New Delhi: The number of life insurance policies has witnessed a decline in the last three years due to fall in sales in the unit-linked insurance segment and general market conditions, Parliament was informed Tuesday.
"IRDA has informed that there has been a decline in terms of number of policies in the last three years...," Minister of State for Finance Namo Narain Meena said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.
"The decline can be attributed to fall in sale of (life insurance) policies in Unit Linked Insurance Segment which contributed to the growth earlier and other general prevailing market conditions in the country," the Minister said.
In 2010-11, the number of policies were 4.81 crore, down 9.6 percent from a year earlier, while business premiums rose by 1.42 percent to Rs 83,174.03 crore.
In 2011-12, number of policies dipped by 8.2 percent to 4.41 crore and premiums plunged by 22.12 percent to Rs 64,772.24 crore.
While in 2012-13 up to December 2012, the number of polices were down by 0.1 percent at 2.69 crore and premium were up by 3.96 percent to Rs 40,686.05 crore.
In order to revive investment sentiment in the life insurance sector, he said government has interacted with the industry players and based on it, various steps have been taken by Irda.
"...Steps have been taken by Irda which include notification of Linked Insurance Products Regulations and Non-Linked Insurance Products Regulations and permitting various categories of business correspondents to act as micro insurance agents," he added.
PTI
First Published: Tuesday, April 23, 2013, 17:41