ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company Ltd (NSE: ICICIPRULI) Q4 2026 Earnings Call dated Apr. 14, 2026
Corporate Participants:
Anup Bagchi — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Amit Palta — Chief Products and Distribution Officer
Dhiren Salian — Chief Financial Officer
Judhajit Das — Chief Service Delivery
Analysts:
Swarnabha Mukherjee — Analyst
Supratim Datta — Analyst
Shreya Shivani — Analyst
Prayesh Jain — Analyst
Madhukar Ladha — Analyst
Umang Shah — Analyst
Vinod Rajamani — Analyst
Sanketh Godha — Analyst
Nidhesh Jain — Analyst
Unidentified Participant
Manas Agrawal — Analyst
Shobhit Sharma — Analyst
Ritika Dua — Analyst
Dipanjan Ghosh — Analyst
Nischint Chawathe — Analyst
Presentation:
Operator
Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd. FY 2026 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions]
I now hand the conference over to Mr. Anup Bagchi, MD and CEO of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Co. Ltd. Thank you. And over to you sir.
Anup Bagchi — Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer
Thank you. Good afternoon and welcome to the results call of ICIC Prudential Life Insurance Company for the year ended March 31, 2026. I have several of my senior colleagues with me on this call. Amit Palta, Chief Products and Distribution Officer; Dhiren Salian, CFO; Jit, Chief Service Delivery; Manish, Chief Investment Officer; Souvik, Appointed Actuary and Dhiraj,Chief Investor Relations Officer. We are also joined today by Amish Banker, Amish started his career in branch operations and has a deep understanding of the customer life cycle and organization processes and systems. He is currently the Chief Operations Officer and would be taken — will be taking over as Chief Distribution Officer from Amit Palta. Amit, as you would have noted in the Exchange update is moving on from the company, having spent more than two decades in the ICICI Group. We wish him all the very best for his future endeavors.
Let me start with some key updates. On the regulatory front, we welcome the ideas transition to IndAS which will align our financial reporting with global standards. This shift enhances transparency and market comparability ensuring that our financial statements reflect an improved picture of value accretion. On the economic front, in FY 2026, the Indian economy displays resilience, while navigating external turbulence due to trade tariffs and geopolitical conflicts. The stability was anchored by direct tax relief, GST reforms and RBI’s supportive monetary policy stance aimed at stimulating the domestic consumption. As a company, we also exhibited agility and resilience achieving a VNB of 26.29 billion with VNB growth of 10.9% in FY 2026 and work to deliver long term value to our shareholders. Our VNB margin stood at 24.7% as compared to 22.8% in FY 2025.
PAT grew strongly by 34.6% year-on-year to 16 billion. Life insurance products, particularly the retail protection segment received a significant boost partly added by the GST reform effective September 2025. The retail sum insured growth for the industry was higher by 2.5 times in the post reform period as compared to the pre reform period. In the current year, our retail new business sum insured reached 4.5 trillion led by 50.9% year-on-year growth in retail protection in H2 2026, demonstrating our dominant position in this segment. In the savings category, despite the external volatility of FY 2026, our AP remains steady and similar to the previous year. New business premium registered a year-on-year growth of approximately 10% to 248.10 billion in FY 2026. Our business growth has also been delivered on a foundation of risk and prudence and is exhibited in our resilient balance sheet. In FY 2026, we maintained an industry leading claim settlement ratio of 99.3%, with an average turnaround time of 1.1 days. Our early claims ratio stood at 22% best in class in the industry, highlighting our focus on quality business sourced over the years.
Our 13 month persistency stood at 84.5%. Our solvency ratio stood at 227.3%, well capitalized and much ahead of the regulatory requirement of 150%. We continue to maintain our track record of not having a single non performing asset in our investment portfolio since inception of our company. We remain committed to deliveries — delivering superior value to our customers by leveraging economies of scale and aligning our cost structure closely with our evolving product mix. Notably, technology and digital solutions have enabled us to increase efficiency, resulting in a reduction of 40 basis point to 12.1% in our savings cost to premium ratio during FY 2026. Our AUM stood at 3.14 trillion and our total info sum assured grew by 16.9% year-on-year to 46.11 trillion at 3-31-2026. In the same year, our embedded value grew by 10.5% year-on-year to reach 529.89 billion. To summarize this year as we celebrate 25 years of its service to our customers, we would like to reaffirm our commitment to deliver sustainable VNB growth by balancing business growth, profitability and risk and prudence. Toward this, we believe all the necessary levers continue to be available with us.
Thank you and I will now hand it over to Amit to take you through the business updates.
Amit Palta — Chief Products and Distribution Officer
Thank you, Anup. Good afternoon, everyone. As Anup mentioned, the past year was defined by changing macroeconomic landscape, shaped by both global and domestic shifts and additionally we also had a relatively high base of last year, particularly in H1. Quarter three onwards, the growth momentum returned with Retail APE growth of 10% year-on-year. This positive trajectory sustained throughout quarter four until renewed geopolitical disruptions emerged in March 2026. Despite these disruptions, we managed to deliver growth in quarter four with APE registering 9.54% year-on-year growth. On a full year basis, APE grew by 2.2% year-on-year to INR106.41 billion.
Coming to product-wise performance, our core focus area, retail protection, grew by 60.5% year-on-year in quarter four, resulting in a full year growth of 32.3%. With an estimated 13% of the addressable population currently being covered through retail protection, we believe this segment offers a multi-decadal growth opportunity. Group protection, which includes Credit Life and Group Term business grew by 7.1% year-on-year in FY 2026. Within that, Group Term business grew by 14.6% year-on-year and Credit Life business grew by 1.8% year-on-year. MFI segment which witnessed challenges at the start of the year has seen recovery from quarter three onwards.
Linked business APE grew by 1.6% year-on-year in FY 2026, impacted by volatile equity markets. Two-year CAGR for linked business APE stood at 14.2%. We continue to focus on increasing the contribution from high sum assured ULIPs in this segment. Such products are less impacted by market volatility, thereby providing stability to linked category to a large extent. The non-linked savings APE grew at 15.4% year-on-year for the first nine months. Last year, in quarter four, we launched a new product in this segment which had a very good response. This year quarter four, as business from that product normalized, non-linked business has declined year-on-year in quarter four. On full-year basis, the business and contribution from non-linked savings business is at similar level to last year. Annuity business four-year CAGR stood at approximately 20%. This business has stabilized at around 7% of our retail mix. Group funds business grew by 26% year-on-year.
