Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a private life insurer, on Monday said that its new business premium grew 25 per cent in the financial year 2018-19 at Rs 911 crore as against Rs 731 crore in the previous fiscal.

The annualised new business premium increased 31 per cent to Rs 640 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2019, from Rs 489 crore in 2017-18.

The company registered 22 per cent growth in its renewal premium to Rs 1,164 crore in 2018-19 fiscal, as compared to Rs 954 crore in 2017-18.

The total premium rose 23 per cent to Rs 2,076 crore in the financial year 2018-19 from Rs 1,684 crore in the corresponding fiscal a year ago.

‘’We have performed well on all key business parameters in the financial year 2018-19. The overall growth was driven by both higher new business as well as healthy renewal collections in the last fiscal. We have grown faster than the life insurance industry with the strong business performance in last financial year and are confident of registering robust growth in this fiscal,’’ Vikas Seth, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Bharti AXA Life Insurance, said.

Asset under management witnessed an increase of 27 per cent from Rs 4,496 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 5,699 crore as on March 31, 2019.

Expansion spree

The company set up 50 new branches to take an enhanced distribution network of 236 branches across the country during 2018-19, up 27 per cent over 186 branches in 2017-18.

Bharti AXA Life Insurance, a joint venture between Bharti Enterprises and French insurance major AXA, increased its net advisor force by 10,750 to 39,400 agents in the financial year ended March 31, 2019.

Seth said the company has big expansion plans in the current financial year in terms of recruitment of fresh advisors and setting up of more branches for new customer and business acquisition. It will further be strengthening its agency model for selling various insurance products and servicing customers efficiently.

‘’Apart from focusing on quality business and sustainable growth with an emphasis on protection and saving segments, we will continue to strengthen digital and data analytics deployments for providing the best value proposition to our customers and efficiency in our operations,’’ he added.