BENGALURU (Reuters) – Indian insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company on Tuesday reported a decline in a key margin in the first half of the fiscal year due to higher sales of market-linked policies.
Demand for market- or unit-linked insurance plans (ULIPs) has been strong in recent quarters, driven by India’s rising equity market.
More sales of such policies, which have a lower profit margin, lead to the contraction of value of new business (VNB) margins for insurers.
ICICI Prudential’s VNB margin dropped to 23.7% for the half-year ended Sept. 30 from 28.8% a year earlier as the share of ULIPs in the product mix jumped to 51.6% from 42.4%.
Its annualised premium equivalent sales, a key metric that gives annualised total value of all single premium and recurring premium policies, rose 26.8% to 44.67 billion rupees ($531.44 million) for the half-year.
The insurer’s profit rose 3% on-year to 2.52 billion rupees for the quarter ended Sept. 30, while its net premium income grew around 7%.
Shares of the company ended down 2.5% ahead of the results.
($1 = 84.0540 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
