LIC new premium more than doubles in June; pushes industry collection to Rs 32,241 crore

Led by LIC, life insurers' collective new premium income jumped 94 percent to Rs 32,241.33 crore in June this year, according to data from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

All the 24 life insurers had written new gross premium of Rs 16,611.57 in the same month a year ago.

The country's largest life insurer LIC, which is the only state-owned life insurance firm, witnessed more than two-fold rise in its new premium collection to Rs 26,030.16 crore in June, from Rs 11,167.82 crore in the same period last year.

With this high growth in business, the market share of the insurance behemoth increased to 74 percent. Remaining 26 percent has been shared by rest of the 23 private sector players operating in the space. 

During the month, LIC sold 13.32 lakh policies to collect over Rs 25,000 crore in just one month.

Private sector players witnessed an increase of 14.10 percent in their collective new year business premium at Rs 6,211.17 crore in June, as compared to Rs 5,443.75 crore collected in the year-ago month.

Among the private players, HDFC Life's new premium rose by 21 percent year-on-year at Rs 1,358.45 crore; SBI Life up 28.14 percent at 1,310.07 crore; ICICI Prudential Life up 26 percent at Rs 897.98 crore; Bajaj Allianz up 51 percent at Rs 468.51 crore; Max Life up 16 percent at Rs 421.87 crore; Kotak Mahindra Life up 8 percent at Rs 291.89 crore and Tata AIA Life posted 90.26 percent rise to Rs 258.95 crore in June.

India First Life business premium fell 54 percent to Rs 119.31 crore; DHFL Pramerica Life by 65 percent to Rs 48.87 crore; Aditya Birla Sun Life by 40 percent to Rs 212.46 crore; and Reliance Nippon Life by 6.84 percent to Rs 66.81 crore.

Cumulatively, the new premium generated by all the 24 life insurers during April-June period of this fiscal rose by 65 percent to Rs 60,637.22 crore.

The April-June, 2019-20 new premium income of LIC increased by 82 percent to Rs 44,794.78 crore.