The life insurance industry witnessed a drop of six per cent in premium collection during the 2012—13 fiscal, with large private sector insurers like SBI Life and Reliance Life recording a steep fall in premium income.

Total premium collected during the April—March period of 2012—13 fiscal by the industry, comprising 24 players, stood at Rs 1,07,011 crore, down 6 per cent over the same period previous year, data released by IRDA showed.

Among the private sector insurance companies with premium income of over Rs 1,000 crore, SBI Life’s premium income fell by 20 per cent to Rs 5,184 crore during April- March, 2012-13.

Reliance Life Insurance saw its premium income dip to Rs 1,376.58 crore during the fiscal, down by 23.92 per cent.

India’s largest life insurer LIC reported a 6.4 per cent drop in its premium collection at Rs 76,246 crore (Rs 81,515 crore).

Among other major private players - ICICI Prudential and Birla Sunlife saw premium income dropping by 5.2 per cent and 4.6 per cent, respectively.

However, HDFC Standard Life and Bajaj Allianz bucked the industry trend registering a growth of 15.7 per cent and 10.2 per cent respectively.

ICICI Prudential collected a premium of Rs 4,809 crore, followed by HDFC Standard at Rs 4,435 crore and Bajaj Allianz at Rs 2,992 crore, during 2012—13 fiscal.

Another private sector player, Max Life, saw a meagre 0.4 per cent drop in premium income at Rs 1,899 crore.

Private insurers together netted Rs 30,765 crore in 2012—13 as against Rs 32,718 crore in the corresponding period of 2011—12, showing a decline of 6.3 per cent.

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