Good afternoon and welcome to the results call of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance Company for the quarter ended June 30th, 2026. I have several of my senior colleagues with me on this call: Amish Banker, Chief Distribution Officer; Dhiren, CFO; Jeet, Chief Service Delivery; Manish, Chief Investment Officer; Souvik, Appointed Actuary; and Dheeraj, Chief Investor Relations Officer.

Let me start with a key update for the quarter. We held our 26th AGM via video conference on June 30th, 2026, and all the items specified in the AGM notice were duly approved by the shareholders.

The board, at its meeting held on July 6th, 2026, has approved the proposal to rename the company as ICICI Life Insurance Limited, pending regulatory approval. The name follows the board approval of PCIL's request to change its status from promoter to investor.

The proposed name reflects the strength, trust, and legacy associated with the ICICI franchise. The company's core operations, strategy, and governance frameworks remain unchanged and continue as usual.

We remain well positioned to drive sustainable growth, enhance customer outcomes, and create long-term value for stakeholders. On the regulatory front, IRDAI has introduced regulations linking key management compensation with customer-centric outcomes and has issued a draft exposure draft on intermediary disclosures.

These initiatives are aimed at enhancing transparency, strengthening accountability, and further reinforcing policy protection across the insurance industry. We view these developments as positive steps towards fostering greater trust, improving customer outcomes, supporting the sector's long-term sustainable growth.

Macroeconomic conditions remained volatile in quarter one 2027, driven by geopolitical uncertainties, inflationary concerns, and fluctuations in financial markets. While some of these pressures eased during the quarter, equity markets remained volatile.

Inflation remained a key area of focus, with weather-related risks, including the potential emergence of El Niño conditions, warranting close monitoring. Against this backdrop, the RBI maintained a balanced policy stance.

Despite these near-term uncertainties, strong structural fundamentals continued to support resilient demand for insurance products. As a company, we delivered a strong and resilient performance, with VNB growing by 24.9% year-on-year to ₹5.71 billion in quarter one 2027 and VNB margins at 26.7%.

PAT also increased by 27.8% year-on-year to ₹3.86 billion. These results reflect the strength of our diversified business model, disciplined execution, and continued focus on delivering sustainable growth.

Our business model is built on two pillars: the protection business, which provides risk coverage, and savings business, which creates value through long-term engagement of customer funds. In quarter one 2027, our sum assured grew by 31.8% to ₹4.90 trillion, supported by a strong 45.7% year-on-year growth in protection APE.

Our sum assured market share stood at 11.8%. Retail sum assured increased by 45.9% to ₹1.13 trillion, driven by robust year-on-year growth of 60.4% in retail protection during the year during the quarter.

As of June 30th, 2026, our total sum insured sum assured stood at ₹48.06 trillion, reflecting the trust reposed in us by our customers and the scale of protection provided by the company. Notably, our new business sum assured has grown at a CAGR of 18.7% and 25.1% respectively over the five-year and 10-year period ending FY 2026, and we remain focused on sustaining this strong momentum going forward.

In the savings business, scalability and cost efficiency are key drivers of profitability. In quarter one 2027, new business premium grew by 21.3% year-on-year to ₹48.66 billion, driven by 13.2% growth in the number of policies, reflecting the continued expansion of our customer base.

Over the long term, we have delivered a new business premium CAGR of 13.7% and 13.9% over the last five years and 10 years ending FY 2026 respectively, demonstrating the consistency and sustainability of our growth trajectory in the savings segment. During the quarter, APE grew by 14.6% year-on-year to ₹21.36 billion and RWRP grew by 13.4% year-on-year to ₹15.38 billion in quarter one 2027.

We continue to focus on driving operating efficiency through leveraging economies of scale, aligning our cost structure with the evolving product mix, and investments in technology, digital, and AI initiatives. Consequently, our savings cost-to-premium ratio reduced by 50 basis points year-on-year to 13.6% in quarter one 2027 despite the increase in expenses resulting from unavailability of input tax credit.

Our growth continues to be underpinned by a strong focus on risk management and prudent business practices, which is reflected in the resilience of our balance sheet. Our claim settlement ratio remained strong at 99.3% in quarter one 2027, with an average turnaround time of one day, underscoring our commitment to customer service.

Our early claims ratio stood at 0.22%, best in class in the industry, highlighting the high quality of business we have consistently sourced over the years. During the quarter, we settled ₹13.06 billion of death claims and paid ₹33.60 billion in maturity and survival benefits, reflecting our continued focus on delivering timely financial protection and peace of mind to our policyholders.

Notably, in FY 2026, we settled ₹51.49 billion of death claims and paid ₹153.63 billion in maturity and survival benefits. Customer retention also remained healthy, with 13th-month persistency at 84%.

We maintain a robust solvency of 225.4%, significantly above the regulatory requirement of 150%, positioning us well to sustain future growth while maintaining financial strength. Further, we continue to maintain our track record of not having a single non-performing asset in our investment portfolio since inception.

Our assets under management stood at ₹3.34 trillion as on June 30th, 2026, reflecting the scale of our franchise and the trust placed in us by our policyholders. To summarize, despite ongoing global geopolitical uncertainties and market volatility, FY 2027 has started on a positive note, demonstrating our business resilience.

We remain focused on sustaining this momentum throughout the year. Our priorities continue to be driving sustainable VNB growth while balancing business growth, profitability, risk, and prudence.

Thank you, and I'll now hand it over to Amish to take you through the business updates.

Thank you, Anup. Good afternoon.

Let me start with product-wise performance. Our core focus area, retail protection, grew by 60.4% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027, driven by the GST exemption on protection products and various company-led initiatives.

