Premium income slips for insurers in November

Insurance premium collections across the life and general insurance segments registered a fall in November over October last year.

Total life insurance premium collections dipped by 10 per cent or Rs 145 crore, while general insurance premiums dropped 7 per cent to around Rs 91 crore. This is despite a year-on-year growth in business of 42 per cent in life insurance and 22 per cent in general insurance.

General insurance premium collected in November stood at Rs 1,382 crore against Rs 1,473 crore in October. General insurance companies such as Oriental, New India, HDFC Chubb, Bajaj Allianz and ICICI Lombard "" all saw their premium collections slipping.

Incidentally, while most of the general insurance companies have retained their rankings, Tata AIG and IFFCO-Tokio have swapped positions. IFFCO-Tokio has moved to the seventh slot among the 12 general insurance companies in the country.

Premium collection in the life insurance sector stood at Rs 1,381 crore in November against Rs 1,526 crore in October, according to the numbers provided in the Irda journal.

The life insurance companies that have seen their premium collection fall in November are LIC, Birla SunLife, Bajaj Allianz, ING Vysya, HDFC Standard and SBI Life.

Barring ING Vysya, all the above companies are among the top six in the life insurance sector. Their pecking order, incidentally, has remained the same.

While LIC's premium collection is down by about 15 per cent, Birla SunLife's is down by about eight per cent. Bajaj Allianz premium collection is down by around one per cent.

ING Vysya's premium collection is down by about three per cent. HDFC Standard's premium collection is down by about six per cent and SBI Life's is down by a whopping 23 per cent.

SBI Life, managing director, S Krishnamurthy told Business Standard that the reason forthis fall in premium collection in November could be the festival season.

"We had festivals like Diwali in November, so it was not possible for our insurance agents to perform as well." SBI Life's premium collection was around Rs 50 crore in October and it came down to around Rs 38 crore in November. Efforts to get an immediate comment from Birla SunLife failed.

However, according to Ramana Reddy, managing director, Helios Insurance Services Pvt Ltd, periods of October and November are usually dull periods for the insurance sector.

"People have the tendency to buy insurance policies in March. So there is bound to be a lull in a couple of months before that," Reddy said.

"To take advantage of tax deductions, that is approximately around 20 per cent of insurance premium, people usually buy policies in the last weeks of March. So this could be a reason for a drop in insurance premium collections in November," Reddy added.

The month of November also saw the entry of a new player Sahara in the life insurance category. Sahara collected an insurance premium of Rs 1.34 lakh in November.