Life Insurers' New Business Premiums Underwritten Jumps 15.15% In May 2024 YoY

New business premiums (NBPs) underwritten by Indian life insurers achieved a robust year-on-year growth of 15.15 per cent in May 2024, with year-to-date figures recording a 31.2 per cent growth over the same period last year, highlighted the Life Insurance Council data for May 2024.

New business premiums expanded from Rs 23,448 crore in May 2023 to Rs 27,034 crore in May 2024, with year-to-date collections growing even more from Rs 36,043 crore to Rs 47,293 crore this year.

Driven by strong demand for enhanced insurance protection from individual consumers, new policy issuances increased by 12.45 per cent year-on-year in May 2024, resulting in the addition of 18,68,096 new policies compared to 16,61,324 policies in the same period last year.

According to data released by the Life Insurance Council, the life insurance industry saw individual single premiums growing by 18.3 per cent year-on-year to Rs 3,351 crore in May 2024, while year-to-date growth stood at 21.49 per cent.

Individual non-single premiums amounted to Rs 6,916 crore, growing by 18.7 per cent in May 2024, with year-to-date collections 20.14 per cent higher than the corresponding period last year.

This strong performance can be attributed to life insurers increasingly focusing on encouraging first-time life insurance buyers to purchase essential life insurance solutions, contributing to the 18.58 per cent growth in combined individual premium collections for May 2024 and 20.6 per cent growth on a year-to-date basis.

In the group policy segment, single premiums grew by 16.7 per cent with monthly collections reaching Rs 15,976 crore. The group policy category witnessed a 13.15 per cent growth in premiums collected in May 2024, while new policy issuances expanded by 21.15 per cent year-on-year.

The life insurance industry in India has been making significant strides by expanding access to insurance and reaching out to areas and segments of the country's population that were previously underserved in terms of their insurance needs.

Towards this end, life insurers added more than 1,30,000 individual life insurance agents, despite facing an overall 0.2 per cent drop in cumulative agent count due to attrition.

Still, the sustained pace of agent addition is complemented by the high speed of digitisation by life insurers, paving the way for additional gains in insurance penetration that should significantly boost new business premiums in FY25 and beyond.