Now let me talk about channel-wise performance. Agency channel APE stood at INR26.86 billion and direct channel APE stood at INR14.30 billion in FY2026. Together, these channels contributed 47.4% to overall retail APE. These channels have declined this year, primarily due to the high base of linked and annuity businesses in the previous year. In the agency channel, growth trajectory has shown consistent sequential improvement throughout this year. As a strategic priority, we have been investing in the channel from a long-term perspective. Our roadmap centers on micro market-led brand strategy and using technology and analytics as a productivity lever. By equipping agents with tools and analytics to automate administrative tasks, they can pivot their focus towards high-value, revenue-generating activities.
In the direct channel, focus will be to deepen NOI segment through GIFT City and scale up online channel through differentiated offerings. Bancassurance channel grew by 3.6% year-on-year and contributed 29.8% to total APE. Partnership distribution channel grew by 23.4% year-on-year and contributed 13.2% to APE mix in FY 2026. In banca and partnership distribution channel, our focus continues to be on adding new partnerships and improving the share of shop in each partnership. Group business grew by 14.5% year-on-year and contributed 18.3% to the overall APE mix in FY 2026. Today we have the strength of 2.42 lakhs advisors, 53 bank partnerships with access to more than 26,400 bank branches, and 1,500 plus non-bank partnerships.
To summarize, our primary focus will be to drive business growth through a micro market strategy in proprietary channels. By deepening our distribution, we shall gain access to a wider range of customer profiles which enhances our ability to seamlessly shift between product segments as per macro environment. We believe this will help us keep our product and channel mix balanced and deliver sustainable growth, irrespective of the market environment over the long term.
I will now hand it over to Dhiren, to talk you through the financial update.
Dhiren Salian — Chief Financial Officer
Thank you, Amit. Good afternoon, everyone. Let me start with some efficiency-related aspects. As you’re aware, we have undertaken various cost optimization initiatives in the past two years to make our cost structure aligned to our prevailing product mix, one of them being the use of AI/ML which is being embedded across the entire customer journey that is driving targeted demand generation, automated underwriting, improved renewal retention, enhanced customer service, and effective claims investigation.
Upsell programs and digital lead conversion, both supported by machine learning models, continue to contribute to growth while advanced fraud detection and early claims identification help mitigate risk and improve profitability. We have also deployed AI-led face matching between KYC documents and customer images to reduce fraud risk. Gen AI-based categorization of incoming custom email has significantly improved turnaround times and AI-driven medical summarization is enabling faster and more efficient underwriting decisions. Further details on usage of AI/ML across our processes is shown on slide number 36 of the presentation.
As can be seen on slide 12, the various productivity enhancements have helped in reducing cost-to-premium ratios for our savings line of business by 40 basis points to 12.1% in FY 2026. This cost reduction is after accounting for unavailability of input tax credit which is effective September 22, 2025. Our total cost-to-premium ratios for FY 2026 stood at 18.2% and remained stable at previous year’s levels. The company’s profit after tax grew by 34.6% year-on-year to INR16 billion in FY 2026, primarily driven by higher investment income from shareholder funds. This includes a gain of INR1.14 billion realized from sale of 100% equity shareholding in ICICI Pension Fund Management Company which was erstwhile called ICICI Prudential Pension Funds Management Company Limited.
Excluding the sale transactions, PAT grew by 25% year-on-year in FY 2026. Our solvency ratio continues to be strong at 227.3%. The improvement in solvency is primarily due to increase in profit after tax and realization from sale of subsidiary. Our assets under management stood at INR3.13 trillion as of March 31, 2026. Value of new business, VNB, grew by 10.9% year-on-year to INR26.29 billion. As you’re aware, our focus is on growing the absolute VNB, which we have been able to achieve through improvement in product mix and operational efficiencies, even after accounting for the unavailability of input tax credit.
VNB margin expanded by 190 basis points year-on-year to 24.7% in the current year. Margin expansion has been led by improvements in new business profile and economic assumption changes. Protection mix for the year has increased by 2.2% year-on-year to 17.9%. Additionally, we have also been working towards improving the profitability of each line of business through longer tenure policies, higher sum assured multiples, and increasing rider attachments. ]The policy term on the savings line of business has increased from 26 years in FY 2025 to 29 years in FY 2026. Retail sum assured has grown by 35% year-on-year in the current year. The expansion was offset by operating assumption changes which is primarily due to unavailability of input tax credit on individual businesses and some updates to persistency.
As shown on slide 16, our embedded value grew by 10.5% year-on-year to INR529.89 billion at March 31, 2026. Our embedded value operating profit stood at INR57.02 billion in FY 2026. The breakup of the EVOP is as follows. Unwind contribution for FY 2026 is 7.4% of the opening EV. VNB of INR26.29 billion is 5.5% of the opening EV. Unwind and VNB together constitutes 12.9% of the opening EV. Operating assumption change is 0.5% of the opening EV negative and primarily on account of unavailability of input tax credit and some updates to persistency as I’ve mentioned earlier. Both mortality and expense variance are positive for the year and broadly in line with our expectations.
Persistency variance is a negative INR2.64 billion, which is largely on account of the 100% premium-backed annuity product where the persistency experience fell short of long-term assumptions. As you are aware, it was an industry-first product and coincided with regulatory discussions aimed at increasing surrender values for traditional savings products. During the year, given the market volatility and tight liquidity scenarios where market returns were negative, we believe that customers use the amount for withdrawals in times of needs.
While we ensure that economic benefit was safeguarded from our company’s perspective, the future earnings which is part of EV was impacted due to the withdrawals. Consequently, the RoEV for financial year 2026 stands at 11.9%. The total economic and investment variance is negative INR7.78 billion due to a shift in the yield curve and equity market movements. Our VNB and EV have been reviewed independently by Milliman Advisors LLP and their opinion is available in the results pack submitted to the exchanges. Further sensitivity details are available on slide 17.
This concludes the financial performance. I will now hand it over to Judhajit, to talk you through the ESG updates.
Judhajit Das — Chief Service Delivery
Thank you, Dhiren. I will be sharing the salient aspects of our ESG journey. We continue to retain the highest ranking in the Indian life Insurance industry as per leading global and Indian ESG rating agencies. We are also delighted to share that during Q4 2026, we received the Platinum Award for our ESG report for 2025 at the Vision Awards organized by the League of American Communications Professionals. We were also recognized among India’s top 60 Most Sustainable Companies by Business World.