This marks the third consecutive quarter of retail protection year-on-year growth exceeding 40% following the GST reforms. Consequently, the retail protection segment accounted for 10.5% of APE compared to 7.5% in the corresponding period last year.

With only about 13% of the addressable population currently covered through retail protection, we believe this segment presents a significant long-term growth opportunity spanning multiple decades. Our group protection business, comprising credit life and group term, delivered strong growth of 37.8% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027.

The MFI segment witnessed recovery after an extended period of moderation, while the non-MFI segment continued to demonstrate healthy momentum. Group term business also registered strong growth during the quarter.

Consistent with our approach, we remain focused on disciplined underwriting framework and pursuing opportunities that meet our risk-reward expectations. Ongoing global geopolitical uncertainties and volatility in the equity market influenced customer investment preferences during the quarter, leading to a shift in the overall product mix.

Consequently, the savings business mix moderated from 78.1% in Q1 FY 2026 to 72.1% in Q1 FY 2027, while the protection business gained share. Our savings APE stood at ₹15.4 billion in Q1 FY 2027, registering a growth of 5.8% year-on-year.

Within the savings category, our linked business APE grew by 6.4% year-on-year. In this segment, we continue to focus on offering wealth creation solutions that help our customers navigate market volatility while achieving financial goals and family milestones.

The non-linked savings business, including annuity, remained broadly stable year-on-year at ₹4.94 billion in Q1 FY 2027. The segment continued to operate in a competitive environment with alternative investment products offering fixed returns and fixed maturities attracting customer interest.

Within the non-linked category, we witnessed a shift in product mix towards the participating products. Group funds business APE grew by 42.2% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027.

Now, let me talk about channel-wise performance. Agency channel APE grew by 2% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027 to ₹4.63 billion.

Direct channel APE grew by 8.3% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027 to ₹2.86 billion. Together, these channels contributed 45.5% to retail APE in Q1 FY 2027.

As a strategic priority, we have been investing in the agency channel over the last few years. We continue to recalibrate the channel, with our roadmap centered on a micro-market-led branch strategy, complemented by the use of technology and analytics to enhance productivity.

We remain focused on ensuring that our cost structure is aligned with the prevailing business mix. Within the channel, we have been optimizing the product mix in favor of products that enhance business quality, improve profitability, and support sustainable growth.

In the direct channel, our focus remains on scaling online business through differentiated customer offerings and digital capabilities, and deepening our presence in the NRI segment through GIFT City. Bancassurance channel grew by 5.6% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027 and contributed 27.4% to APE.

The growth reflects the continued recalibration of business at some of our partner banks while maintaining a strong emphasis on business quality. We view this as a normal part of the business cycle.

Partnership distribution channel grew by 29.5% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027 and contributed 14.6% to APE. Both in banca and partnership distribution channel, we continue to focus on deepening existing relationships and adding new partnerships.

Our approach remains anchored in business quality, with mortality and persistency serving as key metrics that are integral to driving sustainable, long-term value creation. Group business grew by 38.8% year-on-year in Q1 FY 2027 and contributed 22.9% to APE.

Today, we have a strength of 2.44 lakh plus advisors, 52 bank partnerships with access to more than 26,800 bank branches, and 1,500 plus non-bank partnerships. To summarize, in the proprietary channel, our focus remains on driving growth through our micro-market-led strategy and scaling the online channel.

Broadening both our distribution reach and customer proposition, we continue to create a more diversified business model that is better equipped to adapt to changing market conditions. This will support a balanced product and channel mix, and enable sustainable long-term growth across market cycles.

I'll now hand it over to Dhiren to talk you through the financial updates.

Thank you, Amish. Good afternoon, everyone.

Let me now take you through the financial metrics. As a company, our focus is on growing the absolute VNB, which has been demonstrated with the growth in VNB by 24.9% year-on-year to ₹5.71 billion in this quarter.

The VNB margin stood at 26.7%, an expansion of 200 basis points from the full year FY 2026 margin of 24.7%. This growth in VNB has been achieved through an improvement in product mix and operational efficiencies, even after accounting for higher operating expenses.

Our product mix has moved favorably towards the protection business, with sum assured registering a strong growth of 31.8% year-on-year in this quarter, thereby supporting value creation. Additionally, we keep working towards improving the profitability of each line of business through longer tenure policies, higher sum assured multiples, and increasing rider attachment.

On the efficiency front, we have undertaken various cost optimization initiatives over the past few years in order 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, and that is driving targeted demand generation, automated underwriting, improved renewal retention, enhanced customer service, and effective claims investigation.

Some details of the usage of AI/ML across our processes is shown on slide number 32 of the investor presentation. The result of our productivity enhancements has led to cost-to-premium ratios for our savings line of business reducing by 50 basis points to 13.6% in this quarter.

The reduction in cost is despite the increase in expenses due to the unavailability of input tax credit. Total cost-to-premium ratio for the quarter stood at 21.8% as compared to 21.2% last year same quarter, primarily due to increase in protection business.

We monitor cost ratios for the savings line of business separately. Our objective is to bring efficiency in the savings line of business while we continue to focus on growth in the protection business.

The company's profit after tax for the current quarter stood at ₹3.86 billion, an increase of 27.8% year-on-year. Our assets under management stood at ₹3.34 trillion, and our solvency ratio continues to be strong at 225.4% at June 30th, 2026.

Thank you, and we're now happy to take any questions that you may have.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thank you for the opportunity, and congratulations on a good set of numbers. I have two questions.

First is I wanted to understand the total VNB margins, how it has played out for the quarter. If I simply put the product-wise margins, it looks like there's probably a lesser margin that we've made on the protection book.

