Private Life Insurers Outpace LIC In August

Private insurers outpaced Life Insurance Corp.'s year-on-year revenue growth in August.

India's life insurers registered higher revenues aided by a surge in group category premiums. The industry’s new business premium stood at Rs 32,856 crore in August 2022, according to provisional data released by the Life Insurance Council.

It is 21% higher than the revenue in August 2021, and a 73% jump over the same month in pre-pandemic 2019. The growth happened despite a 5% year-on-year fall in number of policies sold over a year ago.

Revenue growth was led by the group category of policies—single, non-single and yearly renewable premiums. The group single category, which constitutes 62% of the revenue for August, was up 24% year-on-year.

Sequentially, revenue fell 18% over July with a 6% fall in the number of policies.

Key Highlights

• LIC's revenue rose 18% over August 2021 to Rs 21,882 crore. The behemoth reported strong growth in the group single and non-single category premium. Month-on-month, the premium fell 27%.

• New business premium of private insurers rose 25% year-on-year to Rs 10,974 crore in August. Sequentially, too, the premium rose 10%.

How India’s listed private insurers fared in August 2022:

• Revenue rose 25% year-on-year aided by growth across its group policies and despite reporting a decline in the retail single premium category.

• Revenue was up 11% from the previous month at Rs 2,091 crore in August.

• New business premium rose 14% year-on-year to Rs 2,701 crore in August.

• The premium was up 18% compared to July.

• The company reported the highest revenue among private peers.

• New business premium stood at Rs 1,421 crore in August—an 18% growth year-on-year.

• Sequentially, it was up 6%.