Chennai: State-owned India-owned Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) was far ahead of the 23-member private life insurer’s club in terms of the number of individual lives covered last month.
On the other hand, the private insurers insured about 1.81 crore individuals under their group insurance schemes.
According to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI), last month LIC sold 15,37840 individual policies (84,989 individual single premiums and 14 52,851 individual non-single premium policies).
All 23 private life insurers covered 5 35 491 individuals (21 396 individual single premium policies, 514 095 individual non-single premium policies) under their individual policies.
In the case of group insurance policies, LIC covered a total of 13 68 169 lives last month while private insurers covered a total of about 1.81 crore.
In terms of premium income, LIC’s new business premium last month was Rs 13,500.78 crore (Rs 15 548.06 crore in October 2020) while the 23 private insurers together Rs 8 105,46 crore (Rs 7 220 crore in October 2020).
Interestingly, in the group business last month, LIC earned a premium of Rs 8,961.13 crore covering about 13.68 lakh individuals (Rs 8,855.45 crore covering 12,39,827 lives).
For their part, the private life insurers earned about Rs 2 841.54 crore last month covering about 1.81 crore lives (Rs 3 009.7 crore for the coverage of about Rs 1.24 crore).
It should be noted, insurance is a business of large numbers. Larger the base, better to spread the loss of little over many.
According to a research report by Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd, the new retail policy statement has remained anemic for most private players except SBI Life Insurance.
“The reinsurance price increase and tightening of underwriting processes has led to lower sales of pure futures policies and this is probably one of the main reasons behind poor policy growth,” said Emkay Global.
Source: Telangana Today