I will now share the key highlights under each of the ESG focus areas. Environment. We continue to look at ways and means of reducing our carbon footprint by erupting green energy across various branches across India. Apart from the LEAP Platinum Certificate which is a Green Building rating for the company’s — our headquarters here. We have also got the IGBC Platinum Green Building certification for four other branches.
On responsible investing, we are a signatory to the UN Principles for Responsible Investment. We have completed our third annual reporting on responsible investing activities and we shall continue to remain committed to promote ESG factors in our investment decisions. On the diversity front, our gender diversity is now at 30% and we shall continue to strive to improve it from here. As far as communities are concerned, our goal has been to increase financial inclusion through specially-designed micro insurance products targeting socially and economically weaker sections and we have covered 53.8 million lives as on March 31, 2026. This year, we settled more than 3 lakh retail and group claims with an overall claim settlement ratio at 99.8%.
On the CSR front, through ICICI Foundation, we have established skilling labs at four locations to facilitate advanced industrialized skill training, while in the area of healthcare, we supported the Indian Cancer Society to conduct surgeries for almost more than 90 patients. Governance. Our board has a majority of independent directors enabling the separation of the board’s supervisory role from executive management. I would like to reaffirm our commitment again to create a culture that embraces sustainability and goes beyond goals and targets.
Thank you very much. We are now happy to take any questions that you may have.
Questions and Answers:
Operator
Thank you very much. [Operator Instructions] We’ll take our first question from the line of Swarnabha Mukherjee from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Swarnabha Mukherjee
Hi, sir. Good afternoon, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. So I have three questions. First of all, just wanted to understand in terms of growth, how should we think about in the upcoming year given that this particular year how the growth has trended. I mean, it gives us a very favorable base to grow. So if you could outline your strategy of how you are thinking about FY 2027 and given that last year there was this launch of PAR product and you highlighted that which would have led to a slower growth in the non-linked channel. But what are your thoughts on the non-PAR category? How do you see it? And parallelly also, if you could provide us the mix for PAR, non-PAR for the quarter? That’s one. And then, sir, on the VNB margin side, if you could highlight, have all the persistency-led changes that you are seeing — you are experiencing, has that been taken into the assumptions or can something incremental come or if you are observing anything due to the surrender value regulation that you might want to highlight? And in that case then, how should we think about the VNB margin numbers? Should we take the current year numbers more a baseline if kind of the product mix sustains? So this is — yeah, I think, sir, this is broadly my queries. If you could answer it. Thanks.
Dhiren Salian
Hi, Swarnabha, this is Dhiren here. So let me pick up some of your questions. In terms of growth for the next financial year, I think this is quite a volatile time at this stage and I’m sure you would have seen the way the markets had behaved over the last month of the financial year. I think this is still going to be a bit of a wait and watch. You’re right. Specifically, for us, we do have a base that is good for us, but again it will depend upon how things shape up in the environment. So it’s a little early for us to commit as to what the number should look like for the rest of the year. But rest assured, the way that we’re approaching the problem is that we would continue to go granular, continue to understand who are these customer segments that we should be looking at, what are the product fits that we would need, work with our distribution channels to be able to deliver the right proposition for customers as well as shareholders. That objective and that process continues. There’s no unwavering on that front.
Coming to your second question in terms of what is the split between PAR and non-PAR, for the year it’s roughly 2:1 ratio. It’s been broadly in that range, some quarters a little higher, some quarters a little lower, but broadly in the 2:1 range for the year. Coming to your third question, which is on the persistency experience, see, our process around looking at assumptions and experiences is to look at what is temporary and what is permanent. And we do this every year towards the end of the year in terms of how these assumptions are shaping up. So whatever is known at this point, we will incorporate as part of our assumption setting. If there are experiences that we see are temporary in nature or they pertain to quarantined portfolios, we will allow them to go through the variance. So at this point, we have factored what we know on terms of persistency, in terms of mortality, and terms of expenses as part of our margin. So this essentially becomes the baseline for us going forward.
Swarnabha Mukherjee
Right. Very helpful. Dhiren, just a couple of follow-ups on two aspects. One is, on the growth, as you mentioned, I understand that this is a volatile year, but like if I were to look at from the channel side also, I mean, this year’s growth has been primarily heavylifted by our partnerships. So, I mean, what would be — what — how shall we think about, say, the other channels? For example, agency this year has been tepid. So how do you plan to activate or go about driving that channel? I understand that banca given the base of ICICI Bank, there might be a steadiness in that number, but particularly on the agency I wanted to query. And also like on the persistency part, in surrender value related regulations, are you seeing any delta apart from the annuity product? That’s what I wanted to understand. Thanks.
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So on the early experience of surrender value products, we’re not seeing anything too different, but it’s a little too early to call because we only got about five to six months of experience and we’d love the whole year to pan out for that. In terms of growth, you’re right, agency has not had a great year. In that sense, the growth has not been great. So that extent, it does form a fairly good base for us into the coming year. But like I mentioned, we will continue to work at it granularly. Understand what are these micro segments that we need to go after and work with that.
Swarnabha Mukherjee
All right. Thank you. Thanks, Dhiren. All the best for FY 2027.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Supratim Datta from Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Supratim Datta
Hi. Thanks a lot for the opportunity. I have three questions starting with the growth aspect. Could you help us understand how customer behavior has changed with respect to products post the start of this Middle East war? Are you seeing any increase in demand for non-PAR policies in this current environment? And how are you seeing the demand of ULIPs in late March and early April? If you could give us some color around the trends, that would be helpful because what I see is, in March, despite the lower base, the agency channel has declined. And this channel should ideally have lower ULIP exposure. So, trying to understand what’s happening here. On the margin bit, what I wanted to understand is, despite the rise in group funds in fourth quarter, ICICI has witnessed a sequential rise in margins. Is this a function of higher yields in some of the non-PAR products and potentially protection as well? Or is there some other driver here that we should look at? And lastly, coming to the Ind AS transition, now with Ind AS rolling out from 1st of April, wanted to understand, would you be sharing the Ind AS accounts from next quarter and how would this compare with the CSM in force? If you could give us some color and how does this change your capital position as well? If you could give us some color on that, that also will be very helpful. Thank you.
Dhiren Salian
Hi, Supratim. Let me cover Ind AS first. So, yes, technically we are live. We should be live with Ind AS, but as approved by the board we will be seeking forbearance for a year. One of the more fundamental points are that some of the decisions around how the inputs could be provided for computing the CSM. I think we still await some clarity from the joint expert group. The other thing also is that, this is too short a time for us to transition into Ind AS given the fact that we are typically live with our results by the first 15 days of the quarter. So we would need some time to be able to gear our systems up to be able to manage the transition there.
