Life Insurance Corporation of India on Thursday reported 49% rise in third-quarter net profit, as it moved more money to a shareholders' fund to shore up its bottom line.
The company posted standalone net profit of Rs 9,444 crore for the quarter ended December 31, as against Rs 6,334 crore in the year-ago period.
i Siddhartha Mohanty, Chairperson, LIC, said: “Our consistent and focused approach towards diversifying and changing our product mix is now yielding results at a faster pace. The same is evident in the rise in the share of Non Par business on APE basis to 14.04% of our total individual business for the first nine months of FY 2024. The fact that this is also accompanied by 200 bps increase in the VNB margin levels to 16.6% is an indicator that our strategic interventions are delivering in the manner that we envisaged.
"We want to make sure that every action of ours is value accretive to all stakeholders. We will relentlessly pursue our targeted product and channel mix with the support of all our employees, agency force and channel partners. We are committed to developing new products designed to meet the evolving needs of our customers. With our digital transformation project underway, we are confident of making significant improvements in our business processes.”
The PSU insurer's board approved interim dividend of Rs 4 per share.
On Thursday, LIC's scrip on BSE closed trading 6.5% higher at Rs 1,112.
The company transferred Rs 7,692 crore from its non-participating fund to a shareholders' fund for the quarter, it said. LIC had transferred Rs 5,670 crore in the year ago quarter.
The premium LIC collects from 'non-participating' policies, which have fixed returns, is parked in a non-participating fund.
Since 2022, it has been transferring some of this every quarter to a shareholders' fund, aiding its profit. LIC had said the transfers were to shore up its solvency margin.
Its solvency ratio, the measure of an insurer's ability to meet its long-term debt obligations, improved to 1.93 in the third quarter from 1.85 a year ago.
Net premium income rose nearly 4.6% as its total premium for December nearly doubled year-over-year after registering declines in the previous two months.
With inputs from Reuters