Max Life Insurance Records a Growth of 31% in the Value of New Business for FY18*

Max Life Insurance Co. Ltd., a leading Indian life insurance company, recorded Individual adjusted first year premium of Rs. 3,215 crore achieving growth of 22% in the Financial Year 2017-18 (FY18). During this period the Gross Written Premium of the company grew by 16% to Rs. 12,501 crore, while the renewal premium recorded growth of 15% to Rs. 8,152 crore. The Company recorded shareholder profit (Post Tax) of Rs. 528 crore.

Max Life Insurance Co. Ltd. performed well on other key business parameters for FY18:

• New Business Premium (Individual + Group) at Rs. 4,349 crore, recorded growth of 19% while retaining private market share at 9%.
• Solvency Ratio of 263%, significantly higher than the regulatory requirement of 150%, indicating the Company’s strong and stable financial position.
• Conservation ratio was at 90% as compared to 89% in the previous year
• Claims paid ratio grew to 98.26% in FY18 from 97.81% in FY17

Commenting on the performance of the company, Mr. Rajesh Sud, Executive Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Max Life Insurance said, “I am delighted to share yet another year of strong financial performance of the company in FY18. Max Life Insurance actively leveraged growing household interest in financial savings and digitisation in India. During the year Max Life Insurance not only recorded increase in case size but also covered more lives than in past years which resulted in a robust growth in new business. Max Life Insurance continued its leadership position in online term plans as well as claims management. The increase in embedded value reflects high quality of our business. Our strong business performance has resulted in superior returns for both our policyholders in form of bonus and investment return in ULIPs fund and shareholders in form of dividend. At Max Life, we believe that engaged employees create happy customers which leads to great shareholder outcomes.”

^* The VNB represents the value added to the EV due to the new business written by the Company during the year. For FY18, the VNB was Rs. 656 Cr, calculated at actual costs, resulting into new business margin of 20.2%.

^**Embedded Value post final shareholder dividend

FY 2017-18 (April 2017 – March 2018) compared with FY 2016-17 (April 2016 – March 2017)

Revenue

The Gross Written Premium for FY18 increased by 16% to Rs. 12,501 crore with 19% increase in new business premium to Rs. 4,349 crore and the renewal premium recording a growth of 15% to Rs. 8,152 crore. The adjusted individual first year premium increased by 22% to Rs. 3,215 crore and retained market share of 9% amongst the private players. A growth of 4% in the number of policies has been recorded, taking it to 40.8 lakhs for FY18, in comparison to 39.1 lakhs in FY17.

Cost Management

The Company continued to remain focused on providing greater value to its policyholders through improvement in efficiency. The operating expenses (policyholders) to grosspremium ratio improved from 14.8% in FY17 to 12.9% in FY18 and the cost (Commission plus policyholders operating expenses) to gross premium ratio improved from 23.5% FY17 to 20% in FY18.

Shareholders’ Profit After Tax (PAT)

During the FY 2017-18, Max Life Insurance, recorded a shareholders’ Net Profit After Tax of Rs. 528 crore, compared to Rs. 660 Cr. (current year’s profit is less due to non-repeatable high investment income recorded in FY17).

Final shareholders’ dividend (net of Dividend Distribution Tax) of Rs. 163.10 crore has been proposed by the Board of Directors, which takes the total dividend distribution to Rs. 326.20 crore translating to 17% of the face value of each share.

Policyholder Bonus

Considering the surplus that arose over the financial year in the participating fund, Max Life Insurance announced policyholder bonus. The total bonus estimated to be paid out in the 12 months in financial year 2018-19 is Rs. 1084 Crore, an increase of Rs. 230 crore from the previous year figure of Rs. 854 crore.

Assets Under Management

The Company’s Assets under Management (AUM) of Rs. 52,237 crore recorded a growth of 18% over the last year. As on March 31, 2018 Rs. 35,139 of the AUM was in controlled fund and Rs. 17,098 in ULIP funds.

Embedded Value

The Embedded Value(EV), post final shareholder dividend, as at 31^st March 2018 is Rs. 7,509 Cr. The operating return on EV of 20.6% is mainly driven by new business growth and healthy experience on persistency & mortality.

Service Parameters

Customer retention is the best proof of not just selling right product solutions but also the quality of service a company provides to its customers which leads to better engagement. During FY18, the renewal premium grew by 15% to Rs. 8,152 Crore and Max Life Insurance continued its leadership in conservation ratio at 89.6%.The 13th Month persistency has been 80.49% with an improvement of 9 bps. The 61^st month persistency has been 52.5% this year.

Payment of death claim is the biggest moment of truth in a life insurance contract. Max Life continued its leadership journey on that front with Claim Paid Ratio improving to 98.26%. The company paid 10,152 death claims worth Rs. 353 Crore during the Financial Year 2017-18. Since inception, Max Life Insurance has paid Rs. 2,223 Crore towards death claim to 81,253 families. Customer Experience Index, a cumulative index of customer experience across key policyholder transactions, witnessed an increase in Top 2 box score to 81% with 5 out of 10 touchpoints having score of about 80% which is in line with global standard results. The surrender to gross written premium has also improved from 21% in FY17 to 20% in FY18. In addition, the Customer Confidence Index improved to 80% due to significant increase in Treating Customer Fairly culture to 91%.

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