The life insurance industry recorded a 30% year-on-year growth in the Annual Premium Equivalent (APE) in November, aided by a low base, reported JM financial in their 'Life Insurance Monthly' analysis.

"Player wise, both private insurers (34% YoY) and LIC (25%) contributed to growth. Category-wise, individual APE was up 26% YoY and group APE was up 1.8% YoY in November. However on a two-year CAGR basis, industry APE declined 6% as November 2019 saw higher policy sales owing to impending discontinuance of erstwhile popular plans owing to new IRDA product rules" it added.

The annual premium equivalent is a measure used for the comparison of life insurance revenue by normalizing policy premiums into the equivalent of regular annual payments.

According to the report, among major players, in November, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance (BALIC) and SBI Life posted robust performance driven by group business with 74% and 51% YoY growth respectively, while Max Life grew 36%, also posting a strong recovery. "On 2-yr CAGR basis, in Nov '21, BALIC, SBI Life and Max Life posted 20%+ APE growth", it added.

On an unweighted basis, industry New Business Profit (NBP) increased 4,2% YOY, led by private insurers NBP, up 60% YoY in November. On a two-year CAGR basis, Nov '21 unweighted NBP was up 2% for the industry, driven by 23% growth for private insurers.

The brokerage further highlighted that SBI Life (15.9%) also held the majority market share in APE for November, followed by HDFC Life (7.8%), ICICI Prudential (6.2%), Max Life (5.4%), and Tata AIA (4.3%).

Year-to-Date APE increased 17% YoY, driven by private insurers (+30%) with BALIC (54% YoY), SBI Life (41%), and ICICI Prudential Life (31%) outperforming peers. "Private insurers maintained leadership with APE share at 55.4% YTDFY22. Key monitor cables include the impact of reinsurance price hikes and new variants on sales, persistence/ mortality" the report added.

The latest data released by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority also showed that the new premium income of life insurance companies jumped by nearly 42% to Rs 27,177.26 crore in November this year.

All 24 life insurance companies had written new business or the first year premium totaling Rs 19,159.30 crore in November 2020.

The insurance behemoth LIC the only state-owned life insurer in the country - witnessed over a 32% rise in the first-year business premium in November at Rs 15,967.51 crore, against Rs 12,092.66 crore in the year-ago same period.

The remaining 23 players, which belong to the private sector, registered a spike of 58.63% in their collective first-year premium income at Rs 11,209.75 crore during the month, against Rs 7,066.64 crore a year ago same month.