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Profits of life and non-life insurers declined in 2015-16, and so did the total number of agents.
The life insurance industry posted a net profit of ₹7,415 crore in FY16 as against ₹7,611 crore in the year-ago period (FY15).
The premium income of life insurers, however, grew 11.84 per cent to ₹3,66,943 crore (₹3,28,102 crore in FY15).
Of the 24 life insurers in operation, 19 reported profits, according to the annual report of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) for 2015-16. The total net profit of the non-life insurance industry too fell to ₹3,238 crore from ₹4,639 crore in the previous year.
All public sector insurance companies posted profits. Among the 18 private general insurance companies, 12 posted net profit and remaining incurred losses.
The companies which posted losses were Bharti AXA, Future Generali, L&T General, Magma HDI, Kotak Mahindra, Liberty Videocon and SBI General.
Standalone health insurers reported ₹177 crore net loss during the year. Of these, only Apollo Munich reported a net profit of ₹7.46 crore.
Agents on the declineIn FY16, the number of individual insurance agents fell 2.48 per cent — from 20.68 lakh as on March 31, 2015, to 20.17 lakh in March this year.
The pattern of decline, however, was not the same. While the private life insurers recorded a growth of 5.61 per cent, Life Insurance Corporation showed an 8.77 per cent decline in agents.
LIC has the higher number of individual agents, more than all private life insurers put together.
As on March 2016, it had 10.62 lakh agents, compared to 9.55 lakh for private sector insurers.
However, the trend of falling number of life insurance offices has halted — the number climbed marginally to 11,071 from 11,033.
As on March 2016, there were 54 insurers in the country — 24 life insurers, 24 general insurers and five health insurers.
In addition, GIC is the sole national re-insurer.
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