LIC new premium more than doubles in June; pushes industry collection to Rs 32,241 cr

New Delhi: Led by Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), life insurers' collective new premium income jumped 94 per cent to Rs 32,241.33 crore in June this year, according to data from Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority.

All the 24 life insurers had written new gross premium of Rs 16,611.57 in the same month a year ago.

The country's largest life insurer LIC, which is the only state-owned life insurance firm, witnessed more than two-fold rise in its new premium collection to Rs 26,030.16 crore in June, from Rs 11,167.82 crore in the same period last year.

With this high growth in business, the market share of the insurance behemoth increased to 74 per cent. Remaining 26 per cent has been shared by rest of the 23 private sector players operating in the space.

During the month, LIC sold 13.32 lakh policies to collect over Rs 25,000 crore in just one month.

Private sector players witnessed an increase of 14.10 per cent in their collective new year business premium at Rs 6,211.17 crore in June, as compared to Rs 5,443.75 crore collected in the year-ago month.

Among the private players, HDFC Life's new premium rose by 21 per cent year-on-year at Rs 1,358.45 crore; SBI Life up 28.14 per cent at 1,310.07 crore; ICICI Prudential Life up 26 per cent at Rs 897.98 crore; Bajaj Allianz up 51 per cent at Rs 468.51 crore; Max Life up 16 per cent at Rs 421.87 crore; Kotak Mahindra Life up 8 per cent at Rs 291.89 crore and Tata AIA Life posted 90.26 per cent rise to Rs 258.95 crore in June.

India First Life business premium fell 54 per cent to Rs 119.31 crore; DHFL Pramerica Life by 65 per cent to Rs 48.87 crore; Aditya Birla Sun Life by 40 per cent to Rs 212.46 crore; and Reliance Nippon Life by 6.84 per cent to Rs 66.81 crore.

Cumulatively, the new premium generated by all the 24 life insurers during April-June period of this fiscal rose by 65 per cent to Rs 60,637.22 crore.

The April-June, 2019-20 new premium income of LIC increased by 82 per cent to Rs 44,794.78 crore.

The remaining private sector players' collective cumulative fresh premium rose by 32 per cent to Rs 15,842.44 crore in the first quarter of the current fiscal.