Life insurance grows by 26.5% in September

The Indian life insurance sector grew by 26.5% in first-year premiums during September 2020. The first-year premium collections during September 2020 stood at $3.43bn as compared to $2.71bn in September 2019.

This was mainly driven by the growth in group insurance premium, according to a report by CARE Ratings. The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), the sole life insurer in the public sector in India, continued to dominate the group insurance premium segment. Private life insurance grew at a rate of 20%.

The life insurance sector had seen its first-year premium decline by 32.6% and 25.4% in April 2020 and May 2020, respectively as businesses had been severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown. The first-year premium income of the life insurers during the first quarter (April-June 2020) of the current financial year 2020-21 had registered a decrease of 18.6% to $6.67bn from $8.19bn during the first quarter of the previous financial year 2019-20.

During the second quarter (July-September 2020) of the current financial year the life insurance industry has reported an increase of 15.8% to $10.19bn from $8.8bn in the second quarter of the financial year 2019-20. However, the growth of new premiums for the first six months of the current financial year continues to remain marginally negative (0.82%).

LIC continues to maintain its dominant share in the first-year premium for the first half year of the financial year 2020-21. LIC has a share of 70.6% as compared to 29.4% share of private companies. While the category of individual non-single premium continues to see a negative growth in this financial year, the individual single premium category is witnessing huge interest from investors.

CARE Ratings report said that even as the industry reported a marginally negative growth for the first half of this financial year, nine insurance companies actually reported a growth in their first-year premium collection.

The report concludes that the industry is expected to grow in single digit for the current financial  year as compared to a double-digit growth witnessed during last fiscal. Overall, the outlook for the life insurance sector is expected to be stable in the medium term.

Source: Asia Insurance Review

http://www.insurancealertss.com//Insurance/NominationForm/19475