Insurance News: Non-life insurers direct premium rises by this per cent in Jan

In a major development in insurance sector, non-life insurance companies registered a 6.7 per cent increase in their gross direct premium collection in January at Rs 18,488.06 crore, according to the Irdai data. All non-life insurance companies had underwritten direct premium of Rs 17,333.70 crore in the same month last year.

Among these, 25 general insurance companies witnessed 10.8 per cent increase in their collective premium in the first month of 2021 at Rs 16,247.24 crore as against Rs 14,663.40 crore in January 2020, according to Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) data.

Five pure-play or standalone private sector health insurers, however, posted a marginal decline of 1.34 per cent in their premium underwriting at Rs 1,510.20 crore during the month as compared to Rs 1,530.70 crore a year ago.

Notably, there were seven standalone private sector health insurers, however, with the takeover of Reliance Health Insurance portfolio by Reliance General Insurance and the merger of HDFC Ergo Health Insurance with HDFC Ergo General Insurance (wef November 2020), the count decreased to five.

On a cumulative basis, gross premium written by all the non-life insurers during April-January period of FY21 grew by 2.76 per cent to Rs 1,63,670.13 crore as against Rs 1,59,275.33 crore in year ago period.

For general insurers, the cumulative premium till January 2021 rose by 1.91 per cent to Rs 1,40,999.04 crore; stand-alone health insurers witnessed 8.04 per cent increase at Rs 12,108.73 crore.

The premium of two specialised PSU insurers grew by 8.77 per cent to Rs 10,562.36 crore in January.