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After almost half a decade, the life insurance industry has shown creditable growth both in new business premium collection and new policies sold in FY16, according to data compiled by the Life Insurance Council.
The industry saw premium collection rise 22.55 per cent to ₹1,38,657 crore at the end of March 2016 as against ₹1,13,143 crore in the previous year.
The number of policies rose 3.2 per cent to 2.67 crore in FY16 against 2.59 crore in the year-ago period.
Nilesh Sathe, Member-Life, at the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, said the life insurance industry has shown good growth in both the parameters — new business premium collection and number of policies.
G Murlidhar, Managing Director, Kotak Life Insurance, said: “In the last fiscal, the industry saw relative stability in products and distribution channels. We were able get our channel strategy right and also stabilise our product mix for each channel. As a result, we could focus on improving our productivity, efficiency, and getting our internal execution right.”
The country’s largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), too saw overall growth of 24.74 per cent in new business premium collection.
Arijit Basu, MD and CEO of SBI Life Insurance, said that the life insurance industry has shown growth primarily in the group insurance segment.
Basu said that for SBI Life, which saw an overall premium growth of around 28 per cent in FY16, most of the growth came from the bancassurance channel, while the agency channel also contributed to the growth.
LIC saw most of its growth coming from the group insurance business, which grew 46 per cent to ₹6,1254 crore in FY16 as against ₹41,927 crore in the previous year, while on the individual side the company saw a growth of 3.4 per cent.
Private insurers clocked an overall growth of 17.63 per cent in premium collection to ₹40,983 crore (₹34,840 crore).
HDFC Life too saw 18 per cent growth in overall new business premium collection. Sanjay Tripathy, Senior EVP, HDFC Life, said among new channels, the online channel contributed 50 per cent in individual business.
Manoj Jain, CEO of Shriram Life insurance, which has seen 38 per cent growth in new business, said his company had opened 300 branches in the last three years in areas other than the South and this has contributed to the growth.
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