While the bigger players saw profits fall over the previous year, smaller insurers substantially improved their bottomline.

Private sector life insurance companies re ported a 2.9% drop in profits during 2014-15 and the industry believes this was driven largely by the lower surrender charges on unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips). Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance MD & CEO Anuj Agarwal attributes the 15% fall in the company's net profits to a large number of Ulip investors surrendering policies that had completed the threeyear lock-in period in 2014. "The portion (of our profits) contributed by surrender charges have halved, which is good from policyholders' point of view," he says."This fall in net profit was expected and, in fact, is less than what we had planned for," he adds.

Many other companies have also reported a drop in profits.The net profit of the 10 most profitable insurance companies slipped 6% from `5,954 crore to `5,598 crore during the year (see table). Reliance Life Insurance saw its profits drop 62% to `135 crore. However, some companies have been able to buck the trend and report good numbers. SBI Life saw a robust 11% rise in profits while HDFC Life registered an 8.3% growth.

More significantly, a clutch of smaller insurance companies were able to clock good profit growth. IDBI Federal Life Insurance saw its net profit shoot up 93%. Exide Life Insurance (formerly ING Life) has posted a 23% rise in profits despite major changes during the year: its name changed when the foreign partner walked out and it lost ING Vysya Bank as a distribution partner."We managed the transition period effectively," says Kshitij Jain, managing director and CEO, Exide Life. "Traditional plans account for a fairly large part of our portfolio. In these products, if interest rates are favourable, you end up making a little bit more profit," he says.

DHFL Pramerica, another company that went through a name change due to the exit of a partner, also witnessed a spectacular growth. Other smaller insurers such as IndiaFirst Life Insurance, Future Generali Life and Star Union Dai-Ichi, which were in the red, managed to claw their way into black during 2014-15.