With 10 per cent rise in premium in March, life insurance companies have ended the fiscal 2016-17 with 26 per cent growth in total premium at Rs. 175,022 crore compared with Rs.138,657 crore. LIC led the pack with 39 per cent against an industry average of 33 per cent in the total individual new business premium growth.
Of the total premium in FY17, single group premium accounted for about 51 per cent, while the rest was accounted by individual non-single premium, individual single premium and group non-single premium.
In 2016-17, LIC reported a whopping 27 per cent growth in new premium at Rs.124,396 crore (Rs. 97,674 crore), according Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority data.
All private insurers put together reported about 24 per cent rise in their new premium at Rs. 50,626 crore as against Rs.40,983 crore in the previous fiscal. Among the private life insurance companies, SBI Life topped the table with a total premium of Rs.10,146 crore, up 43 per cent when compared with Rs. 7107 crore in 2015-16. HDFC Standard Life occupied the second position with a total new business premium of Rs. 8696 crore, up 34 per cent over Rs. 6488 crore. ICICI Prudential Life registered an increase of 16 per cent in the new premium at Rs. 7863 crore as against Rs. 6766 crore.
Despite fierce competition, LIC managed to increase marginally its share to 71 per cent .
During 2016-17, all life insurance firms launched close to 150 products that included both new and modified ones.
During the previous fiscal, a total of 264 lakh new policies were issued and of which LIC accounted for 76 per cent, while rest of the policies were issued by the private insurers.