In terms of the capital position, I believe the regulator still wants us to use the erstwhile solvency formulas. So until we wait to see how the RBC gets implemented, we would continue with our current solvency basis on which we are quite strong at 220%. Coming to your second question that you had asked which is on margin, the margin support has largely come in by the growth in protection that you can see for the current quarter which has been quite strong in addition to of course all the improvements to profitability that we’ve been doing across all other savings lines of business, as I’d mentioned earlier. Your first question was on, what are the upcoming trends. Little too early to call, Supratim. I think let it settle. I do believe that the war in West Asia has to some extent impacted new business sales in the month of March. Difficult to guess how much it would be, but clearly there has been some impact.
Supratim Datta
Thanks a lot, Dhiren, for this color. So just wanted to understand, has the impact been more on ULIP or has it been across the board slowdown in demand in late March?
Dhiren Salian
It’s been across the board except for protection.
Supratim Datta
Okay. Got it. Understand. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Shreya Shivani from Nomura. Please go ahead.
Shreya Shivani
Yeah, hi, good afternoon. Thank you for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers. I have two questions, both on the EV walk. First is the operating assumption changes that we’ve taken. Is it only the persistency operating assumption or there are certain changes you’ve done with assumptions in mortality or expense, etc. And second is, I mean, it’s the RoEV’s. It’s at 11.9%. Now, I mean, even if I had assumed a zero value for operating assumption changes and a zero for persistency variance instead of negative number, I would still be at a 12.9% or so. So what is genuinely our steady state RoEVs that we should assume, because we are already under the cost of equity in FY 2026? And how should I think about it for that matter? Yeah.
Dhiren Salian
Hi, Shreya. So coming to your question on operating assumption changes in EV, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, it’s primarily on account of unavailability of input tax credit and then some updates to persistency. Now this entire — if you recall, this conversation has started in September as to the impact of the unavailability of input tax credit due to GST reforms. That has been the bigger component out of this operating assumption change. Now coming to RoEVs, yes, this — without the assumption changes and variance, we are at the 13% range. Now technically, on a longer-term basis, we should still be at the 13% to 14% range depending of course on how the yield curve shapes up, depending of course on how we’re able to grow VNB. And that becomes the two primary drivers of how you determine RoEV. But from that sense that Ind AS should be live, actually is live this year and if you get the forbearance, then we will go live on that next year. Looking at returns on earnings will become much easier when you look at the Ind AS numbers. The RoEV will have less significance going forward.
Shreya Shivani
Got it. Got it. So with Ind AS, it does not impact the RoEV whatsoever, but probably we will not be looking at the RoEVs going ahead is what your point of view is, right?
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. My sense is most commentators and analysts would end up looking at ROEs because then that would be at least comparable to how the rest of the market is or outside of insurance. Comparison becomes much easier then. For want of any other metric, we are in this RoEV world at this point.
Shreya Shivani
Right. And there is no impact whatsoever of IFRS on the EV walk, right? Nothing from the — even if, say, a risk-based solvency comes, nothing gets changed in these metrics, right?
Dhiren Salian
No. Risk-based solvency only determine your capital position.
Shreya Shivani
Correct. Okay. Nothing happens here. Yeah. All right. Okay. These are my questions. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead.
Prayesh Jain
Yeah. Hi. Couple of questions. First on — if I look at the protection business, premium growth exceeds the sum assured growth. How should we read that? Whether it’s more return of premium products that has come in or how should we kind of read that? That’s one. And second is more of a structural question on the embedded value where in FY 2024 we had a mortality variance, then in FY 2025 we had assumption change and now we have a persistency impact, both on variance as well as assumption change. This has been constantly negative for us over the past three fiscals. How should we kind of think about this going ahead and whether you all have stress tested the EV now to an extent that the assumptions are more moderate or more conservative and we could start looking at more positive variants or assumption changes going ahead? Just some color on that. So that would be helpful. Thanks.
Dhiren Salian
So, Prayesh, you are right. When you look at the protection sum assured growth, that’s been at about 48% sum assured on — so the growth on retail protection has been at higher at about 60%. The retail new business sum assured actually consists of both protection and savings. So you will have to offset the two together. So the retail sum assured is not purely protection because, see, by the fundamental construct of products in India, savings products in India, you end up providing 10x cover for most of our products. So that itself forms a sum assured that comes on board, right?
Coming to your question on embedded value and how we look at how our assumptions are being set, see, frankly, we run a very diversified portfolio and our approach to setting assumptions is to understand whether these potential differences between an assumption that we have set and the resulting experience that we see at this point, is that temporary or permanent. Now, the way you always look at the businesses that come in is, you group them into cohorts and as you look at each cohort, you are trying to identify whether cohorts look alike or do you need to separate these cohorts. And again, given the underlying variability of — the underlying diversity of our business, you have to start looking at each of these cohorts as they gain meaningful size. As there’s separation, you start to see assumption changes. If I had a homogeneous portfolio, then ideally you should not see any assumption changes at all or even variances. But given the diversity of the underlying business that we bring, you have to look at cohorts and you have to then start segregating cohorts as they start to gain size and significance.
So, in any case, as you look at the overall experience and assumption changes, these are marginal. There have been points in time when we had positive assumption changes as well. But overall you see that the business is being ensured that the underlying assumptions that go in are reflective of what we see today.
Prayesh Jain
Got that. And your economic assumption changes, could you split that between equity and debt?
Dhiren Salian
It’s largely debt. It’s largely debt. Almost all of it.
Prayesh Jain
Largely debt. Got that. Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Madhukar Ladha from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.
Madhukar Ladha
Hi, good afternoon. Thank you for taking my question. First, see, in the beginning of last year we were sort of targeting above or at least at par with private life Insurance retail APE growth. I mean, we’ve significantly sort of underperformed that level. Now going into sort of FY 2027 and onwards, what do you think should be your target and how do you think you will achieve that target? Like if you can sort of quantify any sort of meaningful changes that you are doing that will lead us to believe that we will be able to sort of achieve higher retail APE sort of growth, right? So that’s my first question. And second, also if I look at persistency, we’re seeing a decline for the 61st month, 13th month and also I think 25th month. So what’s happening over there? Third, with significant — I mean, interest rates have gone up, bond yields have sort of gone up. That should help our margins. What will enable us to sell more non-PAR or as a company, what — as a management, how can you sell more non-PAR would be my question? Yeah, these would be my three questions. And also if you can split your economic variance between debt and equity. Yeah. Thanks.
