Private sector individual annual premium equivalent (APE) continued to rise upwards, increasing 18% year-on-year (y-o-y) in September 2018 and 16% yoy in 2QFY19. While HDFC Life recovered to 20% post a few months of sluggish performance, ICICI Life was flat y-o-y. SBI Life picked up as well with 23% y-o-y growth while Max remained strong at 30%.
On the mutual fund side, while outflows from liquid funds were high, inflows to equities (including SIP) were moderately up month-on-month (m-o-m). With focus shifting to protection and other high-margin policies, value of new business (VNB) growth of large players will remain strong and in that sense APE growth trends are less relevant.
