LIC refutes wealth erosion rumours, says it is in "sound financial health"

The country's largest insurer, the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on October 9 released a statement dispelling rumours about its financial position, reiterating that it is in "sound financial health".

The life insurer was responding to rumours circulating on WhatsApp and other social media platforms about the alleged erosion of its wealth.

"The messages wrongly speculate about LIC's financial health and attempt to portray the largest life insurer in poor light in the eyes of its stakeholders. These news are factually incorrect, uncorroborated and intend to tarnish the image of LIC brand and also create panic in the minds of its policyholders," the statement read.

It further asked policyholders not to take cognizance of such 'misleading' news.

Over the past few weeks, rumours were circulating on social media about the future of LIC and how it had lost large amounts of money in its investment portfolio of debt and equity instruments.

"LIC... would like to assure its policyholders about its sound financial health...," the statement added.

The life insurer said that it has, in fact, declared the highest ever bonus amounting to more than Rs 50,000 crore to its policyholders for FY18-19. Its market share as of August 31, based on the number of policies is 72.84 percent and for the first-year premium is 73.06 percent.

Moneycontrol had earlier reported that LIC's market share increased by 3.34 percent market (by premium) year-on-year to 73.06 percent in the April-August period.

Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDAI) data showed that LIC collected Rs 77,220.97 crore in the April-August period - a 46.52 percent YoY growth.

During the same period last year, LIC had seen a 0.41 percent drop in its new premium collection, at Rs 52,701.86 crore.

LIC has done well to see off competition from private life insurers, whose market share in the five months came down to 26.94 percent, from 30.28 percent a year earlier.