Between April and August this year, the first-year premium of life insurance companies grew 13.8% y-o-y as private players reported a 27% growth. State-owned LIC, which holds an over 70% of the market share, saw a growth of 9.2% on the back of healthy growth in group single premium. For the industry as a whole, group single premium grew 41% during the period and individual single premium collapsed by 35%. Individual non-single premium grew just 3%, indicating that insurers will have to address the issue of rampant mis-selling and the regulator will have rationalise the cost structure.