If that's not true, then is there still some impact of GST cut on our margins, it's great margins, but it could have been even higher with the kind of growth that you've come up with. What is it in the margins?

Is there some product-level slowdown in margins or still a drag of GST cut? That's my first question.

My second question is on non-par sales. Any outlook on how we are planning to go about non-par for the rest of the year?

Have we stayed away due to the price war, or we are still focused on bringing more efficiency, we have still not scaled up? Those will be my two questions.

Hi, Shreya. This is Dhiren.

On your first question of VNB margin, it's largely explained due to the product mix. Again, you'll have to consider that we don't have the GST availability in this quarter, and this is the third quarter where we've had the impact of the GST non-availability, input tax credit non-availability.

You have to factor that in as you look at the margins, but it's largely being explained by the product mix.

Can you quantify how much drag we are still seeing? It will continue for one more quarter till we have it in the base in 3Q?

That's right. Shreya.

It'll continue for another quarter. That also will then form part of the base as we get into quarter three and quarter four.

Right?

Sorry.

Not quantifying.

Sure.

On your second question on non-par, no, we're not staying away from the market, but the environment is such that there are products on the fixed income side that, at this point, are little more lucrative for the customer when compared to some of our products purely from a sticker price perspective. Again, this is the environment that the customer is living in.

As time goes by and we see some sort of tempering of those alternative investments, we should start to see some pickup on the non-par side as well. Nonetheless, we look at every opportunity to be able to give value back to customers.

We're constantly looking at all of our non-par products, looking at various tenures, looking at various segments, and we keep repricing as is available at that point in time. We're not staying away from it, but the environment is such that pickup of non-par is quite subdued relative to previous periods.

Right. The alternative products that you're talking about, is it more fixed deposit, more pension products?

Largely fixed deposits. The sticker price of some of these products is extremely high.

That does tend to attract customers when they see this sticker price in any of the distribution shops.

Right. Just a follow-up on the overall VNB margins.

This is a great start for the year, but sustainably, what is our aim? Where are we going to keep our margins for the year and for maybe the medium term?

No, good question, Shreya. We don't have a margin fixation.

We've gone over that answer before as well. Absolute VNB is what we look at growing, and in this period, we've grown VNB by 25% on the back of the growth in protection.

Absolute VNB is what we will continue to focus on. Clearly, we see a lot of opportunity on the protection space.

The good part is I'm not so fussed about how the retail protection growth rate numbers are of course, they're elevated at 50, 60%. The fact is, we've now been able to get all distribution channels to sell protection in significantly larger volumes than what was being sold over a year back.

The endeavor would be to continue to hold these levels and increase going forward so that we continue to take the advantage of the opportunity that exists in the protection. Within the savings space, as we've discussed before, we'll allow the market to dictate which direction that we get the product mix to move, but we've also ensured that our cost structures are nimble enough to be able to align with the prevailing product mix.

Margin is not a fixation for us. It's growth in absolute VNB that we will continue to focus on.

No change in the strategy there.

Right. Are we giving out any guidance?

Last quarter you said things were still very volatile on the macro. No.

No guidance.

Thank you so much. All the best.

Thanks, Shreya.

Hi. I have two questions essentially.

One is you've applied for reclassification of Prudential

Just give me a moment. Am I audible now?

I'll come back in the queue.

Hi, sir. Good afternoon and congrats on a good set of numbers.

Firstly, on the margin side, Dhiren, as you mentioned that it is product mix, just wanted to check that anything else to read into. Your thoughts on, going forward if we are seeing, say, a higher growth on the traditional side, on the savings side, could this normalize?

If you can share your thoughts on that. Along side that, just wanted to check that our growth in the month of June, the pickup in growth, what led to that growth and what product mix is leading to that growth, and does it continue in July?

If you can give some color on that, that'll be very useful. Second is I just wanted to understand the growth in the partnership distribution channel, what products are driving that and what are you doing differently now which is leading to that growth.

Same thing for your comment on the protection business. As you mentioned that you are now able to push more protection products through multiple channels, apart from the GST-led tailwind, what other efforts are going into driving this?

Those would be my questions. Thanks.

Hi, Swarnabha. Dhiren here.

Margin, I explained in the previous question as well, it's largely product mix. There is, of course, the impact of unavailability of GST input tax credit that exists.

Looking at all of it, this is where we land up at. I didn't quite get your question on what is normalized trajectory for traditional.

Maybe if you want to clarify that, I can attempt to answer that.

Yeah. Sir, this particular quarter, we have seen a softer growth print on the savings side of products, I just wanted to check that once that, say, going forward, as that picks up, then should we also expect a normalization in all these trends?

One should, because one of the challenges that we've seen in this current quarter and the last quarter as well has been around the non-participating product, and which is what I explained in the previous question as well, some of the reasons why the non-par pickup has not been as strong. In Q1 last year, non-par had done exceedingly well.

In that sense, we're working off that base, and in the current context, current environment, non-par is really not selling at this stage. That's creating this bit of drag in terms of where the overall traditional growth is.

Like I also explained in the previous question, if the alternative investments do tend to become a little more benign in terms of rates, then we should start to see some of the pickup on non-par. As I also explained, we will look at every opportunity that we can to be able to position our non-par products from a longer term perspective, look at what are the rates that we could offer, and look at building that category as well.

Coming to your second question in terms of growth, I think it's sometimes very difficult to read month to month. This is anyway a long-term business.

Our effort is to make sure that we keep growing every month, but there can be volatility in the growth as you look at it from month to month, but our endeavor would be to keep it as smooth as we can. In terms of July early numbers, yes, it's too early in the month, but, yes, it continues to do well.

