Life insurance companies in India have submitted their business figures for the month of April 2011 to Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA). The overall figures when compared with last year’s business figures look a little bleak.
Out of 22 operational private life insurance companies, 16 companies have collected lesser premiums in April this year as compared to their collections in April last year.
The 6 private life insurance companies that are an exception to this are SBI Life, Star Union Dai-ichi, IndiaFirst Life, Aegon Religare, Tata AIG and DLF Pramerica; which have shown improvement in their collections in April 2011 over that in April 2010.
Bharti AXA Life has collected only Rs 9 crores in premiums in April this year, which is a 59% dip over its premium collections of Rs 22 crores in April last year.
IDBI Federal Life also has collected only Rs 8.8 crores over Rs 16 crores in April last year. Reliance Life also managed to pocket only Rs 74 crores in April this year over Rs 132 crores in April last year.
ICICI Prudential Life is the highest grosser among all the 22 private life insurance companies with premium collections of Rs 296 crores in April this year. In comparison to its business figures of Rs 303.6 crores in April last year, ICICI Prudential has also fallen short by Rs 7 crores.
Life insurance products include Unit-linked insurance plans, money back plans, endowment plans, term plans, pension plans etc.
Sales of Ulips constitute a huge chunk of the business of life insurance companies. Owing to high commissions on Ulips, insurance agents used to pitch Ulip plans to prospective buyers. After the release of new guidelines on Unit-linked insurance plans (Ulip) in September last year, life insurance companies have had to restructure their Ulip plans and the scenario has changed to a certain extent. Now that the commissions on Ulips have been slashed, agents do not find it as lucrative as earlier. Companies have also had to restructure and redesign their Unit-linked products as per the new rules.
