(Reuters) – India’s ICICI Prudential Life Insurance 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 and SBI Life Insurance 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)
(This story has been refiled to change the picture)
(Reporting by Nandan Mandayam in Bengaluru; Editing by Varun H K)
