Do you know total equity assets under management of life insurance companies in India (excluding LIC) is a staggering ₹3.5 lakh crore? However, there is little information readily available that summarises and analyses insights from these portfolios. Five life insurers viz. ICICI Pru Life, SBI Life, HDFC Life, Tata AIA Life and Kotak Life account for 75 per cent of life insurance AUM and hence tracking top holdings, key additions/deletions and sectoral allocation of these houses vis a vis Nifty 100 can provide investors with important takeaways. Nuvama Group recently undertook the task of sizing up equity portfolio of life insurance companies in India. Here are five charts that give you the detailed story.
Read also: Insurers can now invest up to 15% in equity of a company
Top holdings
The five life insurance giants in India – ICICI Pru Life, SBI Life, HDFC Life, TATA AIA and Kotak Life – are the few houses that disclose their entire holdings. The rest of the insurance houses simply report their top-10 holdings. HDFC Bank, RIL, Infosys, ICICI Bank and HDFC are the biggest holdings for the prominent five life insurer portfolios (March 2023). Here is a comprehensive list of the 20 stocks (arranged in descending order as per holding value).
How they fare against Nifty 100
The Nifty 100 serves as a key benchmark for many actively-managed equity portfolios. Here is a look at how the individual life insurer equity holdings fare against Nifty 100 sectoral allocation weights. This comparison sheds light on the under-weight, over-weight or neutral positions in terms of sectoral exposure. For instance, HDFC and Tata AIA Life appear underweight on banking vis a vis the Nifty 100.
Most favoured stocks across m-cap spectrum
The next chart shows the top-5 stocks in large-caps, mid-caps and small-caps segments that are most favoured across the prominent five life insurers.
Big buys
Infosys, IndusInd Bank, Sona BLW and Astral Pipes are among the stocks that were top additions across prominent 4 insurers in March 2023. Here are more details below.
Big sells
The below chart reflects the top reductions in individual stocks across prominent four insurers. Maruti, ABB, Bajaj Finserv and K.P.R Mill figure in the top for March 2023 portfolios. Take a look at all the top sells below.