LIC's new biz rises 18 per cent

Mumbai: Life insurance companies clocked 17 per cent retail annualised premium equivalent (APE) during April-December to Rs 43,943 crore.

APE is a measure used for comparison of life insurance revenue by normalising policy premiums into the equivalent of regular annual payments.

What helped the companies are the December deadline for closing high return-oriented old products and the target set for ‘million dollar round table’ agents accordingly.

Life Insurance Corpor-ation of India’s (LIC) individual new business grew by 17.9 per cent year-on- year during the nine months of this fiscal to Rs 19,311.5 crore. Analysts expect better growth in the current quarter, which itself contributes 35 per cent to annual volumes.

Private life insurers clock-ed a growth of 16 per cent to Rs 24,631 crore during the same period.

APE of private players grew 18.5 per cent YoY, driven by strong numbers reported by Kotak Life, HDFC Life, Max Life and SBI Life. Retail APE of private players rose 17.2 per cent. The industry’s retail APE increased 15.6 per cent, driven by LIC’s strong performance (+12.8 per cent YoY.)

HDFC Life reported overall APE growth of 35.3 per cent YoY in December 2019 to Rs 770 crore on a lower base. The retail APE was at Rs 680 crore, up by 46.2 per cent YoY.

Top player ICICI Prudential Life reported APE growth of 11.4 per cent YoY to Rs 830 crore on a received premium basis. APE on an accrued basis for Q3 came in at Rs 2,040 crore, up 3.9 per cent YoY. Policies sold fell 7.5 per cent YoY while the retail APE ticket size increased by 16.3 per cent YoY.