“ Our digital  footprint allows us to service our customers remotely. More  than 75 per cent of our branches  are  operational  across  the  country.  As the economy is coming to terms with the effects of the pandemic, we are increasingly witnessing encouraging on‐ground trends. Business has started to pick up on a month‐on‐month  basis  and  we  are  seeing  higher  traction,  especially  in  the  individual  protection business. As  the situation begins  to normalise, we expect life insurance  to emerge as an important avenue for both protection as well as long term savings, and consequently help attract a higher quantum of inflows  from Indian households.Given our wide bouquet of product  offerings  across  segments  and  continued  focus  on  a  balanced  product  mix,  we believe that we are well positioned to serve the anticipated demand uptick,” elaborated Padilkar.

 N S Kannan,MD & CEO, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance said, “The Covid-19 pandemic has had an impact on the way consumers perceive life insurance and protection products have therefore seen an increased demand. Even with the movement restrictions in the last quarter,the share of protection in our portfolio increased to 26 per cent of annualised premium equivalent (APE). This resulted in an expansion in the VNB margin from 21 per cent for Q1-FY2020 to 24.4 per cent  for Q1-FY2021. Customers trust us to help them achieve their longterm financial goals and despite volatile markets our assets under management grew by 3.6 per cent  to Rs 1.7 trillion for the quarter ended June 2020.”