Page 11 - Insurance Times February 2024

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SBI Caps MD appointed as Investment income of life insurance industry down
IRDAI member 6.63% to Rs. 3.89-lakh crore in FY23: IRDAI
SBI Capital Markets MD & CEO Rajay
The investment income of the life insurance industry declined 6.63 per cent in
Kumar Sinha will take charge as insur- FY23 to Rs. 3.89lakh crore.
ance regulator IRDAI's whole-time
According to the latest data from IRDAI, the trends is investment income,
member in charge of finance and in-
vestment. including capital gains and other income from the life insurance industry,
were mutually divergent.
The appointments committee of the
Cabinet approved Sinha's appointment While the public sector insurer recorded 7.25 per cent growth, private sector
for three years. Sinha is a veteran insurers registered a 39.86 per cent decline in investment income in the year
2022-23.
banker who has been with SBI for over
three decades. Before taking charge at The total paid-up capital also showed a decline. As of March 2023, the total
SBI Caps, he was in charge of treasury paid-up capital of the life insurance sector stood at Rs. 34,957 crore, reflect-
operations of SBI, managing the invest- ing a 1.66 per cent decline compared to the previous year.
ment portfolio of the country's largest "This decrease was primarily attributed to a Rs. 1,850 crore reduction in the
bank. paid-up capital of Exide Life Insurance Company due to its acquisition by
HDFC Life Insurance," IRDAI said.
Premium should reflect in- Nevertheless, ten other insurers injected an additional Rs. 1,262 crore into
dividual risk, not average the life insurance industry. Consequently, the net impact on the total paid-up
capital for the fiscal year 2022-23 was a decrease of Rs. 590 crore, according
group risk: IRDAI Chief to the regulator's data.
Rising insurance premiums is a major Out of the 24 life insurers in operation during 2022-23, 17 companies re-
concern. Highlighting the need for the ported profits. Profits of the life insurance industry grew 452 per cent in
individual risk profiling, IRDAI Chief 2022-23, with a profit aftet tax of Rs. 42,788 crore as against Rs. 7.751 crore
Debasish Panda said data analytics in 2021-22.
should ensure that premiums take into
account the individual risk and not the
lator is nudging insurers to adopt the have been onboarded as both," he said.
average risk of the group. "There is
account aggregator framework, a con- In order to maintain an open dialogue
need to build an ecosystem where pre- sent-based architecture for seamless with the industry, the regulator has
miums are no longer one-size-fits all but
exchange of information. "So far 28 in- been conducting quarterly meetings,
are customised to individual risk profil- surers have onboarded as financial in- called Bima Manthan, with executives
ing," he said.
formation providers and another 32 as to take their feedback on different is-
The IRDAI Chief also said that the regu- financial information users while 27 sues. "Bima manthan is an excellent

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