In terms of partnership distribution, I think a lot of work has happened across the quarters, which you're starting to see the outputs at this stage. There is fair degree of protection business also sits within it.

That has also contributed to the growth that you see here. Again, the point is we've got 1,000-plus partners, and we keep continuing and diversifying this channel to become as large as we can.

In fact, we look at the long term for this particular channel, this actually has delivered a near 20% CAGR over the last five years. We continue to grow as much as we can, keep working with our partners and ensuring that we've got all products and propositions that work in each of these customer segments.

To your question on what are we doing on protection, we can't claim all the credit. There is, of course, the environmental tailwind of protection due to the GST impact, but we should claim credit for being able to socialize this across all channels and look at embedding this as part of our sales culture.

There are a variety of propositions also that we have launched in this period. Some of these are the pre-approved sum assured, which are exclusively for certain sets of customers.

Again, these are identified cohorts that we're working with. There is a lot of work that we've done on the onboarding stage, where we continue to deliver quarter after quarter improvement in terms of the frictionless onboarding that we're working through, leveraging digital income validation that's available with external agencies, and in all look at making sure that the onboarding of protection is as smooth as possible without letting go of any of the guardrails.

What you're starting to see at this point is a culmination of efforts across multiple quarters, and we're quite happy to take the benefit at this stage. The work's not done.

We will keep working at it going ahead as well.

Understood, sir. Very helpful.

Just one quick question if I can squeeze, in terms of the persistency trends, how should we read because there looks to be marginally softening year-on-year, if you could highlight. No,

across the quarter, you've seen that stability. It was 84.5% as we left March, and it's 84% at this point.

Right. Best to read quarter on quarter, right?

Yeah. You should see it sequentially as you see across the quarter.

Okay. Understood.

Very helpful, sir. Thank you so much, and all the best for the coming quarters.

Thank you.

Hi. Good afternoon.

Thanks for the opportunity. A couple of questions.

Now, first one would be more on banca. Now Prudential is exiting as promoter, and Standard Chartered is part of their Asia exclusive deal with Prudential.

What is current state of your agreement with Standard Chartered? Is it going to be available like Standard Chartered India going the open architecture way and you being one of the insurer there, or it will go exclusively to the Prudential India entity the way they have agreement across Asia?

Far, how that channel has been doing. Related to that, there is another bank where the group has now got a insurance company of its own.

The question is that, okay, your business, has changed your countersale or growth in that particular bank because now it also has in-house kind of. These are the kind of question around banca.

The second question would be more around as you have many time clarified, the margin is not of fixation, but just going by how kind of the year progresses, the Q1 typically has a very, very heavy protection contribution. One, this time, of course, individual protection is growing very strongly and typically the GTI credit life, relatively, Q1 is there, GTI particularly.

Now, as the year progresses, typically in H2, your retail protection will moderate from that base because last year, it has started to pick up, and then, of course, protection typically from 28% might end up somewhere lower. In that context, you see at least for this year the margin to hold up at these levels or because the product mix naturally going away a bit from protection, it will moderate from here on?

Thanks.

I'll just take your second question first, Avinash. Again, we don't have a margin fixation.

It's absolute VNB that we're looking to drive. If you look at it, you're right.

Typically, protection is higher in the initial part because savings has not grown as such. Protection tends to be a little more evened out relative to savings.

We're going to continue to use every opportunity to that we can to be able to grow protection. One of the more important things is that as you look into the second half of the year, also you will see us a uptick that will come through because of MFI business, which is part of our credit life business.

That had not done so well for most of last year, we should start to see the benefits of that as we look at the base effect into the later part of the year as well. Again, no margin fixation.

We will take the margin as it comes. Absolute VNB growth is what we're looking at.

Coming to your first question on Standard Chartered, now Standard Chartered has been a partner with us for the last 10 years, right? In this decade, we have built a deeply integrate relationship that spans not just products, spans technology, processes, and customer service.

Now, both these organizations, both StanChart and us, value this partnership very much, and we're focused on delivering the best outcomes for the customers. Having said that, all distribution partners are important to us, and one of our stated objectives is that we have to be the most partnerable life insurance company.

We continue to invest in areas such as seamless onboarding, digital capabilities, strong customer service support, product propositions, and we keep doing this with each of our partners. Now, that has helped us build this highly diversified base of distribution that you see with over 52 banks, 1,500 partnerships across the partnership distribution space.

In that sense, we are very well diversified. The largest single channel for us is ICICI Bank, and outside of that, most channels contribute 5% and less for our business, most single distribution engines.

In that sense, they're very, very diversified. In that sense, we are very resilient from our distribution footprint perspective, and in in terms of what StanChart would do, I think they value the distribution partnership that they have with us, and we continue to look at building it going forward.

Okay. Got it.

Thanks.

Hi. Congrats on a good set of numbers.

Just a few questions. Firstly, could you highlight as to what is the kind of expense trajectory that you would have built out and how is it kind of playing out?

Is there a operating leverage benefit coming out in the margins today? That would be point number one.

Point number two is again harping a bit more on protection. In the second half of FY 2027, would have a high base effect on protection, at least on the retail protection side.

You kind of alluded that the MFI growth will come through, but do you think that the high base effect will kind of lower down the growth or margins in the second half as the product mix kind of shifts towards probably more non-protection kind of businesses? Third would be on your partner growth again, right?

You've seen a very strong growth. Now, generally that would come at higher costs, I would presume.

In that sense, in spite of that, the margin seems to have kind of held up really well. Dhiren, just trying to pull up if you're talking about a target of growth in VNB, if you could allude to that number, is whether it's 20 to 24%, 25% that you're looking at for this year.

