India's life insurance market has seen a gradual shift towards higher sum assured policies, although lower-value cover continues to dominate the overall policy base, according to Insurance Information Bureau data for FY2021-FY2025.
The number of in-force policies with a sum assured above INR5m ($58,000) rose 68% to 7.4m in FY2025 from 4.4m in FY2021, reported CNBC TV.
Meanwhile, the share of policies with a sum assured of INR200,000 or less fell from 65.1% to 53.6%.
The shift was also evident across other higher-value segments. Policies with sum assured between INR200,000 and INR500,000 increased their share by 5.6 percentage points, while the INR1m to INR2.5m segment gained two percentage points.
Despite the movement towards higher-value cover, the overall number of in-force life policies remained broadly stable at around 343m during the period, indicating that the changing mix has largely occurred within an established policy base.
Average annual premium per in-force policy also increased, rising 42.6% to INR22,195 in FY2025 from INR15,567 in FY2021.
The data points to growing penetration of higher-value life cover in India, while highlighting the continued prevalence of relatively low-sum-assured policies across the market.