MUMBAI: National insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has reported a healthy set of numbers with better sales and margins leading to 17% on-year growth in net profit at 12,958 crore for the December quarter. However, on a sequential basis, the bottom line soared over 28% from Rs 107,302 crore.
The state-owned company’s net premium income for the quarter increased 17.5% on-year to Rs 1,25,988.15 crore from Rs 1,07,302.3 crore a year ago and the total income also improved to Rs 2,33,984 crore. Sequentially, premium income declined marginally by 0.7% from Rs 126,930.04 crore, chief executive and managing director R Doraiswamy told reporters in a concall on Thursday.
"Consumers and companies in the life insurance industry have responded positively to the various initiatives of the government, especially to GST rate cuts. At LIC, we have further increased our performance by achieving higher and better parameters on volume growth as well as products and channel diversification," Doraiswamy added.
During the quarter, the net premium income of the insurer rose to Rs 1,25,613 crore from Rs 1,06,891 crore in the same period a year ago, while total income improved to Rs 2,33,984 crore from Rs 2,01,994 crore in the same period a year ago, he said.
The insurer paid a net commission of Rs 6,011 crore as against Rs 5,966 crore in the third quarter of the previous financial year.
As regards new business, LIC garnered first-year premium of Rs 10,605 crore compared to Rs 7,285 crore in the same quarter a year ago.
In the individual business segment, LIC sold 1,16,63,856 policies during the nine-month period to December compared to 1,17,10,505 policies in the same period last fiscal, registering a marginal decline of 0.40%.
On an annualised premium equivalent (APE) basis, total premium stood at Rs 44,007 crore, of which 62.61% or Rs 27,552 crore came from individual business, while 37.39% or Rs 16,455 crore came from group business, Doraiswamy said.
Par products accounted for 63.54% of the APE at Rs 17,507 crore, while non-par products contributed 36.46% or Rs 10,045 crore. Individual non-par APE rose to Rs 10,045 crore during the nine months to December, compared to Rs 6,813 crore in the year-ago period, registering a growth of 47.44%.
The value of new business for the nine-month period stood at Rs 8,288 crore, compared to Rs 6,477 crore in the corresponding period last year, registering a growth of 27.96%. The net VNB margin improved by 170 basis points to 18.8% during the period, compared with 17.1% a year ago.
The solvency ratio improved to 2.19 from 2.02 in December 2024.
Assets under management rose to Rs 59,16,680 crore from Rs 54,77,651 crore a year earlier, registering an increase of 8.01% on-year.
The overall expense ratio declined by 132 bps to 11.65% from 12.97% in the corresponding period of the previous year.