Dhiren Salian
Hi, Madhukar. I just answered the question on Prayesh. The economic variance is largely debt.
Madhukar Ladha
Okay.
Dhiren Salian
In your first question where you mentioned about growth, actually when you look at the two-year CAGR, we’re still in the range of 7%, 8%. Yes, it is not in line with the market. But then we continue to see — continue to work at a granular level to see what are those customer segments that are available to us through our distribution and where can we generate growth from. So we are not divorced from the market. We’re very — clearly we’re looking at working at least at the market and then look to work beyond that. Largely when you look at the market, the two-year growth seems to be in the range of 10% to 11%. We are in the range of about 7% to 8%. So some work left, but we’re not too far off.
You asked another question on —
Supratim Datta
[Multiple Speech] sort of interrupt on that. But if you look at two-year CAGR, then that may be the case. But if you come to more recent time, then last year’s number, FY 2026, would suggest that we are losing some more ground, right? So in that sense, there’d be more to catch up moving into FY 2027-2028?
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So Madhukar, we’ve discussed this earlier also. I think the focus for our company is to be able to grow VNB in a sustainable fashion, right? The large component of VNB does absolutely come from APE. So as you rightly pointed out, yes, two years slightly lower than market. But when I look at this year’s numbers in terms of APE at 2% growth, VNB is at 11% growth and you can see this consistency in the margin that has held up all through the year. I think we’re working at it sustainably to work at it granularly to see how we can deliver growth in a sustainable format. Your second question was on persistency. 61st month, we discussed this earlier. This has been due to a regulatory definition change. 25th month is a new phenomena. Yes, I think some of the spillover from the 13th month is coming through to the 25th month at this point.
You had another question in terms of how can we sustainably grow non-PAR. I think one of the challenges that we run up as an industry is that our product does get compared to what bank FD rates are. In the current environment, when bank FD rates continue to be fairly steep, the product that we price — the product that we offer does not look as attractive because very clearly the way that we set up our products is to price off the G-Sec. And so the return over the longer term has to be built off the G-Sec. There may be other considerations that banks may be using to set up their deposit rate. But whenever there is a dichotomy between the deposit rates and the non-PAR IRRs, then you will see customers swing from one to another.
I hope that answers your question?
Supratim Datta
Yeah. That’s helpful. Thanks a lot and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Umang Shah from Banyan Tree Advisors PMS. Please go ahead. Mr. Umang Shah, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Umang Shah
Hello. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, please go ahead.
Umang Shah
Yeah, am I audible? [Multiple Speech] Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. Sir, one question was, till FY 2024 we were giving VNB breakup among the various segments. If you can give that number for FY 2026 and FY 2025, that would be great.
Dhiren Salian
We align with the market on this front, Umang.
Umang Shah
Okay, right. Sure. That was very good. I mean, that is really quite helpful. But sure, understand. Sir, second question was, the persistency decline in 13th month cohort, has it — does it have a large part of annuity product or it’s across segments?
Dhiren Salian
A large part driven by annuity. There are of course some segments that we have seen some product channel cohorts that have not performed on PAR.
Umang Shah
Okay. And sir, when we have a persistency, which is worse than what you were expecting, does it benefit the VNB or does it not benefit the VNB?
Dhiren Salian
Umang, it doesn’t benefit. So the way we look at our assumption setting is that we evaluate it at the end of the year, we take a view as to which of these are permanent impairments. In that sense, for those we take an assumption change those that we believe are temporary, we allow that to run through the variance.
Umang Shah
Okay. Sure, sir. And sir, FY — so, no, I think that’s all. I think I’m covered. I’ll get back in the queue. Thank you.
Dhiren Salian
Thanks, Umang.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Vinod Rajamani from Nirmal Bang. Please go ahead.
Vinod Rajamani
Yeah, thank you for taking my question. So I just — most of my questions were answered. I just had one question. What happens to the negotiations that were going on with the distributors on commission and so on? Should we expect that they are mostly done? And if so, then could we see agency doing all channels, but especially agency being better in FY 2027? That was the only question I had. Thank you.
Dhiren Salian
So, Vinod, the negotiations and conversation with distribution, be it agency or otherwise, is always on. We look to offer the remuneration that is appropriate in line with the product and the pricing that we have built that is accretive to both shareholders as well. So at all points in time, this is a continuous conversation. There is never a start or a stop to this. It will continue. It has continued. It will continue and we will keep going forward as well. So it is a continuous exercise as we bring out new products and new propositions. We will continue to work with our distribution to see how we could deliver these products to the relevant customer bases in an efficient format.
Vinod Rajamani
Okay. So no conclusion so far. I mean, this was ongoing for some time. So there’s been no — what do you say, there’s been no agreement or something reached. How should we look at it?
Dhiren Salian
Agreements have been reached with all our distribution. We are where we are and you are seeing the 24.7% of the VNB margin.
Vinod Rajamani
Understood. Thanks so much. Yeah.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Sanketh Godha from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead.
Sanketh Godha
Thank you. I have a few questions just to start with. The uptick in the margin in the fourth quarter around 25.2% can be attributed predominantly to the favorable yield curve, at least in the month of March. And related to that, in the VNB walk, what we see as 250 basis point addition to the VNB margin due to economic variance, is it largely because of the yield curve benefit which played in the current year to bump up the margins?
Dhiren Salian
Sanketh, when you look at the yield curve and especially in the perspective of non-PAR products and which also includes protection, one has to look at what the pricing is and what the yield curve is and what is the expected margin that one wants out of it. So as yield curves move depending upon your underlying costs and of course this year there has been an impact of GST, pricing has swung in that direction. So if we have got a benefit of the yield curve, we would not have changed. We didn’t change the pricing.
Sanketh Godha
[Multiple Speech] basically moved in that fashion. Yeah. What you’re trying to say, that you did not change the IRR of the end consumer or to the end consumer despite the benefit and probably because of that thing the GST impact to some extent got negated?
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So if you look at the VNB walk, right, what we have called out is the movement across from 22.7% to — 25% to 24.7%. Now here the product repricing, whatever that we have done is all sitting as part of the new business profile, right? And all the yield curve changes are now part of the economic assumption change. So if I’m making any pricing changes, they sit as new products that have come on board.
