New business premiums of life insurance companies in April stood at Rs 9,981.88 crore, showing 37% growth over the same month a year ago.

Private players continue to grow at a faster pace as compared to Life Insurance Corporation of India, showed data from Life Insurance Council. Market participants said growth in insurance was largely due to the surge in group business in April.

The data from Life Insurance Council showed private players witness new business premiums at Rs 4,713.93 crore in April, against Rs 2,924.7 crore in previous financial year, showing 61.18% growth. While new business premiums of LIC stood at Rs 5,267.94 crore in April, against Rs 4,355.27 crore in the previous financial year, posting a surge of 20.96%.

Life insurance industry posted a 23% growth in its annualised premium equivalent (APE) to Rs 3,769.5 crore in April compared to the same month a year ago. While private players witnessed 26% growth, state-run Life Insurance Corporation of India achieved lower growth at 19%, showed data from Kotak Institutional Equities.

APE is the sum of annualised first year premiums on regular premium policies, and 10% of single premiums, written by insurance companies during any period from both retail and group policyholders.

"Private sector players reported 18% y-o-y growth in individual APE in April 2019, gradually picking pace since November 2018. Overall industry growth and growth of LIC was a notch higher at 19% y-o-y," said the Kotak Institutional Equities report. If we look at the segments, group single policies saw new business premiums for the April stand at Rs 4,815.9 crore, against Rs 3,081.48 crore in April last year, which is 56.29% growth.

While individual single premiums and individual non-single witnessed new business premiums by Rs 1,544.74 crore and Rs 3,079.22 crore respectively, In April this year, players like Birla Sun Life Insurance, SBI Life, Tata AIA and HDFC Life continued to see its APE growth in positive.

"HDFC Life reported a strong 30% y-o-y increase in individual APE after witnessing muted growth since November 2018. Overall APE was better at 47%, as its group protection remained a segment of focus," said the Kotak Institutional Equities report.