Life Insurers' new premium collection doubles at Rs 16,000 crore in November

Life insurers' new premium collection more than doubled at Rs 16,061.40 crore in November, marking the fastest pace of growth in a month this fiscal so far.

All the 24 life insurers in India, including the lone state-owned LIC, had earned new business premium of Rs 7,553.05 crore in the same month a year ago.

As far as the previous highest growth rate in past eight months is concerned, total new premium collection in September witnessed a jump of 61% to Rs 16,767.41 crore, from Rs 10,415.35 crore in the year ago month.

Life insurance behemoth LIC, accounting for 78% of the total new premium in November, registered a jump of 141% in fresh business at Rs 12,528.07 crore against Rs 5,182.50 crore a year ago, showed Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irdai) data.

Rest of the business of Rs 3,533.33 crore was generated by the 23 private sector life insurance firms, witnessing a rise of 49.05% from Rs 2,370.54 crore a year earlier.

Among the major private sector life insurance companies, SBI Life's new premium collection rose to Rs 730.66 crore in November, up 60.5% from Rs 455.35 crore; ICICI Prudential Life Rs 740.88 crore (up 91.4%); HDFC Standard Life Rs 521.23 crore (up 34%) and Max Life Rs 287.25 crore (up 61.9%).

Bajaj Allianz Life witnessed a rise of 30% in new premium collection at Rs 220.67 crore; Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual Life Rs 182.35 crore (from Rs 127.10 crore) and Birla Sun Life Rs 130.90 crore (against Rs 94.21 crore).

Two players among the private insurers -- Shriram Life and Aegon Life -- witnessed their new business premiumm declining at Rs 48.48 crore (down 6.3%) and Rs 4.80 crore (down 46%) in November 2016.

All the life insurers' new premium during April-November period of the fiscal grew to Rs 1,06,404.60 crore, up 42.7% from Rs 74,550.84 crore in same period of last fiscal. For LIC, the cumulative new premium till November stood at Rs 75,263.09 crore, up 44% from Rs 52,291.75 crore.

The private companies' April-November new collection rose by 26.4% to Rs 28,141.51 crore against Rs 22,259.09 crore in the same period of previous fiscal, showed the data.