Sanketh Godha
Understood. No, there is — my point was that you got double benefit, right? Your product mix also changed and on top of it, you got an positive economic variance number. But naturally GST impact of minus 3.9% would be there in the VNB. So just wanted to assume that the product mix moved favorably and also you took the benefit of economic variance to largely negate the impact of assumption changes which might be largely related to GST impact?
Dhiren Salian
You take everything together, Sanketh. So one we have been working very hard at cost efficiencies across the years which I spoke of earlier. So the benefit of the cost efficiency is something that we have taken on board as we have got our pricing. Because I’m getting cost efficiencies, I can continue to hold the price as it is now. This is ceteris paribus. Some of my cost efficiency was negated due to the GST impact. So technically I should have changed my pricing. But then I also had the improving yield curve which allowed me to hold on to prices at that point. Actually, if you look at the entire period, there have been very marginal price changes, that too in certain cohorts, not across the board. And I believe we had answered the question earlier as well. One did not expect en masse price changes to happen and that has not happened.
Sanketh Godha
Okay. The reason I was asking this question is that, given growth is becoming soft a bit now and probably if yield curve becomes much more steeper, which was very visible in the month of March, is it fair to say that to flip the growth, you will pass on some benefit to the consumers and maybe that could play a role for the growth. And related to that point only is that given we largely did only single premium annuity in the current year, given FRA lock-ins will be better or bond forward lock-ins will be better, will you go back to deferred annuity in a different format to flip back the growth given the economics are in your favor or in your industry favor right now?
Dhiren Salian
So let me give you hypothetically. If the yield curve moves downward, I will reprice, right? Your second point was around regular pay annuity. We do have regular pay annuities and we continue to sell those as well. Yes, it swung a little more towards single pay, but we built our regular pay annuity business as well and we’ll continue to sell that.
Sanketh Godha
Understood. And two more questions. One question is that, given it’s almost six months — closer to six months that GST impact was taken on the protection, have we started repricing or industry has started repricing the individual protection business to the extent of input credit not available or we still are on the old pricing nature only? And related to that is that given we had a very strong third quarter, now fourth quarter growth is still there, but it is toning down a bit. So the impact of GST which was there in third quarter, is it fair to say that now it is coming back to normal demand?
Dhiren Salian
Sanketh, you saw the 60% growth in retail protection in the quarter, right? So I think what we have been doing is working at this granular to make sure that protection growth continues. In terms of your question on how we would look at pricing and have people taken step changes, I believe, by and large, the industry has not taken step changes. You might have one or two players who have taken some minor increases in prices en masse price changes, that too again to a degree of 1% to 3% across the board. Most — we have stayed away from doing en masse price changes. We have taken cohorts and worked at those cohorts where we need to make updates to pricing. That has been our perspective how we could manage the entire transition of GST. And you’ve seen the numbers come through in terms of the 60% growth for the quarter.
Sanketh Godha
Sorry, maybe I saw a wrong number, my bad. Actually I saw only total protection growth number. So my bad, 60 is a very solid number.
Dhiren Salian
Yes.
Sanketh Godha
Yeah. Lastly, Dhiren, then if you are okay to give the mix of ULIP which has higher sum assured. And lastly just to confirm it back again, in your PPT you gave persistency, 13-month persistency product-wise that is linked, non-linked and naturally the non-linked part fell from 86.8% to 73.2%. So I’m assuming this is predominantly due to the zero surrender deferred annuity plan.
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So the non-linked personality drop is due to the annuity plan there. And no, we have not called out the split of the high sum assured ULIP
Supratim Datta
Okay, thanks. That’s it from my side. Thank you.
Dhiren Salian
Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Nidhesh Jain from Investec. Please go ahead.
Nidhesh Jain
Thanks for the opportunity. First question is on EV split. So if I look at March ’25 EV split between different net worth for this — in this presentation is different from the last year presentation. So is there any change in away from EV method — net worth methodology?
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So, Nidhesh you can refer to slide 63. We’ve called that out and given you a walk from 2022 till 2026. The key change is that the shareholder share of the MTM, that’s on the assets and derivatives in the policy of the fund, that’s been reclassified to WIF from the ANW. That is absolutely no impact on the EV, it’s just a reclassification between WIF and ANW. And this is consistent with how the market is looking at it. Yes, the MTM on derivatives and — assets and derivatives of the policyholders has been classified in the WIF.
Nidhesh Jain
Okay, sure. Second question is that if I look agency business, last year Q4 it declined 20%. This year again it has declined on a lower base. So what is exactly happening in this channel? Why we are lagging in terms of growth in the agency channel specifically?
Dhiren Salian
In a large part due to the higher base that we had of annuity in the previous year, that has held a base that we have to work against. Again, if you look at from a longer time frame, we still have a fairly decent growth on agency. But, yes, at the shorter-term it has been a bit of a challenge. But like as I mentioned earlier, we are looking at working granularly at agency, looking at these micro segments, building efficiency within the agency distribution itself.
Nidhesh Jain
And similarly direct channel is also lagged in terms of growth. This year last year also I think Q4 it was weak.
Dhiren Salian
Yes, that’s right. There was a base effect of the — with direct as well.
Nidhesh Jain
So in terms of expansion of these channels, are we planning to add more agents, open more offices or so — I’m just trying to understand how are we trying to, let’s say, deliver growth in these channels in FY 2027 and how are we planning today for that growth?
Dhiren Salian
So as I mentioned earlier, we are looking at these growth centers on a data-driven platform especially with the micro market-led branch strategy that we have again using technology analytics as productivity levers. So we will continue to work at it granularly Nidhesh and then I’m not walking with the fact that the growth numbers have not been strong. We’ll work at improving these as we go down granularly into each of these segments.
Nidhesh Jain
Third question is on non-PAR business. So since the yield curve has been quite favorable, why don’t we offer better IRRs to the customers versus fixed deposits and have some cut on margins but deliver better APE growth? Why we are not doing that?
Dhiren Salian
See, one of the things, Nidhesh, you should understand is that we get priced off the G-Sec. I think by and large insurers in India have been quite disciplined in their approach to actually work off the G-Sec which may not have been the case in geographies outside of India. The pricing of deposits does not really follow the G-Sec threshold. So to that extent, at certain points in time, when deposit gets priced extremely well relative to non-PAR products, which are anyway built from a longer-term perspective, customers can swing from one to another. So if you were to actually start to cut margins to be able to deliver on growth on non-PAR, it may not be accretive to shareholders. The whole perspective that we carry Nidhesh is that again look at absolute VNB. It’s not a question of trying to push one particular product versus another. It’s to identify what are these opportunities that exist at this point. And you’re right in the sense that the non-PAR offers you a great opportunity in sense that the yield curve is great, is steep and is able to give you a good IRR. But the competition that also comes about at least from a sticker price comparison is FDs which are still running a fairly steep rate. So to that extent, non-PAR does get subdued.
