(Reuters) -India’s ICICI Prudential Life Insurance on Tuesday reported a 34% rise in first-quarter profit, helped by higher premiums from group policies and lower operating costs.
The life insurer reported a profit after tax of 3.02 billion rupees ($35.2 million) for the quarter ended June 30, compared to 2.25 billion rupees a year before.
Its net premium income grew 8% to 85.03 billion rupees, driven by a 20% jump in single premiums.
Meanwhile, operating expenses decreased 10.1% aided by lower advertisement and sales related cost, the company said.
Analysts said strong growth in group insurance plans during the April-June quarter boosted premium income for insurers.
Group insurance policies cover a group of people under one contract and are generally utilised by firms for their employees.
However, growth in market- or unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) slowed in the quarter hit by broader market volatility driven by uncertainty over the global impact of policy shifts under U.S. President Donald Trump.
ULIPs, which have lower margins, accounted for 46.8% of ICICI Prudential Life’s overall product mix, down from 51.4% a year earlier.
Annualised premium equivalent sales, a key metric that gives annualised total value of all single premium and recurring premium policies, fell 5% to 18.64 billion rupees for the June quarter.
Value of new business (VNB), or expected profit from new policies, fell 3.2% to 4.57 billion rupees for the quarter.
The company’s VNB margin rose slightly to 24.5% for the quarter, compared to 24% a year ago.
This was supported by the company’s reducing shares of its lower-margin, market or unit-linked insurance plans (ULIP).
Peers HDFC Life Insurance and SBI Life Insurance are yet to report their quarterly results.
($1 = 85.7800 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Meenakshi Maidas and Nishit Navin in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
