HDFC Life Insurance Company

“The number of individual policies grew 9% in H1, ahead of the industry. We expect to sustain this momentum and grow in line with the industry in FY27.”

“Those investments will continue, and we will continue with the objective of delivering VNB growth in line with APE or slightly ahead of it.”

“Other bancassurance partnerships also grew well, delivering a YoY growth of 13% in Q2.”

“Agency continues to grow faster than the company and the broader agency market, at 13% in H1, and our position in this channel has strengthened.”

“Retail protection grew 33% in H1, a two-year CAGR of 30%, with growth broad-based across geographies and customer cohorts.”

“Credit protect grew 19% in H1, with growth broad-based across portfolios.”

“The Pension business continued to scale, with assets under management of ₹1.8 lakh crore as of September 30, 2026, up 28% year-on-year.”

“With interest rates at elevated levels, this is an opportune time for customers to lock in long-term guaranteed returns.”

“Broadly, we expect macro conditions to remain stable, which in turn should support steady growth for the life insurance industry.”

“Variable annuities are definitely catching a new customer segment: folks who are affluent, folks who are slightly younger, and also who have a risk appetite which is different from customers that we've seen historically taking guaranteed, immediate annuity products.”

“With the yield curves moving up and the product becoming more attractive for the customer, we feel that is the biggest reason why the mix has become much more in favor of non-par and annuities.”

“But the 17-odd percent of the new business premium that you see is spread across multiple sources of business, whether it's coming through the NPS customers buying annuities or it's coming through people who have bought pension plans in the past and are annuitizing that now, or using the discretionary income to buy immediate or deferred annuity products.”

“New business margin was 24.7%, compared with 24.5% in H1 FY2026.”

“As the scale comes back towards where we are capacitized, we should start seeing some of those benefits coming into the margin. But like you said, most of it will be ploughed back into business.”

“We have managed to expand margins even after absorbing the entire impact of GST, which now gets baked into the business model from second half of the year.”

“On the EoM front, our expense ratios today are around 21-odd percent, , and a large part of that is obviously flowing through commissions, more than half of it.”

“With lower cost structure, products become better, surely. And also, is there a possibility of margins going up? That is also a possibility.”

“Our solvency ratio stood at 180% as of September 30, 2026, well above the regulatory requirement of 150%.”

“But we hope that by next year or so there will be some discussion and some timeline on the movement to RBC, which should help improve the ratio.”

“But till the time that framework is in place, we will continue to have capital consumption, mainly because we're writing profitable but long-term contracts where the requirement is the same and it doesn't come down even if the risk is getting reduced.”

“So, the board has approved raise of INR500 crores, and that would add about 4-odd percent to our solvency, which we are currently at about 180-odd percent.”

“We are pleased to announce our new bancassurance partnership with J&K Bank and we look forward to scaling the relationship, deepening our presence across its network and extending our reach to a wider customer base.”

“IRDAI's has given us this opportunity to expand the segment by allowing us to launch variable annuity products, which we had done at the end of last year.”

“Our 13th month persistency stood at 83% and 61st month at 66%. Persistency was softer on renewal collections in our unit-linked book amidst market volatility, and in a specific cohort of non-par business written last year.”

“IRDAI has released consultation papers on the economics of insurance distribution, which propose significant changes for the industry.”

“As far as the VNB walk is concerned, the operating variance is primarily on persistency.”

“Given the limits in the paper, the agency channel would be least impacted. There would also be some impact, but relatively lesser. Banks would be next in line, and the brokers and the corporate agents would be the highest impacted in that line of order.”

“Yes, like with any material change, there will be disruption, but I remain extremely optimistic once that disruption is digested by all market participants and the new norm emerges. I do think that we will be in a position that is stronger than today.”

“In Q2, individual weighted received premium grew 11%, ahead of the private industry at 10%, with market share improving 10bps to 16.2% in Q2.”

“This took our H1 individual APE growth to 9%. Overall APE grew faster, at 13% in Q2 and 11% in H1.”

“In H1, unit-linked products contributed 45% of individual APE, non-par savings 22%, annuity 12%, participating products 13% and retail protection 8%.”

“Our retail sum assured grew by 21% in H1, with Market Share increasing by 20bps to 15.4% in H1.”

“Value of new business for H1 was ₹2,037 crore, a growth of 12%, ahead of APE growth. VNB growth for Q2 was 15%.”