HDFC Life H1 PAT up 15% on growth in new retail, protection business

HDFC Life Insurance posted a net profit of ₹792 crore in the first half of FY24, an increase of 15 per cent y-o-y, led by a 14 per cent rise in total premium to ₹26,613 crore.

New business premium, including individual and group policies, was up 15 per cent at ₹12,970 crore, and renewal premium grew 14 per cent to ₹13,643 crore.

“We recorded a healthy growth of 10 per cent in individual WRP (weighted received premium) vs 8 per cent for overall industry, for the half year ended September 30, 2023,” MD and CEO Vibha Padalkar said, adding that the life insurance sector has shown great resilience despite the recent unfavourable budget changes.

“We continued to grow faster than the overall industry and be ranked amongst the top three ife insurers across individual and group businesses. We saw an uptick of 10 per cent in the number of individual policies sold, beating industry growth. This healthy volume growth is in line with our stated objective of broadening our customer base,” Padalkar said.

Market share

HDFC Life insured over 3 crore people across the individual and group businesses during the six-month period, an increase of 16 per cent on year. Market share, on an individual WRP basis, fell to 15.7 per cent among private life insurers from 16.1 per cent a year ago. However, on a new business premium basis, the share rose to 20.0 per cent from 19.8 per cent. Overall industry market share stood at 10.3 per cent.

Total APE (annualised premium equivalent) grew 9 per cent to ₹5,373 crore of which individual APE was ₹4,478 crore, up 9 per cent y-o-y.

Annuity APE grew 17 per cent and the segment contributed to 18 per cent of new business premium. Annuity and protection together contributed to about 55 per cent of new business premium in H1 FY24, the release said.

VNB (value of new business) grew 10 per cent to ₹1,411 crore, with VNB margins flat at 26.2 per cent from the year-ago period.

On a new business premium basis, HDFC Life’s protection portfolio grew 28 per cent on the back of 46 per cent growth in the retail protection segment. Overall sum assured was up 45 per cent led by 61 per cent rise in retail sum assured.

Persistency ratio, a measure of customer stickiness, declined for a 13-month period to 86 per cent from 87 per cent, but the 61^st month persistency improved to 53 per cent from 51 per cent.

Solvency worsened to 194 per cent from 210 per cent a year ago.

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