Those would be my questions. Thanks.

Hi, Prayesh. In terms of the expenses that we've seen for the current quarter, clearly there is an elevation due to the unavailability of input tax credit, but we've been able to mitigate some of that through some of the cost initiatives that we've been doing across the past couple of years.

We are seeing the benefits of all of those. I also spoke briefly about the outcomes that you've seen in terms of the AI/ML.

A lot of work that we've done on the tech space, digital space, analytical space, all of that is helping us improve the cost efficiency that we have, and we continue to feed that back into our margins. To your second question on what does the protection mix look like in the second half of the year, you're right.

Protection does come across a fairly steep base as we come into the second half of the year, and that base effect goes away. If the question is will I expect to see a 60-plus percent growth in the second half of the year, very unlikely.

This, of course, is elevated because of carrying through the levels that we have built up over quarter three and quarter four. Our endeavor would be to keep these levels of protection on production level where they are and continue to build on growth on that.

Of course, the growth of that is expected to taper down. Again, I keep looking at the opportunity.

This is an area that we continuously focus on. Protection is a core focus area for us.

Clearly, this is a multi-decadal opportunity, and the endeavor on our part is to make sure every part of our distribution is getting more and more immersed about selling protection and to be able to drive the momentum of this forward. To your other question on partnership distribution, I think you're going in assumption is that partnership distribution is a low-margin business.

I would beg to differ there. It just depends upon what products you sell, because you have to tailor-make the product for the customers that you have access to.

If you sell the wrong product to the wrong customer set, then you end up with poorer outcomes, specially when you look at persistency. When you have got that tailor-made, then you end up getting decent outcomes.

Dhiren, just anything on VNB growth, that 20, 25% is a good assumption for this year?

No guidance on that, Prayesh.

Great. Thank you, and all the best.

Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, Dhiren, just one small clarification. Means tomorrow, Prudential becomes fully promoter of Bharti AXA.

You are confident that StanC will still remain an open architecture and you will continue to do business with StanC, or it will be a full migration of StanC to new company? Any color or any discussions you had with the bank on these lines?

Sanketh, this is a question that's best answered by StanC, but let me give you our perspective on this. As I had mentioned to answer to a previous question, this is a partnership that we've developed over the last 10 years, and again the deep integration across technology, products, processes, customer service is not something that is trivial.

It does take a lot of effort across both teams to be able to sit down at the table together and build solutions that benefit both parties while keeping customer at the center of everything that you do, and that is something that StanC and us are extremely focused on. Both of us value the partnership, and we're clear that we deliver the best outcomes for customers while ensuring that delivers value for both the partners as well.

I think that gives you a sense of what we think about StanC and what StanC also thinks about us.

Understood. My second question is on the protection business.

Because last time when the GST thing happened, you guys or industry in general has not changed the prices of the protection business despite input credit not availability or a drag. Have you guys or in general industry has moved to a direction to reprice the product to the extent of negating the impact?

If you intend to do it in couple of quarters when, as you highlighted, that growth might slow down on a bigger base in second half, that can be seen as a additional lever for the margin to you and to the industry in second half?

Let me give you our perspective on this. When the GST change had happened, we saw this as a customer trust enhancing move, and we had repeatedly told on call as well that we have to take advantage of this opportunity.

Whatever we have to do, we will do that over a longer period of time. If you were expecting en masse price changes, that has not happened, and we don't expect that at all.

There will be certain segments that we will do repricing at, and these will be specific segments where we think we're not getting enough value, and there is a sufficient cushion that's on the table that we could reprice our products at. Anyway, this is a continuous exercise.

We continuously look at what are these cohorts that we need to reprice, and we treat this as business as usual. Now, very clearly, I don't expect the industry also to have any en masse price changes, even as you get into the second half of the year.

Understood. Lastly, on some data keeping questions.

Whether annuity growth, what you saw, 33% in the quarter year-on-year, is largely single-premium-led? Second, if you can give a broader mix of non-linked savings broken down into par and non-par.

You alluded that it is more par-heavy, but if you can give a broader color where it is standing, that will be useful.

Annuity in this quarter is led by regular premium as compared to what we had seen in the previous quarter. In terms of par, non-par, we're about 2:1 on the par to non-par ratio at this point.

Understood. When you say regular premium, naturally we did not sell that product, which is zero surrender charges product, right?

We went back to the same regular premium deferred annuity plan.

This is the regular deferred annuity plan.

Okay. Perfect.

That's it from my side. Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah. Thanks for I have two questions.

One is on annuity and also protection. They've both done well.

Have you tapped into newer channels and so on? Just some color on what additional say, distribution capabilities you have employed during this quarter.

That's question one. Second is so I track NBFCs as well, post January of next year, I suppose the regulator is allowing NBFCs to distribute say, insurance products they have just take approval from IRDAI, as in RBI approval is not required.

Any color you can provide on what impact that will have, say, on credit life and so on post, say, January 1st, that would be helpful.

No, Vinod, on your last question of NBFCs allowed to sell insurance, no, I don't have any view on that yet.

It's just NBFCs can distribute insurance products without seeking RBI approval.

That could just be to distribute.

Yeah.

That is effective from January of If they have to distribute any insurance product, then they would need to be registered with IRDAI as well.

No, that is right, but the whole approval process will get speeded up is my sense. Anyway, I can go to the next Difficult for me to comment

from RBI's side, but if they have to distribute insurance, then they would have to do this approval with IRDAI.

Yeah. No, that will stand, but it might get a little speeded up is my sense.

It's slightly hypothetical at this stage, but, yeah, I just wanted any color on this on what additional channels you're selling annuity and protection from besides the old

This is across all channels. Actually, it's across all channels.