Nidhesh Jain
Sure. And lastly, if you can share the breakup of group protection within term protection — group term and credit life.
Dhiren Salian
Yeah, that’s in part of my annexures of this pack.
Nidhesh Jain
Sure.
Dhiren Salian
That’s on slide 56. Yeah.
Nidhesh Jain
56. Okay. I will take it from there. Thank you, Dhiren. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of [Indecipherable] Strategic Advisors. Please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Hi. Am I audible?
Operator
Yes, please go ahead.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Thanks so much for the opportunity. Just want to have —
Operator
I’m sorry to interrupt. Sir, can you use your handset mode, please?
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. Am I audible now?
Operator
Yes. There is slight disturbance.
Unidentified Participant
Am I audible?
Operator
Yeah. Go ahead, please.
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. On slide 64, the EV walk, just want to understand under the persistency and the other variance, the INR2.64 billion, how much is pertinent to VNB written in FY 2026?
Dhiren Salian
Sorry, can you repeat the question again?
Unidentified Participant
Yeah. So we have a INR2.64 billion persistency and other variants in the EV walk, right? I just want to understand how much of that is attributed to VNB or APE written in — policies written in FY 2026?
Dhiren Salian
Almost none. This is for the past book. Yeah. Yeah.
Unidentified Participant
Thank you so much.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Manas Agrawal from Bernstein. Please go ahead.
Manas Agrawal
Hi. My question relates to potential regulations on commissions. A, do we have any understanding of what is happening and when is it expected to happen? And, B, if there are like various levels of cuts to commissions, how would your margins and your growth assumptions change?
Dhiren Salian
Manas, we are not aware of discussions. We do acknowledge that the regulator has asked for data which we have provided. But we have not heard anything beyond that.
Manas Agrawal
Okay. And second question, let’s say the regulator does something, what would be the sensitivity to growth and margins on that front?
Dhiren Salian
I don’t know what the regulator is thinking on that at this front. So it’ll be a little difficult to comment.
Manas Agrawal
Understood. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. We’ll take our next question from the line of Shobhit Sharma from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead.
Shobhit Sharma
Yeah. Hi, sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I have question for Anup sir. Anup sir, if I look at our retail business growth over last two, three years, have not been that strong. If you can help us understand what are the key challenges which is impacting our growth. Does our cost optimization initiative which we have taken over the last two, three years are impacting our growth trajectory? And given market remains like this for the entire year and as we remain newly focused, how do you internally plan growth and do you think we can grow in line with the private players? And secondly, we have been very, very — we have a very granular distribution and agency plays a very important role. The share of agency channel has been coming down for the last two years if we look at. So is it because we have seen larger agents moving to the competition or if there is or there are any other challenges which are impacting the growth of this channel?
Anup Bagchi
I think from a growth perspective, I think it might be useful to look a slightly longer period and do a CAGR of growth and take volatility and base effects into consideration. I don’t think that cost optimization comes in the way of growth at all. In fact, in our industry, I would say that, since we run largely two kinds of businesses, one is protection-led businesses which are risk-based businesses completely and second is savings-oriented business which essentially either get priced off the equity return or get priced off G-Sec. In both cases, what you can give to the customer is less the margins and less the commission cost.
So with that in context, I think, like in all asset management businesses, one has to keep working on cost structures both on your fixed cost as well as optimizing on the commission cost and distribution cost, at least in areas where it is not adding value but it is giving top line. So there are always pockets in large distributions where you will see that there are larger payouts and it is not given commensurate margins or commensurate profits or profit pools. So that is a constant area of optimization that one has to do.
And then on the protection side, one has to be focused on the risk, which is early claims and make sure that your underwriting is proper and your pricing is better. So I don’t think there is anything sort of coming in the way of growth. We have to go more granular and you have to get back growth. There are base effects, which is I’m saying and like Dhiren had earlier said, if you look at two years, three years CAGR, even if you look at two years CAGR, we are slightly behind, but we do have to catch up.
I understand the sentiment in the group that we have to do more growth, but our focus like we have always said is absolute VNB and in absolute VNB, there are other levers in addition to the APE. APE is a very important lever not to say that it is not. But there are other levers also which needs to be flexed to get the VNB and make the whole business model more robust. So there is nothing sort of — at this point of time, we don’t see cost optimization or things like that comes in the way of growth at all.
Shobhit Sharma
And secondly, sir, on the agency channel, how we plan to revive that channel?
Anup Bagchi
I think agency channel we have had some large base effect two years back and if you look at CAGR a few years, it is running at 12%, 13%. And as the base effect goes, I think it will come back. And we are also certainly looking at micro market-led agency. So hopefully it will come back sooner than we think.
Shobhit Sharma
Okay, thank you and all the best.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Ritika Dua from Bandhan AMC. Please go ahead.
Ritika Dua
Yeah, sir, thank you. Two questions. On the —
Operator
Sorry, Ritika, your voice is sounding muffled. Can you use your handset mode, please? Can you repeat the question?
Ritika Dua
Yeah. I’m just saying that there’s two questions. One is that on the [Technical Issues] Nidhesh was [Technical Issues] on the reclassification on the EV side. So while Dhiren you clarified that it doesn’t have an impact on the EV but just could you just explain what we have done and the objective of the same to do it today? That’s one question. And the second question is that while I know we are very early days of IFRS, but just maybe want to hear your initial thoughts as to how the KPIs would be maybe in an IFRS world. So those are the two questions. Thank you.
Dhiren Salian
Hi, Ritika, IFRS, let’s wait until it gets implemented. As we seek forbearance, the current year will be on the existing IGAAP. Ind AS will form financial information which will be subsidiary — alternate financials. So let’s wait until that settles because we’ll have to recreate the OBS and then look at the quarterly financial asset being generated. Coming to your first question on this reclassification, this is just alignment with what we’re seeing the market at. Nothing more than that. The total EV does not change, it’s just alignment and there is no specific guidance on where this particular MTM is to sit. We realize that it’s better to align with the way the market is presenting it so that you have comparability.
