For the second quarter of Financial Year 2024, the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) reported the highest-ever Half-Yearly Profit After Tax at Rs 17,469 crore, the company said in its regulatory filings on Friday.

The India’s largest insurer posted a profit after tax of 79.25 billion Indian rupees ($951.41 million) for the quarter ended Sept 30, compared to 159.52 billion rupees a year ago. Net premium income dropped 18.7 per cent to 1.07 billion rupees, the company said in its regulatory filing.

In terms of market share measured by First Year Premium Income (FYPI), LIC continues to be the market leader by market share in Indian life insurance business with overall market share of 58.50 per cent.

For six months ending September 30, 2023, the LIC had a market share of 40.35 per cent in Individual business and 70.26 per cent in the group business.

The Total Premium Income for six month period ended September 30 was Rs 2,05,760 crore as compared to Rs 2,30,456 crore for the six month period ended September 30, 2022 during the previous year.

The Total Individual Business Premium for the six month period ending September 30 increased to Rs 1,34,783 crore from Rs 1,27,738 crore for the comparable period of previous year. The Group Business total premium income for six months ended September 30 was Rs 70,977 crore as compared to Rs 1,02,718 crore for six months ended September 30, 2022.

The LIC has informed that a total of 80,60,725 policies were sold in the individual segment during the half year ended September 30 as compared to 83,59,029 policies sold during the same period last year.

On an Annualised Premium Equivalent (APE) basis the total premium was Rs 22,627 crore for the six month period ended September 30. The Value of New Business (VNB) for the six month period ended September 30th, 2023 was Rs 3,304 crore as compared to Rs 3,677 crore for the same period of 2022.

Speaking on the quarterly results, Siddhartha Mohanty, Chairperson, LIC said, “During the first six months of this financial year, we have been able to implement strategies successfully to enhance the share of Non-Par products in our overall individual business. The current VNB margins are an indicator of our initiatives delivering the objective of maintaining profitability as we change direction.”

“We are conscious of the market dynamics in certain parts of our business and are working towards profit-oriented consolidation. The distribution mix is also more diversified with increase in share of Bancassurance and Alternate Channels. We continue to remain focused on creating higher Customer Value through Digital Innovations. We are thankful to all our stakeholders for their continued support,” he added.

LIC’s Assets Under Management (AUM) increased to Rs 47,43,389 crore as on September 30, 2023 as compared to Rs 42,93,778 crore on September 30, 2022 registering an increase of 10.47 per cent year on year.

The Overall Expense Ratio for the half year of 2023 was 15.14% as compared to 16.69 per cent for the half year of 2022.

The company’s net NPA in the policyholders fund was Rs 8.77 crore as of September this year as compared to Rs 12.72 crore last year.