"Another 3-4 players are expected to start their life insurance business during this fiscal taking total number of players to 20," IRDA member (Life) G Prabhakar said.
Their applications were at different stages of approval, he said, adding, some of the applicants were nationalized banks which have teamed up with foreign players.
Currently, there are 15 private players with 25 per cent market share while the public sector insurance player LIC is the market leader with about 75 per cent market share.
Besides, many existing players have charted out huge expansion plan to tap the burgeoning market, he said, adding, some companies were planning to double their operations.
Private players were restricted to metro cities but were now reaching out to semi-urban and rural India, he said.
Prabhakar said since the inception of IRDA in 2000, the insurance penetration has gone up from 1.77 per cent to 2.53 per cent in 2005.
During the same period, per-capita spending on insurance products increased three-fold to $20.4 from $7.6 in 2000, he said at Birla Institute of Management Technology.
On future challenges before the sector, he said the major constraint would be the huge crunch of trained human resource.
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