witnessed a 14.54 per cent rise in new business premium at Rs 1,875.16 crore in January, while that of HDFC Life grew 16.55 per cent to Rs 1,723.50 crore. ICICI Prudential Life's premium rose 18.20 per cent to Rs 1,239.12 crore.
Max Life's first-year premium was up by 15.05 per cent to Rs 638.28 crore, Kotak Mahindra Life Rs 497.90 crore, up by 28.35 per cent; Canara HSBC OBC Life witnessed 47.49 per cent jump at Rs 163.51 crore; Tata AIA Life rose 8.43 per cent to Rs 354.41 crore and Bajaj Allianz Life registered a 7.60 growth to Rs 508.44 crore.
However, India First Life had a decline of 16.80 per cent in new premium income to Rs 142.58 crore; Future Generali Life's premium plunged 60.27 per cent to Rs 40.10 crore, showed the Irdai data.
On a cumulative basis, the collective new business premium of all the 24 life insurance companies was down 1.17 per cent to Rs 2,12,436.09 crore during the April-January period of 2020-21.
LIC's cumulative new business premium during these 10 months was down 4.89 per cent to Rs 1,43,148.07 crore.
While the cumulative first-year premium of the rest of 23 players witnessed a growth of 7.51 per cent at Rs 69,288.02 crore during April-January FY21.
State-owned LIC had the largest market share of 67.38 per cent as of January 31, 2021.
The rest of 23 players had the remaining 32.62 per cent share.