BENGALURU (Reuters) -Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country’s biggest insurer, reported a 17% rise in third-quarter profit on Friday, helped by a fall in employee-related expenses.
LIC’s profit after tax rose to 110.56 billion rupees ($1.26 billion) for the quarter ended December 31 from 94.44 billion rupees a year earlier.
Employee compensation and welfare expenses dropped 30% to 66.91 billion rupees.
LIC’s policy sales in the quarter were under pressure due to new regulations, which reduced the charges policyholders paid if they closed their policies before maturity. The insurer had boosted sales before the norm changed from October.
Its net premium income dropped 9% to 1.07 trillion rupees, driven by a 24% fall in single premiums and a 14% decline in first-year premium collection.
Solvency ratio, the measure of an insurer’s ability to meet its long-term financial obligations, rose to 2.02 during the quarter from 1.93 a year earlier and 1.98 in the prior quarter.
Shares of the insurer ended 1.5% lower ahead of results.
($1 = 87.4790 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Nishit Navin; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)
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