HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited
13,431words
173turns
20analyst exchanges
0executives
Key numbers — 40 extracted
22%
35%
30%
25%
5%
6%
29%
31%
39%
23%
10%
96%
Guidance — 20 items
Starting with the business update
opening
“However, we see this as a temporary phenomenon and with resolution of the ongoing global conflict and consequent easing of macroeconomic stress; we expect to see traction in the second half of this year.”
Moving onto key operating and financial metrics
opening
“We expect the latter to reverse as macroeconomic volatility subsides.”
Next on channel performance
opening
“With these tech enabled initiatives coupled with capability building programs we aim to build a robust, agile, and empowered proprietary distribution.”
Now for an update on our subsidiaries
opening
“Subsequent to receipt of the NOCs from various regulatory authorities we can expect to receive the final NCLT approval.”
Now for an update on our subsidiaries
opening
“We expect to receive the final nod from IRDAI and to be able to merge the subsidiary in the second half of FY2023.”
Srinivasan P
qa
“So for the quarter, you will expect a positive 2% for one quarter as against that we actually seen equity fall.”
Hitesh Gulati
qa
“Should we expect this kind of a rate for the full year as well because last year’s rate was about 8.6%?”
Srinivasan P
qa
“We basically set the unwind rate at the start of the fiscal year and we keep it flat throughout the fiscal year, so next time change will be in the next fiscal year.”
Niraj S
qa
“So any change from this will be reflected in the investment variance through the rest of the year till we reset this rate at the beginning of next year.”
Adarsh
qa
“Just wanted to understand the tightening of norms have been there for about six months, so looks a little awkward and just want to understand from a little more medium-term perspective.”
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Risks & concerns — 15 flagged
However, we see this as a temporary phenomenon and with resolution of the ongoing global conflict and consequent easing of macroeconomic stress; we expect to see traction in the second half of this year.
— Starting with the business update
We continue to steadily improve our individual protection policy conversion ratios and will adhere to a risk-based approach to underwriting.
— Starting with the business update
We continue to look at overall protection growth across individual and group platforms in an agnostic manner since we assess risk as well as service members covered under the group platform at an individual level.
— Starting with the business update
Innovative solutions such as enabling cardiac risk assessment at the customer’s residence for medical underwritings furthers our motive of simplifying customer journey and provide best in class service.
— Moving onto tech and innovation
So that is why you have in the walk you will see, the expense impact having a 0.6% drag on the margins.
— Vibha Padalkar
I just wanted to check on the operating assumption change in the VNB walk that we have shown and also what is our view on unwind rates this year given that risk free rates are generally expected to be higher?
— Hitesh Gulati
Another aspect is that if you look at IRDA or respective company’s annual report and if you see each company and how they are retaining risk on their balance sheet, you will find that some of the smaller companies have shown a fairly steep rise in what they are retaining on their balance sheet.
— Vibha Padalkar
Now, we have always maintained that this has to be somewhat calibrated and we will triangulate between topline, whether it is a retail protection or anything else, topline as well as bottomline, risk management, persistency and it will grow steadily.
— Vibha Padalkar
The overall demand in the market for protection, the surge has also come down a little bit for the industry, Secondly, from a risk perspective we are also looking at conversion ratios that is improving.
— Suresh Badami
We have always maintained that retail protection will grow over a period of time in India and this is something that we will have to be comfortable with, so that we continue to balance growth with profitability and risk management.
— Niraj Shah
It is always difficult to exactly pinpoint, but my hunch would be that it is more to do with the inflationary aspects rather than the process per se.
— Vibha Padalkar
So that is 50:50 or 30:70, it is difficult to know, but the new aspect certainly is inflation.
— Vibha Padalkar
Also coming back to the earlier discussion in terms of the impact of higher interest rates on both savings and spends, ROP is seen as a hybrid in terms of buying protection but yes if nothing happens then money comes back.
— Niraj Shah
Now in terms of looking at raising equity, we might look at it depending on whether there are growth opportunities or we perceive prolonged stress in the system so that we feel little bit more comfortable with strengthening our solvency, we might do that.
— Vibha Padalkar
Two things have happened since then, Exide Life transaction yes and also the environment has become a lot more volatile compared to where we were talking about this maybe a couple of years back.
