The New Business Premium (NBP) of life insurers which witnessed a decline in the month of November 2020 has continued to stay in the negative for the month of December.
The NBP of life insurers experienced growth for four straight months from July to October before falling by almost 27 per cent in November.
For December, the decline stood at 2.78 per cent as compared to December 2019, according to the data released by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI). The life insurers totaled Rs 24,383.42 crore last month as compared to Rs 25,079.89 crore in the same month last year.
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However, the private insurers saw their total rise at a healthy rate of 22.14 per cent with an NBP of Rs 10,037.72 crore as compared to Rs 8,217.91 crore in December 2019.
The biggest gainer among private insurers was Bajaj Allianz Life whose NBA rose by 64.18 per cent to Rs 686.80 crore in December 2020, over Rs 418.32 crore a year ago.
The industry figures have been dented by the performance of the state-owned insurance giant Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) which totaled Rs 14,345.70 crore in December 2020 as compared to Rs 16,861.98 in the same month last year. The decline was pegged at 14.92 per cent.
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The data also revealed that in the April–December period of 2021 fiscal year, the NBP of life insurers declined by 1.69 per cent to Rs 1.91 trillion, as against Rs 1.94 trillion in the same period last fiscal year.
In the first quarter of the current fiscal year, life insurers witnessed a decline of 18.5 per cent in the NBP on a year-on-year basis as a result of the COVID-19-enforced lockdown. However, since then the industry has made a massive recovery as a result of a renewed focus on protection plans.