The levels that you've seen on protection has actually increased across all channels, some more than others. It is actually secular in terms of growth.

In terms of annuity, I think when you look at it, see this is another opportunity area that we're continuously focused on. Clearly, we've been doing double-digit CAGRs for a long time now.

Frankly we're getting this opportunity, we should be able to partake in this space, and we keep building on that.

Right. Yeah.

Thank you so much.

Hi. Thanks for taking my questions and congrats on good set of results.

Just two, three questions. First is on again coming back on partnership distribution.

It is of 14.6% of the total mix, and it is normally commission-intensive business channel. How we are sort of balancing this growth versus EOM headroom?

Is there any internal ceiling on partnership mix? That is the first one.

Second is on the total cost-to-premium ratio, which expanded by 60 bps to 21.8%. Can you please split into GST input ITC disallowance and maybe a second discretionary sales-related spend?

What is the annualized drag in rupees from this ITC disallowance? That is the second question.

Third, maybe if you can just sort of provide me what is the fund level EOM utilization for FY 2026? Split between participating and non-participating, including linked.

The idea is what is the buffer to the 100% regulatory limit on each fund? These are the three questions.

In terms of our expense of management, we're well within the cap. We've not disclosed that number, but we're very well within the cap.

In terms of cost-to-premium, I think the schedules will carry the details subsequently. You should be able to look at what is the GST component that sits within both schedule two and schedule three, and you should be able to derive, if you want, what the full year's impact could be on terms of GST.

Coming to PD, and this is something that I mentioned earlier, what you're expending as commission effectively has to take into account base commission and whatever else that you need to provide as overrides, which ensure that there is quality in the business. I think most people forget that if you are getting good quality business, then there is a cost to pay for that.

We are clear that we focus on those partnerships which gives us value in terms of business growth as well as quality. We look at the overall cost that we can expend, which includes commission as well as our own opex, and that tends to be broadly stable across channels.

That means you look at commission, you look at overheads, you look at opex, all of it put together tends to be broadly similar across channels, and that's how we look at architecting that business. Yeah.

Just to close that point, when you look at the total cost of business, you'll also consider any training cost, any supervisory cost, any support cost that you have. You have to consider all of it when you look at the cost that gets expended at a channel level.

Sure. We can fairly agree that there's no sort of internal ceiling.

Sort of 15% is quite significant, but we can sort of assume that this can continue to grow as well as and when the sort of opportunity in the Yeah.

Samant, the good part is that it's 15%, which is brought about by some thousands of partners.

Yeah.

It's not one partner that you have to worry about a concentration mix.

Yeah.

Okay.

Fine taken. If I can follow up with two small questions if that okay.

On slide 23, there's an addition of 15,000 advisors

with retail in

first quarter. This is quite strong number in terms of the front loading.

What is the full year target recruitment, any cost implication for FY 2027 opex? Any color on that would be helpful.

I don't think it's front-loaded to that extent. Last year, we added about 70,000 agents.

Okay. This is like they say also it will be fairly that range only.

Okay.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. Just that on the group funds because it seems to be on a high-growth trajectory since last couple of quarter.

Is it growth is opportunistic or it is a structural sort of thing? How should we think about it going forward as well?

Group funds is lumpy, but our perspective on group funds is that if it is value-accretive, VNB-accretive, we will take it. Again, I come back to the point again.

We are not margin-focused. Our focus is to ensure growth in value of new business.

As long as it is positive VNB, we will take it. Group funds tends to be lumpier business.

It's the most lumpy business of all the segments that we have.

Okay. Thanks, and all the best.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking my questions. Now, first one was on agency where I know we've been making investments in this, but agency growth is just 2% for the quarter.

I guess we have all the base, etc. now favorable.

How should one think about this?

Nischint, that 2% is a much better number that we had across the previous quarters, very clearly you can see the trajectory is now turning positive. Again, we continue to work with the channel to be able to deliver on growth.

We've spoken about some of our initiatives earlier. These center around our micro-market approach.

This is again complemented by use of our technology, analytics, all of it to be able to drive productivity. From a number perspective, it is positive from when it was negative in the previous quarters.

I know, but it's probably only there in the base now, right? In that sense, without putting a number, how do you kind of budget it for the year?

Do you expect it to be in line with nominal company growth or do you think that it probably takes a couple of more quarters to kind of get there?

We would want agency to move towards average company growth sooner rather than later, but in addition to that, I think what you'll also see is that we're starting to see a shift in the product mix. From a VNB perspective, it is a lot more accretive than the 2% growth that it shows on the APE side.

Okay. The product mix at a company level and agency level would be similar?

On the agency side, you will see some higher pickup in terms of higher sum assureds, starting to see improvement in the share of protection within agency as well. Which is why I mentioned that the VNB growth is better than what you're seeing as the 2% APE growth.

Okay. Retail protection growth at a company level obviously is massive, but as ICICI Bank also, I believe retail protection has been one of the focus areas out there, grown retail protection at similar levels?

Yes, all channels have grown largely at the similar rate.

Even the ICICI

Bank

could have been slightly faster, right? If I just kind of do a math.

Depends on underlying product mix, right?

Okay. Got it.

Great. Thank you very much.

Hi. Thank you for taking my questions.

First, Dhiren, on partnership distribution, that channel has been the best-performing channel for us for some time now. I wanted to ask if there are any particular partners that have been contributing to such a strong growth.

Is it more digital-led, digital online aggregators that are leading to this growth, or how would you characterize it? Is it more sort of broad-based and how sustainable do you expect this to be?

Second, on group protection, can you give a breakup of credit life and GTI? Third, our AUM continues to see an outflow because of benefits paid, commissions, etc., are still quite high.

