ICICI Prudential Life plans to focus on expansion through protection business in India

The company's net profit grow 2 per cent to Rs 1,274 crore during the nine months ended December 31, 2016, from Rs 1,247 crore in the year-ago period.

The company reported that its new business Annualised Premium Equivalent (APE) increased by 27.6% to Rs 44.58 billion in the first nine months of FY2017 from Rs 34.94 billion from the same period a year ago.

APE increased by 46.5% to Rs 18.45 billion in Q3-FY2017 from Rs 12.59 billion in Q3-FY2016.

APE is a measure of new business written by a life insurance company.

The company said that its New Business margin (VNB margin) increased to 9.4% for 9M-FY2017 from 8.0% for FY2016.

VNB is used to measure profitability of the new business written in a period.

Commenting on the performance, Sandeep Batra, Executive Director ICICI Prudential Life, said, “This quarter was significant for the financial sector. Demonetization has not only enabled the country to head towards less cash but also facilitated a shift from physical to financial savings. We have always believed that the inherent advantages of digitisation like convenience, reach and efficiency would be imperative for a sector like insurance. We leveraged our digital platform to completely stop accepting cash payments at our branches since August 2015.

He said, "Our strategy of focusing on increasing margin through higher protection business yielded an increase in VNB margin to 9.4% for nine months ended December 31, 2017 from 8% for fiscal 2016 on the back of 122.1% growth of protection mix. We would continue to focus on protection business as we believe that there still exists a significant need for protection in India.”