LIC sees West Asia war hitting insurance growth amid lower savings

India’s largest insurer, Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), expects growth to slow due to the West Asia war, but hopes to maintain its “double-digit growth” target for new business premium, managing director and chief executive R. Doraiswamy said on Thursday.

“It is expected that every sector will be impacted by the crisis. Naturally, when people experience some difficulties, savings and that too savings through life insurance, can certainly have an impact, but we will try our best to see that we continue to move towards our targeted growth rate,” he said in the company’s earnings call for the fourth quarter and 2025-26.

Renewal premium growth is more likely to be impacted, he added.

LIC posted a consolidated net profit of ₹23,467 crore for the March quarter, up 23% year-on-year. For FY26, consolidated profit after tax rose 19.3% to a record ₹57,419 crore.

Total premium income grew 9.8% on-year to ₹5.4 trillion in FY26, led by an 8.3% rise in new business premium to ₹67,676 crore and a 5.9% increase in renewal premium to ₹2.7 trillion.

“Existing business alone can contribute to renewal business. So, wherever we have sold a good number of policies under non-single mode, there is a possibility for us to increase. So, we are taking all efforts to see that our renewal also grows by a decent margin,” he said, adding that the insurer is working on improving renewal premium collections.

The insurer declared a policyholder bonus of ₹59,726 crore for the year.

Market share shrinks

LIC’s market share shrank 0.4% in terms of premium to 56.7% and 0.7% in terms of number of policies to 65.2% as at the end of March 2026.

Doraiswamy said that how market share is divided depends on how the industry grows, in terms of new players. “Any market that expands and allows new players to enter will see market share being taken by every new player,” he said, adding that LIC would like to focus on how it grows. “We want the pie to grow. We want everyone to grow, and for the industry to be flourishing.”

While the removal of goods and services tax (GST) on retail term and health policies helped in boosting policy sales in the second half of the fiscal year, the impact of the surrender value norms implemented in October 2024 continued to weigh on overall growth, Doraiswamy said, adding that growth has picked up in FY27 and showed a good trend in April 2026.

“We have shown a good growth in the number of policies as well as in terms of premium income, and the group business has also done well. So we expect, as of now, we are looking at good growth,” he said.

He reiterated that he believes the insurer's stock is undervalued and that the strong performance has not been reflected in the share price. “The corporation as a whole and the shares have tremendous value, and we have always felt it should go up,” he said.

Hopeful that the market will start taking into account the insurer’s performance, he said shares should go up in the “coming days” but remained uncertain on the trajectory given the current “tough” economic and market conditions.

Shares of LIC ended the day 0.4% higher at ₹804 on National Stock Exchange. It declared its results post-market hours.