Life insurance companies see latest selling premiums up 15%

Life insurance companies are pulling out all stops in the last combine of months before the close of the financial to cover the over 15% percent degrowth that it had to stand in the first 6 months.
Insurers are betting large on the February and March numbers for latest business premium to gather in an overall industry growth of around 15% percent in the current financial year.
While the first half of the year showed a separate degrowth, mostly among private insurance players, February growth statistics seem to show positive signs on the new business premium collected.
Data from the Insurance Regulatory & Development Authority (Irda) shows that the overall new business premiums grow by 16.5% percent between April and February.
While public-sector behemoth LIC grew by 24% percent, almost all private insurance companies registered good development in new business premium. SBI Life Insurance, Reliance Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance grew their new business premiums by 21.1% percent, 5% percent, 16.09% percent, respectively. HDFC Standard Life grew by 19.45% percent, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance by 9.5% percent and Tata AIG Life Insurance grow 16.7% percent throughout April-February.
Amitabh Chaudhry, CEO, HDFC Standard Life, told DNA Money, “The economic recession took its toll and constant to have its result on the industry till the first few months of the current financial. Things are revolving around and February and March are the biggest months. A 15% percent growth for the industry can be expected.”
M N Rao, managing director and CEO, SBI Life, said, “We have posted a net profit of Rs 199 crore in the first 9 months and would positively improve it to at least Rs 225 crore. We are also looking at a 25% percent growth in the new business premium for the full year to around Rs 7,000 crore.”
Malay Ghosh, president, Reliance Life, said, “I expect the industry to grow at an average of around 10-12% percent and our increase rate should be around 15% percent for new business premium. We do be expecting a slight balancing of portfolios. For 2009-10, we expect an overall premium growth of 50% percent to around Rs 7,000 crore.”
Interestingly, however, the growth in weighted new received premium (WNRP), or real new business premium weighted for single and group premiums at 10% percent, equal to February 2010, over the previous equivalent period, is around 12.9%.
Alpesh Mehta and Parag Jariwala, analysts with Motilal Oswal, said in a recent report, “In February 2010, industry WNRP grew 4%....in January 2010, WNRP declined 25% month on month. On a year-to-date (YTD) basis, industry WNRP grew 13% due to a strong 25% growth posted by LIC. YTD, private players grew just by 4% (WNRP). Among big private players, only SBI Life reported a strong 35% year-on-year growth in WNRP, whereas for others it has been 10% to (-) 20%.