Insurance companies reported nearly 23 per cent growth in first year premium in the first quarter of financial year 2024-25, when compared to the same period last year, with market leader LIC leading the charge with 28 per cent growth. According to the data released by the Life Insurance Council, the new business premium (NBP) increased by 22.91 per cent year-on-year (Y-o-Y) to ~89,726.7 crore in Q1FY25 from ~73,004.87 crore in Q1 FY24, reflecting a robust demand for insurance policies in the country.
India's financial sector is dominated by large government-owned and private-sector banks.
Private life insurers are expected to deliver decent growth in the first quarter of the 2023-24 financial year (Q1FY24) on the back of stronger group business performance and easing supply-side constraints on individual protection. Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), though, is likely to see a decline. Healthy 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) retail annual premium equivalent (APE) growth for private players, coupled with 11 per cent year-on-year (YoY) decline in LIC, will pull retail APE growth to a mere 3 per cent YoY in June 2023.
The life insurance industry reported a 25.28 per cent decline in new business premium income in November 2023 to Rs 26,494.83 crore from Rs 34,588.8 crore recorded a year ago. The fall in group premium and change in taxation norms for policies with a higher ticket size dragged the premiums of the state-run Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) and private insurers, respectively. According to the data released by the Life Insurance Council, the premium of private insurers slipped 9.33 per cent Y-o-Y to Rs 10,360.29 crore from Rs 11,426.73 crore as a result of a change in product mix due to the measures taken to counter the impact of tax imposed on the premiums of Rs 5 lakh.
Private players continued to show strong momentum in the life insurance individual new business segment during August, 2023. On an aggregate, the industry registered 14 per cent growth year-on-year (Y-o-Y) compared to 15 per cent in July '23. Private players were up 21 per cent Y-o-Y, up from 16 per cent Y-o-Y in July '23, while public insurers' growth was muted at 3 per cent.
State Bank of India and France based Cardif are expected to infuse additional capital of about Rs 50 crore (Rs 500 million) in their life insurance joint venture by 2004-05.
The share of Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) in monthly new business premium (NBP) in the life insurance sector declined to 58.50 per cent in September 2023 from 68.25 per cent in September 2022 -- a drop of 975 basis points -- owing to shortcomings in the product and distribution side of business. However, the market share saw a marginal uptick from the 57.37 per cent recorded in August this year. According to the monthly business data released for September 2023 by the Life Insurance Council, the NBP of LIC up to September 2023 stood at Rs 92,462.62 crore as compared to about Rs 1.25 trillion in the same period a year ago.
Operating margins have been the primary driver of corporate earnings in India in recent quarters, despite revenue growth suffering from weak consumer demand. Companies across sectors have reported a sharp improvement in earnings before interest, tax, depreciation, and amortisation (Ebitda) margins over the past two years, benefiting from lower commodity and energy prices. Higher margins more than compensated for slower revenue growth, resulting in double-digit growth in net profit for five consecutive quarters.
Jio Financial Services, the demerged financial services unit of Reliance Industries, will be listed on bourses on August 21, according to an exchange notification. Jio Financial Services Ltd (JFSL) demerged from Reliance last month and is currently listed under a dummy ticker after its price discovery at Rs 261.85 but there is no trading happening in the scrip. The listing on BSE and NSE has been scheduled a day before FTSE Russell plans to drop JFSL from its indices.
This will not affect the tax exemption provided to the amount received on the death of a person insured. It will also not affect insurance policies issued till March 31, 2023
In the June quarter of FY24, 51 per cent of consumers who took small-ticket personal loans already had more than four credit products at the time of accessing yet another new loan, compared with just 17 per cent in the June quarter of FY20, points out Tamal Bandyopadhyay.
'The impact of CEO transition is fairly even for stocks, with about half (53 per cent) of the events not producing any change in the relative performance of the stock.'
Contrary to expectations, the new business premium (NBP) of life insurance companies dropped 12.62 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in March 2023 due to an over 30 per cent drop in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India's premiums, albeit on a high base. Data released by the Life Insurance Council shows the industry racked up NBP of Rs 52,081 crore in March 2023, compared with Rs 59,608.83 crore in the year-ago period. NBP is the premium acquired from new policies in a year. It is the sum of the first-year premium and single premium, reflecting the total premium received from new businesses.
Against an offer of 4.55 crore shares of Adani Enterprises Ltd, only 4.7 lakh were subscribed, according to information available from the BSE. Adani Enterprises fell almost 20 per cent to below the offer price of its secondary sale as all the seven listed companies of the conglomerate took a beating in the aftermath of Hindenberg Reserach alleged that the group was "engaged in a brazen stock manipulation and accounting fraud scheme over the course of decades".
Initial public offering (IPO)-bound Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India's assets under management (AUM) increased to Rs 38 trillion as of September 2021, compared with Rs 37 trillion as of March 2021, said sources in the know. Its AUM is almost 3x the AUM of all the private life insurers in the country and over 15x more than the AUM of the second largest life insurer, SBI Life, as of September 2021. SBI Life's AUM was approximately Rs 2.4 trillion as of September 2021, said sources.
In order for life insurance customers to attain maximum benefits, it is crucial for the persistency ratio to be far higher than its current level, top executives of the industry said at the Business Standard BFSI Insight Summit on Thursday. The persistency ratio is a metric that measures the number of policyholders who continue paying renewal premium and is gauged at varying stages in the life of a policy. A higher persistency ratio is seen as an indicator of an insurance product that caters satisfactorily to the needs of a customer.
