India's ICICI Prudential Life Q3 profit jumps on new policy sales

Icici Prudential Life Insurance

21/01/2025 13:51

Jan 21 (Reuters) - India's ICICI Prudential Life
Insurance  ICIR.NS  reported a 43% jump in third-quarter profit
on Tuesday, driven by higher premiums from new policy sales.
    The life insurer reported a standalone profit of 3.26
billion rupees (about $38 million) for the quarter ended Dec.
31, compared to 2.27 billion rupees a year ago.
    Its net premium income grew 23.5% to 12.26 billion rupees,
driven by a 78% jump in single premiums or new policy sales.
    Insurance awareness has been historically low in India, a
country of more than 1.4 billion people, but the sector has seen
rapid growth in recent years, particularly since the COVID-19
pandemic.
    ICICI Prudential's larger peers HDFC Life Insurance 
 HDFL.NS  and SBI Life Insurance  SBIL.NS  reported strong
third-quarter profits as well, on the back of strong retail
insurance policy sales.
    ICICI Prudential's value of new business (VNB), or expected
profit from new policies, rose 8.5% year-on-year to 15.75
billion rupees for the nine months to the end of December.
    Annualised premium equivalent (APE) sales, the annualised
total value of all single- and recurring-premium policies,
jumped 27% to 54.30 billion rupees for the nine-month period.
    Insurers generally report cumulative data for metrics such
as VNB and APE.
    However, VNB margins slipped to 22.8% from 26.7% last year,
due to a higher share of market- or unit-linked insurance plans
(ULIP), which have a lower profit margin compared to term
policies, the company said.
    ULIPs accounted for 50.8% of its overall product mix by APE,
up from 43.1% a year ago.


($1 = 86.5670 Indian rupees)

 (Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H
K)
 ((Nandan.Mandayam@thomsonreuters.com; Mobile: +91 9591011727;))