Life insurance had a great fall in September

Last month, the 23 life insurers earned a total new business premium of Rs.9,612.74 crore as against Rs.18,500.53 crore earned in August 2010, as per the data released by Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) Thursday.

The new business fall is steep for Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) as it earned Rs.6,606.64 crore last month, compared to Rs.14,653.83 crore earned in August.
The 22 private life insurers earned Rs.3,006.10 crore last month as compared to Rs.3,846.67 crore in August.

The LIC's premium slipped under individual single/non-single and group non-single premium segments by a whopping Rs.10,176.61 crore while the corporation grew its group single premium business last month by Rs.2,129.42 crore.

Interestingly, the private sector players as a group increased their individual single premium and group non-single premium by Rs.40.32 crore and Rs.16.08 crore, respectively, over August figures.

The private life insurers suffered business reverse in individual non-single premium and group single premium by Rs.896.98 crore last month as compared to the previous month.
The IRDA's new regulations sucked out nearly 250 policies from the system while it had approved around 60 policies in their place.

According to industry officials, the pace of growth will not see any great improvement as the product approval process at IRDA has slowed down considerably and the companies have to be content with their existing portfolio of ULIPs.