LIC identifies the problems well, but what the markets will watch is how nimble it is with the solutions.
After a turnaround in performance by Indian equity markets since July that has seen the S&P BSE Sensex and the Nifty50 wipe out the year-to-date losses, analysts suggest investors start nibbling into stocks that are focused on the domestic economy. While they say intermittent corrections, led by policies of global central banks and other economic data, cannot be ruled out, analysts expect India's relative outperformance among global equity markets to continue as it looks better placed with a healthy economic recovery, and remains one of the fastest growing major economies. In this backdrop, Neeraj Chadawar, head of quantitative equity strategy at Axis Securities, believes that amid global slowdown, aggressive tightening by the central banks, and preference for domestic interests first (by the local government), export-oriented themes are likely to be muted or will deliver conservative returns in the near-term.
Reliance Capital Ltd (RCL), part of the debt-ridden Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Group, has received 10 more bids, including from SBI Life, for its subsidiaries, sources said. Earlier this month, the Committee of Debenture Holders had extended the last date for submission of expression of interest (EoI) to December 17, 2020. Following this, 10 new bids have come in for Reliance Capital's assets, taking the total number of bids to 70, the sources said.
10 stocks which are most popular with brokerages right now and are expected to deliver maximum upside over the next 12 months.
The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has just released a proposal to alter the regulations pertaining to the sponsor system for mutual funds. One of the reasons for the proposed changes is that there are two conflicting regulations that need to be clarified. The other reason is that the sponsor system may itself be outdated as it stands, and the proposed changes would allow new entities such as private equity funds and portfolio management services to enter this space.
Insurance behemoth LIC on Tuesday said it has garnered a little over Rs 5,627 crore from anchor investors led primarily by domestic institutions ahead of its mega initial public offering (IPO). Anchor Investors' (AIs) portion (5,92,96,853 equity shares) was subscribed at Rs 949 per equity share, the insurer said in an early morning filing to exchanges. Out of the allocation of about 5.9 crore shares to AIs, 4.2 crore shares (71.12 per cent) were allocated to 15 domestic mutual funds through 99 schemes, the filing said.
Standalone total income increased to Rs 74,457.86 crore in the first quarter of 2020-21, from Rs 70,653.23 crore in the same period a year ago.
As of March 25, life insurers have paid Rs 1,986 crore towards 25,500 Covid death claims
SBI Life Insurance is a joint venture between SBI and BNP Paribas Cardif.
At a closed-door meeting with global investors, the largest asset manager in the country boasted of its nearly Rs 37 trillion assets under management (AUM) - 16.6 times that managed by the second-largest insurer SBI Life. The numbers are as of March 31, 2021. The assets of LIC are 1.2 times the net assets of the entire Indian mutual fund industry, which had AUM of Rs 31.43 trillion as of March 31, 2021 (about Rs 37.3 trillion until November this year). The standalone assets that LIC manages are equal to 18.7 per cent of India's GDP and worth more than gross domestic product (GDP) of the UAE, Bangladesh, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Africa, New Zealand, and Pakistan.
After a stellar November that saw companies mop up over Rs 36,000 crore from the primary market via initial public offers (IPOs) and offers for sale (OFS), the current month, analysts said, will test investor's willingness to stay on with their investments as the one-month mandatory lock-in period for anchor investors begins to loosen. A note by Edelweiss Alternative Research suggests that in calendar year 2021 (CY21), 51 companies went public. Of these, 41 issuances' anchor selling dates are already over.
The Centre's decision to not reduce the face value of shares of India's Crown Jewel - Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) - was taken to make shareholders feel they are acquiring something 'precious'. The face value of LIC's shares was retained at Rs 10, quoted in the draft prospectus, as it would also align the insurer's shares with those of its private sector peers. Even as the LIC Act was amended to "consolidate or reduce the nominal or face value of the shares", with the Centre's approval, it was decided to stick to the current face value of shares at Rs 10 without splitting the existing 6.32 billion shares.
When Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India gets listed on the bourses next month, it will be among the biggest listed life insurers globally in terms of market capitalisation (m-cap), assets, and revenue, but will also be among the least profitable and capitalised among its peer group. A big gap between LIC's m-cap, profits, and networth (shareholder capital) will make it one of the priciest insurers globally, in terms of price-to-earnings (P/E) multiple and price-to-book value (P/B) ratio. LIC also lags behind its Indian listed peers in terms of profit and networth.
Life insurers' new business premium (NBP) reported stellar performance in November after a poor showing in October, on the back of strong growth in group single premiums for both private insurers and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India. In November, 24 life insurers, including LIC, reported NBP to the tune of Rs 27,177 crore, up 42 per cent year-on-year (YoY) from the year-ago period. Private insurers' NBP rose 58.63 per cent YoY to Rs 11,209.75 crore as group single premiums more than doubled during this period.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, Research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Private insurance firms say, over the past few years, they have been investing on digital technologies to reach semi urban and rural areas.
On standalone basis, SBI's profit declined by 37.9 per cent to Rs 1,581.55 crore, from Rs 2,538.32 crore on account of rise in bad loans.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your queries.
Brand SBI is very strong, while people may be generally cautious about some other brands. We can not only tap the potential better but can also provide a safe and transparent insurance alternative to the public, says US Roy.
Ajit Mishra, vice president, research, Religare Broking, answers your stockmarket queries.
But, neither were the big companies interested in growing inorganically nor were the smaller ones ready to offer themselves for sale.
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