What is the read on that? When do we start seeing organic cash accretions?

Yeah.

Coming to your question on PD, I think when you look at the longer term, we're looking at nearly 20% CAGR over the last five years. It does look elevated in this particular quarter, but if you look at the longer period also, it is not a small number to go by.

What's driving the growth, frankly, what I mentioned earlier, my largest channel is ICICI Bank, and that's roughly 15%. No other single distributor is hitting the 5% number.

When you look at this 15% that is PD, you have a multitude of partners within it, and again the whole point of it being diversified, take advantage that we can. We work with all of our distribution partners.

Again, I spoke about the fact that we wish to be the most partnerable life insurance company, and we continue to build distribution networks and proposition for each of our distribution partners. There is, of course, this channel also has taken advantage of the protection boost that you see.

To that extent, the web aggregator space does get classified under partnership distribution. That does contribute to some of the growth there.

Again, coming back to the point, not one partner is more than 5%. To your question on split of group, we do that on an annual basis.

You have that for the year as part of our full-year pack. You can refer to that.

There'll be some minor changes across when you look at read-through for the current quarter. In terms of AUM, I think one of the

Will it be similar to the full year's number?

It'll be broadly similar to the full year's number.

Okay. Got it.

In terms of assets under management, roughly are about ₹3.3 trillion. We also have to consider that 5, 7 years back, we used to do a significant amount of unit-linked.

Unit-linked business has a lock-in that goes away at the end of 5 years with zero surrender charge. We do see a spike in exits whenever these policies come to the 5, 6-year window.

As they go beyond, then obviously the surrender rates drop off, but you do see a spike when it gets into the 6-year window. That is one of the points that we keep working with our customers to say that you have to stay longer.

The longer you stay, it becomes that much better for the returns. We have to obviously look at how does this product perform over a 10-year perspective, 15-year perspective.

The other bit also is that, in addition to unit-linked, we do have significant maturities that have come up, and these typically are the ones where the policies have hit their 10-year, 15-year mark. In such an instance, it is a scheduled maturity.

There was a significant amount that had gone through last year, and we see some coming through this year as well, and that is what comes through on the AUM side. If you look at from a VNB perspective, this does not impact the VNB, because you already factored that as part of your expectation of persistency across the years.

Just one follow-up question. The persistency numbers, I'm seeing a dip in the 13th month, 25th month, 61st month.

Is this any products-related, and the second part of the question is also that would this mean that are these factored in or is it above our expectations and could cause again a dent in our EV?

So, 13th month is broadly steady. You're looking at 84.5% and 84%.

What you see on the 25th month is the drop that you saw last year that is just carrying through. It is just an expression that you see from policy that had surrendered in the past period, which is why you see this number that is dipped across 25th month from 81% to 77%.

We anyway had done an assumption setting towards the end of the last year, which is towards March. We're not seeing anything material from then on.

Got it. Okay.

Thanks, and all the best.

Thanks.

Hi. Hope I'm audible.

A few questions from my side. At the start of the discussion, you mentioned about the various margin levers that you're using in terms of higher riders, sum assured, longer-tenure policies, etc.

Particularly on riders

Is this better?

Sure. At the start of the discussion, you mentioned about the various margin levers that you are utilizing in terms of higher riders, sum assured, longer-tenure policies, etc.

Now, just in terms of rider attachment, could you give

Is this better now by any chance?

Okay. Maybe I'll rejoin in the queue.

Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations for the good set of numbers. My first question is that have we done any changes to pricing of retail protection products for the last, say, four to six months?

Also, I wanted to know which age group of customers are kind of subscribing to our protection products.

Mohit, the target market for protection typically centers around a 35-year-old. Again, one can understand this because typically this is the age median perspective where people tend to take on greater responsibility, this product tends to be centered around that point.

This is not really fluctuated. 34, 35 typically has been the age where which has been the median age for quite a while right now.

People typically take it for another 30, 35 years in the sense that they cover their working life to that extent. You're looking at a 35-year-old broadly buying it for another 35 years, which covers to the 65, 70 age bracket.

In terms of pricing, I covered this earlier as well. There is no en masse price change.

It's business as usual. There are segments that we would like to reprice based on emerging experience that we see, and it's a continuous process, and these are small changes that happen at all points in time.

There is clearly no en masse price change that we have done over the last 9 months, nor are we expecting at this point.

Okay. Lastly, any new product launches that we can expect for the next three to six months?

There is always some new product that we will keep working at, but it'll be a little premature for me to announce on call. We will, of course, have our scheduled launches with our distribution partners as well as our distribution colleagues when it gets closer to actual launches.

Sure. Thanks, and wish you all the best.

Thank you.

Thank you so much for taking my question. I wanted to understand what is causing the decline in the non-linked APE business.

It has fallen by 9.5%. Is it primarily due to an inflated base of what was there in 1Q?

Megha, I covered this question earlier. This is largely the non-participating business, which has not done so well given the current environment, where you're seeing alternate investments, such as fixed deposits, have extremely high sticker prices.

Thank you.

Hi, Dhiren. Congrats on good set.

Wanted to check first on non-par savings. I think we've already mentioned that demand has been tepid, the sticker price has been there.

Going forward, how do we see this? Because yields have been supported, and we would have expected that in this environment, this product should actually do better.

How should one think about modeling for coming quarters? That is one.

Second

question is on persistency. I think already mentioned that is quite stable, but still a little bit of collection stress, is that being there because of external environment or there is some behavioral change post the surrender norms that led to higher payouts from year one?

Wanted to get some sense or what is the company's take here? These are my two questions, yeah.

