Life insurers' new biz premium up 25 pc in Sep at Rs 20,893 cr

India's life insurers clocked new business premium of Rs 20,892.7 crore in September this fiscal, witnessing a rise of 24.6 percent from a year ago, data from IRDAI showed today.

All the 24 life insurance companies in the country had collected new premium of Rs 16,767.41 in September 2016, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) data showed.

Of these, LIC -- the largest and the sole state-owned life insurance company -- registered an increase of 37.6 percent.

It had collected a premium of Rs 11,117.48 crore in the same month a year ago.

For the private sector life insurance players, however, the total premium during the month witnessed a decline of 1 percent against Rs 5,649.92 crore in the year-ago period.

Among the 23 private sector companies, SBI Life reported a decline in its new premium at Rs 817.81 crore in September 2017, from Rs 1,279.05 crore a year ago.

ICICI Prudential Life's premium grew 14.9 percent to Rs 745.73 crore; HDFC Life Rs 1,119.04 crore, up 24.7 per cent; Max Life Rs 396.63 crore, up 24 per cent; DHFL Pramerica Life Rs 118.38 crore, up 64.8 per cent while Bajaj Allianz's new premium jumped 90 per cent to Rs 841.19 crore.

Birla Sun Life reported a decline in new premium at Rs 359.45 crore, down 21 percent and Sahara Life's new business fell by 95 percent at Rs 17 lakh against Rs 3.14 crore in September 2016.

Cumulatively during April-September period of this fiscal, the total premium collected by all the insurers rose by 20.7 percent to Rs 92,065.36 crore from Rs 76,236.16 crore in the year-ago period.

LIC's July-September premium was up by 23.7 percent to Rs 68,224.29 crore from Rs 55,163.17 crore.

Private sector companies reported a rise of 13.1 percent in their cumulative premium collection at Rs 23,841.06 crore from Rs 21,072.99 crore in the same period year ago.