Ritika Dua
And if you don’t mind, Dhiren, could you just explain the change again. I’ll obviously go through the presentation, but if you don’t mind could just explain the change again?
Dhiren Salian
This is the mark-to-market on the assets and derivatives of the policyholder funds. That is the component that has been reclassified. It’s just the mark-to-market on assets and derivatives.
Ritika Dua
Sure. Thanks. Thanks so much. Thank you. I’m done. Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi. Please go ahead.
Dipanjan Ghosh
Hi. Good evening, everyone. So few questions from my side. First, Dhiren, you mentioned on how you really go about looking at assumption changes and variances on the persistency and back book. Now, specifically you mentioned that once a select cohort kind of becomes meaningful from a size and scale, that’s when the variability can come out to be a meaningful number from an EV perspective in case there are some differences between assumptions and realities of life. Now on that backdrop you also mentioned that barring the annuity product also there are certain other products and cohorts where you have witnessed some challenges. So I wanted to get some color on what this products or cohorts would be and is it any particular mass market strategy or any particular product which is really driving this? Just wanted to get some sense of how all these things can shape up, let’s say, from the next two to three years also if your product or customer strategies kind of were to remain the same. The second question was on the banking channel. In your opening remarks you mentioned that you want to focus on increasing your counter share. So ex of ICICI Bank, now that some of the banker partnerships ex ICICI Bank have kind of increased in vintage, could you give some quantitative color on your counter share or at least the movement in counter share over the last few years or maybe this year? And finally third question is on the ULIP side. It seems that your ULIP margins have been moving up over the last two years due to the efforts that you’ve already taken, be it in terms of riders or having some issue. So how much headroom would you believe that you have in this category to kind of further scale up the margin profile? And just one small data-keeping question. You used to break up the unwinding into reference rate and real-world returns, if you can kind of quantify that number?
Dhiren Salian
Yeah. So, that again that’s alignment with how the market is presenting it. We’re not breaking the unwind up at this point. In terms of persistency, see, there are always going to be some products that are doing better than the expected persistency and some that are doing worse. The way that we have seen this evolve is that there are certain products and channel cohorts where we need to do some work where the persistency has not been in line. And that is the reason why we said we will keep continue to watch these and see how we could be — how we could improve these persistencies in the years going forward.
As Anup also pointed out, we continuously look at our distribution and seeing what adds value. Very clearly if there are cohorts that are not adding value, then we look to step away from those cohorts and if we are not able to fix them. So to that extent, there is a continuous rejig of our distribution of what customer segments that we want to onboard through specific distribution and corrective actions get taken along with our distribution teams on the ground. So I don’t want to call out any specific channel or any product. But there are some small cohorts here and there that we need to fix and that we continue to work at in the years as well.
Within the non-ICICI Bank, we did mention that we’ve had an increase in market share by and large. Again, a lot of the work has gone in across all of these partnerships to be able to drive our share. But again, it depends upon each particular shop what our share is in that particular shop. But by and large, we’ve been seeing a positive trend in terms of increasing share in most places.
Coming to the question on unit-linked and its margin, yes, you’re right. Over the years we’ve been able to improve the margin of our unit-linked by addition of high sum assured by elongating terms. But I think the way to look at the unit-linked product is, it is a very transparent product. If you’re able to add sufficient protection to it, it makes it far more meaningful. It is not a mutual fund product and that has to be very well understood. By making sure that you’re adding protection and propositions, specifically, you’re able to cater to various needs of customers and fulfill whatever needs that they set out. So that’s been our approach to product development and proposition set up for our customers. And we’ll continue to keep working at this and uncovering newer segments that we’d want to expand this into.
Dipanjan Ghosh
Got it. Thank you, Dhiren. Just one small clarification. I mean, in the persistency question you mentioned that you will be working through these products and customer cohorts incrementally throughout the year and going ahead also, right? I mean, is that the right understanding?
Dhiren Salian
That’s right. It’s a continuous exercise. It’s a continuous exercise. Like as Anup also pointed out, there are always going to be some segments that are not up to par. The point is you try to fix it because you start with the underlying proposition that is being provided to customers and the sales process. If it doesn’t work, then you stop selling.
Dipanjan Ghosh
Got it. Thank you and all the best.
Dhiren Salian
Thanks.
Operator
Thank you. Next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak. Please go ahead. Nischint, your line is unmuted. Please go ahead with your question.
Nischint Chawathe
Yeah, thanks for taking my question. Just on the protection side, on the retail term side, we have seen a lot of tailwinds because of GST and hopefully, we can see this continuing as well. Is this because there is a natural offtake or as the industry or specifically you kind of tailored certain products or looked at certain segments or probably made investments to grow the segment? And in that sense, probably if you could give some sense of how long can this continue.
Dhiren Salian
So, Nischint, if the question is, will — have we created new products and innovative products, the answer is yes. We have done that through the year by providing newer, newer propositions along the way. But I think one of the biggest tailwinds that we have got as an industry has been the GST reform. And that is felt most in protection, in retail protection because that’s where you see the 18% go up. So to the customer, you’re seeing this improved benefit come through immediately. In fact, this is not just for new customers. It’s also available for existing customers because as they pay the renewal, the renewals are that much cheaper.
So the way I’m looking at it is that it has actually helped create positive word of mouth on retail protection, because very clearly, I think this is one of the essences of our industry. Selling protection has to become one of the cores of what this industry does. In fact, we called it out also in the earlier part of our commentary. The retail sum assured growth for the industry actually was two and a half times post the reform than what it was pre-reformed through this financial year. So very clearly, I think, everyone, it’s not just us, everyone has latched on to this particular move. And it’s up to the industry to make this a success, which it has for the half year that we’ve seen.
Nischint Chawathe
Got it. Just now on — I believe Prudential is setting up a health business. So is there a partnership or any synergies between you and Prudential or is it run completely separately?
Dhiren Salian
No, I believe that’s a separate company.
Nischint Chawathe
Sure. And if — I mean, hypothetically, if prudential wants to move from health to life, do they need an NOC from you?
Dhiren Salian
Again, these are shareholder matters. I think we could restrict the conversation to financial results.
Nischint Chawathe
Sure. So those are my questions. Thank you very much.
Dhiren Salian
Thank you.
Operator
Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. That was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference back to Mr. Anup Bagchi, MD and CEO, for closing comments. Over to you, sir.
Anup Bagchi
Thank you. Thank you very much, everyone. Have a good day.
Operator
[Operator Closing Remarks]