Yeah. On persistency, Neeraj, again you mentioned right, it's broadly stable.

Whatever we factored as part of our assumptions at the end of last year, there's nothing material from then. Collections are not dropping.

In fact, for this quarter, we have collections which have grown at roughly 9%, it's not a feeble number to that. I think we continue on that path there.

On the non-par, one has to look at if you have to look at modeling, it also have to take into account what the environment offers. Clearly, you're right, from a pricing perspective, our non-par products are priced quite attractively.

We continue to find areas in which we can offer more to customers without losing too much at our end, which means we're looking at reflecting the yield curve as much as we can for customer prices. Again, like I mentioned earlier, this is also have to take into account what the environment offers in terms of alternate investments, such as FDs.

If that starts to drop, then you know that these products can pick up and do well over the medium term.

Generally, we have seen elasticity for FDs have been a couple of months only, and then the trend changes whenever that has happened in the past also. Do we think that similar trend will follow this time as well, or are we reading something different?

No,

our endeavor would be to ensure that customers understand the proposition that they're buying. Clearly, FDs are not long-term instruments, but one can understand why customers may get lured and distracted by the high sticker prices.

What we continue to do to ensure that customers understand that our products are longer-tenure products, 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, and the value that they see of those products, especially when you're able to lock in prices at these attractive rates, we try to make sure that they understand that proposition as best as we can.

Why I'm asking is because the LDR from banks is relatively very high right now, and given the loan growth is much faster than the deposits, has been pressure for the bank side to get more deposits, and hence lower sales on the insurance. I was coming from that side.

Generally that tampers down within few months. With FCNR deposits, more flows coming in, too, do we think that this will probably lead to a better change in non-par savings going forward?

It was more specific question to the current LDR proposition meaning where we see.

It's possible, Neeraj. Your observation is spot-on.

It's possible.

Sure. Okay.

Thank you so much, and all the best.

Hi. Hope I'm audible this time.

Sure. At the start of the discussion, you mentioned about the various margin levers that you're utilizing in terms of higher riders, sum assured, longer-tenor policies, etc.

Now, just in terms of the rider attachment, could you give some color on the current attachment rates, or in terms of how that has been shifting over the last few quarters? Some color on that, and also the sum assured in ULIPs, how that has been tracking.

Second, on the credit protect part, you mentioned that MFI has been recovering and momentum is sustaining in non-MFI. In terms of direction, in terms of mix between the two, let's say 3, 4 quarters back when MFI was struggling versus now, has the mix normalized to historic levels or is there some more headroom for the MFI segment to kind of ramp up?

Lastly, I think, going back to your business mix change both in the partnership channel and in the banca channels, I just wanted to get some color, and you maybe kind of alluded to some part of this, that you're kind of devised specific strategies for selected customer cohorts, especially in the partnership channel. I just wanted to get some deeper understanding of the nuances of how you're going about this strategy.

Dipanjan, both rider attachment and high sum assured ULIP, both are on the uptick, and they've been doing well continuously across the past few quarters. I don't want to peg a number to it, but you're seeing improvement quarter after quarter.

On your question of where are we on the MFI mix, I think this quarter we're fairly normalized. We'd expect that both MFI and non-MFI continue the growth into the coming quarters as well.

Right? Hello?

I trust we answered your questions, Dipanjan.

Yeah. Dhiren, just the last question in terms of the customer-cohort-based strategies that you are utilizing in the partnership channel or the banca channel, which is driving this favorable business mix change, what are those exactly?

Can you give some color on that?

We've got a wide diversified product mix. Now, the whole point is that we've got different products that can actually fit specific product segments.

If, for instance, at a very gross level, protection works very well in a set of customers which are younger, annuity works well typically in a 55-year-old plus customer pool. You find savings of various natures, both unit-linked as well as traditional, that work across different customers, broadly at a median of about 45, but again at differential income levels.

Now, within the partnership space, we work with our partners to identify what are their dominant customer segments that they've got access to, and then we ensure that we're fitting our products within that distribution network in an appropriate fashion. That's what I meant.

We keep working at that continuously. We keep ensuring that our distribution teams are well aware of what are these segments and propositions that fit well together, and we keep pushing that.

Got it. Thank you, Dhiren and team, and all the best.

Thank you.

Am I audible clearly to everyone?

Okay. Congratulations on a great set of numbers.

My question was largely with respect to the change of promoter status to investor status for Prudential. Of course, they hold about 22% stake in the company.

My question was with their request, as you had mentioned, to the regulator as well for the declassification of promoter and relinquishing their board seat and the nominee director, do they hold on to that stake that they have because under IRDA regulations again, 24.99% stake is what's permitted if an entity turns from a promoter to investor, for which the conditions, of course, are relinquishing your board seat and nominee director being out of the board. Then in that case, is that provision available for them?

Second, they are seeking that provision and continue to hold on to their stake?

Yash, you're right. As per IRDA regulations, you can't be a promoter in two different life insurance companies.

The requirement to be forcefully classified as a promoter is that 24.99. Below which you can be an investor and continue to be invested in the company.

Now, what Prudential has done is they've asked for a reclassification from promoter to investor since they hold a little under 22%, and that is the reclassification request that's been approved by our board, and we have submitted that onward to IRDA, and we await IRDA's inputs on that. From our perspective the way we read our regulations exactly the way you've read it, there is no requirement for them to sell down at this stage.

Do you think, your reading or your communication with them, if the whole exercise of declassification of promoter being done so that they can hold on to their stake and maybe dilute whenever in the future that they require and not have any mandatory requirement to dilute that stake?

It would be difficult for us to answer that question, Yash. That's best addressed by Prudential.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.