Mumbai, 10th September 2024: Life Insurance Council has released updated industry business numbers for the month of August 2024. Amongst several key highlights, new business premiums (NBPs) underwritten by Indian life insurers has achieved a robust Y-o-Y growth of 21.86% in the month of August 2024, with YTD figures also growing by 20.78% over the same period last year. New business premiums expanded from ₹ 26788.55 Crs in August 2023 to ₹ 32644.09 Crs in August ’24, with YTD collections growing even more from ₹ 127660.52 Crs to ₹ 154193.76 Crs this year. Despite the underlying demand for enhanced insurance protection, from both individual consumers and corporate clients alike, new policy issuances decreased by 1.44% to 23,94,007 in August’24 as compared with 2428895 policies sold in the same corresponding period last year.
According to data released by the Life Insurance Council, the life insurance industry saw individual single premiums growing by 8.35% on a Y-o-Y basis to close at ₹4,302.58 Crs for August’24 while YTD growth stood at 15.54%. Individual non-single premiums came in at ₹ 9160.08 Crs and grew by 10.38% in August’24, even as YTD collections settled at 17.25% higher than the corresponding period last year. This strong performance is testament to the increasing focus on encouraging first-time life insurance buyers to safeguard their families with essential life insurance solutions, contributing to the 9.73% growth in combined individual premium collections for the month of August’24 and 16.69% growth on a YTD basis. In the Group policy segment, single premiums grew by 37% with monthly collections coming in at ₹17,894.61 Crs. Conversely, non-single premiums shrunk by 85.43% in August’24, tempering YTD premium growth figures for the Group policy category that settled at 32.11%. Consequently, new policy issuances in the Group segment expanded by 4.87% on a Y-o-Y basis in August’24.
The life insurance industry in India has been making significant strides forward by expanding access to insurance and making an effort to reach out to areas and segments of the country’s population that were previously underserved when it comes to their insurance needs. Towards this end, life insurers made net additions of 1,08,147 individual life insurance agents in August’24 alone, contributing to an overall 3.74% growth in cumulative agent count as compared with those at the start of FY24-25. Moreover, the sustained pace of agent addition is being complimented by the high speed of digitisation by life insurers, paving the way for additional gains in insurance penetration that should provide a significant boost to new business premiums in FY25 and beyond.