State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Thursday reported a 20.12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit to ₹12,076 crore in Q2FY27, supported by growth in premium income. The insurer’s net premium income rose 16.2 per cent YoY to ₹1.47 trillion in the quarter, compared with ₹1.26 trillion a year ago. Net investment income increased nearly 2.5 per cent to ₹1.15 trillion. The annualised premium equivalent (APE) grew 3.8 per cent to ₹17,004 crore from ₹16,382 crore in Q2FY26. In the first half of FY27, APE rose 5.72 per cent YoY to ₹30,696 crore. Individual APE increased 0.31 per cent to ₹17,224 crore. The share of non-participating (non-par) products declined to 34.03 per cent from 36.31 per cent a year ago, while the share of participating (par) products increased to 65.98 per cent.
The management said sales of unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) tend to come under pressure during periods of weak market sentiment, prompting the insurer to sharpen its focus on protection products. “We launched a new pure-term insurance product in September, which has received a strong response. In the last few days of September alone, we sold over 58,000 policies under the newly introduced plan. Going forward, our key focus areas will be pure-term protection products, non-par savings products and the annuity business. ULIPs could recover if market sentiment improves, but our immediate priority remains savings and protection,” said R Doraiswamy, MD and CEO, LIC.On the impact of IDBI Bank’s proposed sale to Fairfax Financial Holdings on the bancassurance channel, LIC expects the lender to continue as a distribution partner. “The open architecture framework allows banks to work with multiple insurance companies. Therefore, even if IDBI Bank has another insurance company under its ownership, it can continue to distribute LIC products. We are also engaging with several other banking partners. Some banks have joined our distributionnetwork over the last two quarters, and their full potential is yet to be realised. We are confident that our bancassurance business will continue to grow despite the proposed IDBI Bank transaction,” he said.LIC’s value of new business (VNB) rose 17.14 per cent YoY to ₹3,710 crore in Q2FY27. Its VNB margin, a measure of the profitability of life insurers’ new business, improved to 21.82 per cent from 19.33 per cent in the year-ago period. The insurer’s expenses declined 1.13 per cent YoY to ₹15,061.5 crore in the quarter from ₹15,234.4 crore. Net commission outgo rose 4.9 per cent to ₹6,055.76 crore. LIC’s assets under management (AUM) stood at ₹59.60 trillion as of September 30, 2026, up 4.16 per cent from ₹57.23 trillion a year ago. The yield on investments on policyholders’ funds, excluding unrealised gains, stood at 9.04 per cent in Q2, compared with 9.33 per cent in the year-ago period and 8.28 per cent in the preceding quarter.
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