Highlights:

The economic restrictions in the second wave were fewer and more localized as compared to the first wave, but the health impact was a lot more devastating. Against this backdrop, the company recorded a 22% growth and a market share of 17.8% in terms of Individual WRP in Q1 FY22.

The company has posted strong 30% APE growth. The growth in Value of New Business has been robust at 40% for Q1FY2022.

The company has improved New Business Margin to 26.2% on the back of growth and balanced product mix.

The company has posted strong 20% growth in renewal premium in Q1FY2022.

The company continues to maintain a balanced product mix with share of participating savings, non participating savings, ULIPs, protection and annuity accounted for 29%, 32%, 27%, 8% and 5% of Individual APE respectively. Its focus on the protection segment resulted in 57% growth basis overall APE

Given that the trends have varied by region and the possibility of future waves cannot be ruled out, the company will continue to be more segmented and localized in approach, taking one quarter at a time.

In the quarter gone by, the company witnessed a steep rise in death claims with peak claims in wave 2 at around 3-4 times of the peak claim volumes in first wave.

The company paid over 70,000 claims in Q1. The gross claims provided for amounted to Rs 1598 crore and net claims were Rs 956 crore. It appears that claims on individual business have peaked in June and expect them to normalize in the coming months with more people getting vaccinated and a fall in absolute number of infections.

Claims have declined from peak of 300 per day to below 100 per day.

Digitization is the backbone of consistent performance and the company continues to invest in technology, with a view to simplify the buying journey and servicing experience for customers whilst creating new product propositions.

New business margins in this quarter have seen an improvement on a sequential as well as YoY basis on the back of growth and balanced product mix.

The net profit of the company has declined 33% to Rs 302 crore in Q1FY22 on the back of reserving for excess mortality.

The strength of balance sheet and back book surplus has enabled the company to absorb the shock of heightened claims, whilst continuing to deliver growth.

The company has created excess mortality reserve of Rs 700 crore for potential adverse mortality. This reserve is over and above the policy level liabilities calculated based on the applicable IRDAI regulations and based on current expectation of extra claims to be received in the future.

The company had excess reserves of Rs 165 crore end March 2021, of which Rs 69 crore remained unutilized in Q1FY2022. The continued approach of the company would be to review the adequacy of this reserve at periodic intervals based on emerging experience.

Solvency position remains healthy at 203% against statutory minimum requirement of 150%.

While the situation, including the government and public response to the challenges, continue to progress and evolve rapidly, the Company will continue to closely monitor any material changes in future economic conditions.

The company has recorded strong 204% growth in credit protect business driven by surge in the loan disbursements.

The company has exhibited improvement in the 13th month persistency to 90% from 87% last year and expects the trend to continue for rest of the year.

The bancassurance channel of the company has recorded 16% growth in the quarter ended June 2021. The agency channel has recorded 49% growth.

The company has added new bancassurance channels partners such as ICICI Securities and TVS credit in the quarter ended June 2021.

More than 60% of the employees of the company have received at least one dose of covid vaccine.

The company sees strong demand for life insurance with the human values getting more importance.

The pandemic has impacted lives across the world. Against the backdrop of disruption in business on account of localised lockdowns, and surge in cases during the second wave, the company has recorded 22% growth in Individual WRP with market share of 17.8% in private sector.

The annuity business witnessed strong growth of 61% in Q1FY2022.

AUM rose to Rs 1.8 lakh crore with Debt:Equity mix at 63:37 and over 98% of debt investments were in G-Secs and AAA bonds end June 2021.