LIC paid more in settling claims than pvt peers

Mumbai: State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) paid out more as settlements against claims from policy holders last fiscal year, while private sector peers improved their settlement ratio, reflecting improved customer service.

The claims-to-settlement ratio — the proportion of policies paid out for every 100 claims — for LIC was at 98.31 per cent, recording a marginal improvement. For private insurers, the settlement ratio rose 224 basis points to 93.72 per cent, data from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) showed.

The industry’s settlement ratio increased to 97.74 per cent in FY17 from 97.43 per cent in FY16, and the repudiation ratio fell to 1.45 per cent, compared with 1.73 per cent in FY16. Life insurance companies had settled 8.60 lakh claims on individual policies, with a total payment of Rs 13,850.62 crore. The number of claims rejected was 12,769 for an amount aggregating Rs 657.77 crore. The number of policies repudiated by LIC fell to 0.97 per cent in 2016-17 compared with 0.98 per cent the previous year.


Despite a reduction, private insurers repudiated a greater proportion of policies compared with LIC. The private sector repudiated 4.85 per cent policies, i.e., for every hundred claims 4.85 were rejected in FY17, compared with 6.67 per cent in the previous year.