What we read in the May 2022 life insurance numbers

The IRDAI announces the monthly insurance business numbers at the start of the next month. For the month of May 2022, interesting numbers have come in terms of life insurance data. Before we get into the details, here are some quick takeaways.

a)      LIC still dominates the life insurance market but its clout is certainly reducing. If you look at the premium income for May 2022, it was Rs24,480 crore overall, out of which LIC accounted for Rs15,841 crore and private life insurers accounted for Rs8640 crore. In terms of premium earned, LIC had a market share of 64.96% while private insurers had a market share of 35.04%.

b)      However, the mix is a lot more interesting. In terms of premiums collected in May 2022, LIC had a market share of 80.17% in group single premium and 96.78% in group non-single premium. However, if you look at individual non-single premiums, private insurers have a market share of 62.59% while even in individual single premium, their market share is impressive at 42.64%.

c)      However, the situation totally changes if you look at the respective shares of sum assured. Here the private life insurers have an overall market share of over 86%. That can be attributed to the fact that private life insurers sell more of pure risk term policies where the sum assured as compared to premium is much higher. LIC is still focused on endowments and ULIPs.

What we read from the premium numbers in May 2022

The table captures premiums across life insurers for the month of May 2022 and as compared with the yoy periods.

Data Source: IRDAI

On a yoy basis, there was solid growth in premium incomes across categories. This can be attributed to two reasons. Firstly, the growth may appear large due to a low base in the COVID year. Secondly, in the aftermath of COVID, there has been greater awareness and appreciation of the need to have life insurance. That led to a surgein demand for life insurance products.

While LIC dominates the group premium business, due to their strong corporate franchise, it is the private insurers that dominate the individual premium accounts. The median market share of LIC was close to 68% in terms of premium collections in the previous years and for May 2022 it is down to over 64%. In the private space, the big 4 with above Rs1,000 crore of life premium income in May 2022 were SBI Life, HDFC Life, ICICI Prudential and Bajaj Allianz.

What we read from the Sum Assured numbers in May 2022

The table captures sum assured across life insurers for the month of May 2022 and as compared with yoy periods.

Data Source: IRDAI

When it comes to sum assured, clearly it is the private insurers that have an edge in terms of market share as of 2022. That is hardly surprising considering that the private insurers largely specialize in selling pure risk covers as compared to the endowments and other investment based policies sold by LIC. That is what gives them a huge advantage in terms of sum assured.

In terms of sum assured, it is clearly LIC that has dominated growth at 154% yoy, but that is largely due to a much smaller base. When it comes to sum assured, the private insurers also have an edge in the month of May in terms of group policies, apart from individual policies, where they anyways dominate even in premium collections.

How did private players fare in May 2022?

Among private players, the biggest premium growth was seen by Bajaj Allianz at 342% yoy in May 2022. Other private players that saw over 100% growth in May 2022 were Aviva Life, Aditya Birla Life, Future Generali, Kotak Mahindra Life, SBI Life and Star Union Dai-ichi. Of course, many of them grew on a small base, but names like Aditya Birla, Bajaj Allianz and SBI Life grew on a hefty base.

Growth in May 2022 has largely come from individual policies with private life insurers giving a big boost to premiums. Hopefully, the gains of post COVID caution should last much longer for the life insurers.