— Niraj Shah
Q&A — 20 exchanges
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Opening remarks
Vibha Padalkar
Thank you Faizan. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the discussion on our results for the quarter ended June 30, 2022. Our results including the investor presentation, press release, and regulatory disclosures are already available on our website as well as that of the stock exchanges. I have with me Suresh Badami, Executive Director; Niraj Shah, CFO; Srinivasan Parthasarathy, Chief Actuary; Eshwari Murugan, our Appointed Actuary and Kunal Jain, from Investor Relations. I will take you through the key highlights of our Q1 FY2023 results and would be happy to take questions post that.
Starting with the business update
We continue to maintain a consistent growth trajectory growing by 22% in terms of total APE in Q1 FY2023. This has enabled us to maintain our market leadership as top three life insurer across individual and group businesses. Our product mix remains balanced with non-par savings at 35%, participating products at 30%, ULIPs at 25%, individual protection at 5%, and annuity at 6% based on individual APE. On a total APE basis our non-par savings segment has grown by 29%, protection by 31%, annuities by 39%, par by 23%, and unit linked by 10%. Within the non-par segment our shorter tenure product Sanchay FMP continued to grow well and now contributes almost a fourth of our non-par individual APE. The prevailing high interest rate scenario augurs well for demand across our traditional savings products. While elevated inflation has not materially impacted savings products, premium flow into retail protection has remained tepid for the quarter possibly due to postponement of expenditure on acc
Moving onto key operating and financial metrics
Renewal premiums have grown by 19% supported by improving persistency. Our 13th and 61st month persistency for limited and regular pay policies is at 88% and 54% respectively, which is an expansion of 2 and 3 percentage points, respectively. New business margin for Q1 was 26.8% up from 26.2% in Q1 of the previous year on the back of profitable product mix and growth in protection business. The value of new business has consequently grown by 25% and is at Rs.510 Crores for the quarter. Over the past several years we have seen a distinct seasonality in quarter-on-quarter new business volumes and therefore a steady uptick in new business margins. We expect this trend to continue. Our standalone embedded value as on June 30, 2022, was 29,709 Crores with an operating return on embedded value of 16.5% in Q1 FY2023. The drop in embedded value since March end is primarily on account of dividend payout and anticipated adverse economic variances caused by interest rate movements and fall in equi
Next on channel performance
Our bancassurance channel grew by 18% in Q1 FY2023 based on individual APE. Within bancassurance while HDFC Bank continues to grow steadily, we are seeing strong growth momentum across our newer relationship such as Yes Bank, Bandhan Bank, IDFC Bank amongst others. Agency channel grew by 26% based on individual APE. We added about 9500 agents in Q1 and continue to focus on improving activation and productivity across our base of financial consultants. We are also taking multiple initiatives to augment our direct channels including geo-based lead management for increasing efficiency, AI based incentivization for promoting productivity and cloud telephony for simplified sales process. With these tech enabled initiatives coupled with capability building programs we aim to build a robust, agile, and empowered proprietary distribution.
Moving onto tech and innovation
Post the successful implementation of the initial rollout of our in-house automated underwriting engine we continue to expand its scope across a larger range of businesses. Tools such as MediEasy enable customers to schedule real-time video medicals and get assistance for financial underwriting. Innovative solutions such as enabling cardiac risk assessment at the customer’s residence for medical underwritings furthers our motive of simplifying customer journey and provide best in class service.
Now for an update on our subsidiaries
Subsidiary #1: we are delighted to share that our pension subsidiary HDFC Pension crossed the 30000 Crores AUM mark and has almost doubled its AUM in just 15 months. As on June 30, 2022, HDFC Pension had a market share of 38% maintaining its leadership position in the private pension fund manager space in terms of NPS AUM. Subsidiary #2: HDFC International, our overseas subsidiary has received an in-principle approval from International Financial Services Centres Authority - IFSCA to set up a global in-house centre at GIFT city. This entity will pool and optimize all processing activities of our international business. This is an important step for us towards eventually setting up an IFSC insurance office IIO at GIFT city which can cater to the overseas insurance needs of the Indian Diaspora. Subsidiary #3: Exide Life witnessed strong growth of 34% based on individual WRP in Q1 FY2023 and continues to enjoy a healthy product mix and growth across channels. The integration of Exide Life
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