At the end of FY21, Life Insurance Corporation of India or LIC held a 66.2% market share. Although it still dominates the life insurance market, its market share at the end of January 2022 is down to  61.2%. The company is losing market share to private players like SBI Life Insurance, HDFC Life Insurance, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, among others.

LIC sells individual insurance products and group insurance products. The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority of India, or IRDAI data shows LIC is ceding new business premium (NBP) market share to private players. This is especially true for individual single premium and group non-single premium products (NBP is the premiums on new insurance policies sold by an insurer, while gross written premium is the total premium including renewals on policies).

LIC’s total NBP for individual single premium products for the ten months ended January 31, 2022 (10MFY22) was Rs 18,598 crore compared to Rs 28,822 crore in FY21. For group non-single premium, total NBP for 10MFY22 was Rs 2,116 crore compared to Rs 5,116 crore in FY21.

LIC needs to earn more than 3X NBP in February and the coming two months just to match up to FY21 numbers. The slowness in NBP growth is reflected in the loss of market share. The market share for the individual single premium segment fell to 58.6% in January 2022 from 67.9% in March 2021. For group non-single premium, the market share was down to 87.9% from 93.3% in March 2021.

Private life insurance peer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance gained market share in the individual single premium segment reaching 8.4% in January 2022 compared to 6.3% in FY21. SBI Life has a 10% market share at the end of January 2022. 

It will be interesting to see how investors welcome this company’s IPO considering that it is rapidly losing market share.