New business premium of life insurance companies in India increased 5.13% for the fiscal ended March to ₹3,97,336.78 crore compared to ₹3,77,960.34 crore a year earlier.

Ending a fourth month decline streak, in March the life insurers clocked a little over 2% increase in the premium to ₹61,439.11 crore (₹60,213.62 crore), the business figures released by Life Insurance Council showed.

Private life insurers fared better with 9.80% increase in the premium to ₹1,70,666.87 crore (₹1,55,437.34 crore). In March, their premium rose to ₹24,531.79 crore (₹23,913 crore).

For the fiscal market leader, the State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) reported a 1.86% increase in new business ₹2,26,669.91 crore (₹2,22,522.99 crore). In March, the premium rose 1.67% to ₹.36,907.33 crore (₹36,300.62 crore). LIC sold 1.78 crore new policies in the year, which saw introduction of new surrender value norms in October 2024.

The new business of LIC during the fiscal included ₹62,404.58 crore from individual new business. Individual new business premium for FY25 registered a growth of 8.35% year on year.

The Council said for the individual new business premiums of the life insurers during 2024-25 went up 11.17% to ₹1,66,590.81 crore (₹1,49,851.67 crore).

It said the “strong performance” during the fiscal is on account of the life insurers focus on encouraging first-time buyers to secure comprehensive financial protection, resulting in a 4.47% growth in combined individual premium collections for March 2025.

In the group policy segment, single premiums reached ₹33,543.21 crore, with the category registering a 0.46% growth in premiums collected during March 2025. The insurers efforts to expand access was complemented by significant agent additions —over 11,15,661 new individual life insurance agents were added in 2024-25 — leading to a 7.88% growth in the cumulative agent count.

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Stock markets extended the winning run to seventh day on Wednesday (April 23, 2025) with benchmark BSE Sensex jumping 520 points to close above 80,000 level for the first time in four months driven by strong gains in IT and auto shares.

The 30-share Sensex rose by 520.90 points or 0.65% to settle at 80,116.49, the highest closing level since December 18. During the day, it surged 658.96 points or 0.82% to 80,254.55.

Also read | Sensex reclaims 80,000-level on global markets rally, foreign fund inflows

The NSE Nifty rallied 161.70 points or 0.67% to 24,328.95.

Foreign fund inflows and positive global trends also boosted the market sentiment, analysts said.

Among the Sensex firms, HCL Tech surged the most by 7.72% after the firm posted an 8.1% increase in consolidated net profit at ₹4,307 crore for March quarter 2024-25, mainly on account of large deals with a total contract value of about ₹25,500 crore.

Tech Mahindra, Tata Motors, Infosys, Mahindra & Mahindra, Tata Consultancy Services, Tata Steel, Bharti Airtel and Maruti were also among major gainers.

Banking shares witnessed a sell-off after recent sharp gains with leading private lender HDFC Bank dropping by 1.98% to emerge as the biggest loser among Sensex shares.

Kotak Mahindra Bank, State Bank of India, Axis Bank, ITC and UltraTech Cement were also among the laggards.

In Asian markets, South Korea’s Kospi index, Tokyo’s Nikkei 225 and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng settled in the positive territory. Shanghai SSE Composite ended marginally lower.

Markets in Europe were trading significantly higher.

U.S. markets bounced back sharply on Tuesday. Nasdaq Composite surged 2.71%, Dow Jones Industrial Average jumped 2.66% and S&P 500 rallied 2.51%.

Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) bought equities worth ₹1,290.43 crore on Tuesday, according to exchange data.

“The Indian equity market sustained its positive momentum, driven by better outcome from the latest set of IT results and optimistic forward-looking comments. However, profit-booking was visible in financials after the recent sharp rally.

“While US-China trade tensions appear to be easing, a rally in U.S. tech stocks has further bolstered overall global market sentiment,” Vinod Nair, Head of Research, Geojit Investments Limited, said.

The BSE midcap gauge climbed 0.94% and smallcap index went up by 0.26%.

Among BSE sectoral indices, BSE Focused IT surged 4.25%, IT jumped 4%, teck (3.10%), auto (2.34%), realty (1.37%), consumer discretionary (1.02%), healthcare (0.96%) and industrials (0.845).

Financial Services, bankex and consumer durables were the laggards.

As many as 2,078 stocks advanced while 1,873 declined and 155 remained unchanged on the BSE.

Global oil benchmark Brent crude climbed 1.35% to $68.35 a barrel.

The BSE benchmark climbed 187.09 points or 0.24% to settle at 79,595.59 on Tuesday. The Nifty went up by 41.70 points or 0.17% to 24,167.25.