New Delhi, Feb 8 (FN Agency) The new business premium of life insurance companies grew 3.72 per cent at Rs 21,389.70 crore in January 2021, data from Irdai showed on Monday. All the 24 life insurance companies had collected s total first-year or new business premium of Rs 20,623.01 crore in year-ago same period, January 2020. Of these, the country’ largest life insurer LIC registered a fall of 2.43 per cent in new business premium during the month to Rs 13,143.64 crore as against Rs 13,470.91 crore in the year-ago month, according to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) data. The remaining 23 private sector players in the life insurance sector collected Rs 8,246.06 crore as first-year premium, up by 15.30 per cent from a year ago.
Among those in the private sector, SBI Life witnessed a 14.54 per cent rise in new business premium at Rs 1,875.16 crore in January, while that of HDFC Life grew 16.55 per cent to Rs 1,723.50 crore. ICICI Prudential Life’s premium rose 18.20 per cent to Rs 1,239.12 crore. Max Life’s first-year premium was up by 15.05 per cent to Rs 638.28 crore, Kotak Mahindra Life Rs 497.90 crore, up by 28.35 per cent; Canara HSBC OBC Life witnessed 47.49 per cent jump at Rs 163.51 crore; Tata AIA Life rose 8.43 per cent to Rs 354.41 crore and Bajaj Allianz Life registered a 7.60 growth to Rs 508.44 crore. However, India First Life had a decline of 16.80 per cent in new premium income to Rs 142.58 crore; Future Generali Life’s premium plunged 60.27 per cent to Rs 40.10 crore, showed the Irdai data.
On a cumulative basis, the collective new business premium of all the 24 life insurance companies was down 1.17 per cent to Rs 2,12,436.09 crore during the April-January period of 2020-21. LIC’s cumulative new business premium during these 10 months was down 4.89 per cent to Rs 1,43,148.07 crore. While the cumulative first-year premium of the rest of 23 players witnessed a growth of 7.51 per cent at Rs 69,288.02 crore during April-January FY21. State-owned LIC had the largest market share of 67.38 per cent as of January 31, 2021. The rest of 23 players had the remaining 32.62 per cent share.