Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to Bajaj Finserv Q4 FY 2021 results conference call, hosted by JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference, please signal an operator by pressing star and zero on your touch tone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Bunny Babjee from JM Financial Institutional Securities Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you. Good morning, everybody, and welcome to Bajaj Finserv earnings call to discuss the Q4 and full year FY 2021 results. To discuss the same, we have on the call Mr. S. Sreenivasan, CFO, Bajaj Finserv Limited, Mr. Tapan Singhel, CEO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Limited, Mr. Ramandeep Singh Sahni, CFO, Bajaj Allianz General Insurance Limited, Mr. Tarun Chugh, CEO, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, and Mr. Bharat Kalsi, CFO, Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance. May I request S. Sreenivasan to take us through the financial highlights, post which we can open the floor for Q&A session. Over to you, sir.
Thank you, Bunny. I hope all of you can hear me very well. Good morning, everyone. We hope in these tough times everybody is well at home as well as with you. We wish you all good health as we go along. Before we get into the results, I'll just make some hygiene disclosures. As before, in this call, we will largely be concentrating on the consolidated results of BFL, as well as the result of our insurance operations through Bajaj Allianz General Insurance, BAGIC, and Bajaj Allianz Life Insurance, BALIC. Where material, the standalone results of the company invest. Bajaj Finance Limited, which is another major subsidiary of ours and which is listed, has already had its conference call. However, if there are any high-level questions on BFL, we would be glad to take that as well.
We will not be taking any questions on the status of Allianz's stake in our insurance company, except to state that the status has remained the same as at the end of the previous quarter, and there is no change. Any statements that may look like forward-looking statements are just estimates and do not constitute an assurance or indication of any future performance result. Just a remark on Ind AS. As required by regulation, BFL has adopted Indian Accounting Standards for FY 2019. The insurance companies, however, are not covered under Ind AS. We have prepared Ind AS financials only for the purpose of consolidation. Accordingly, for BAGIC and BALIC, the standalone numbers reported below are based on the non-Ind AS accounting standard or Indian GAAP as applicable to insurance companies. Our results, the press release accompanying the results, and our investor deck have been uploaded on our website yesterday.
I hope you've all had a chance to go through that, and while I would strongly recommend that you go through when you have time. Just a few points on our investor deck. For your information, we have updated our disclosures this time in our investor presentation. We have more details about Finserv and our business model. We also included a few additional disclosures, new business value and embedded value of BALIC and their movement, a brief on our approach to risk, the reserving triangles for BAGIC and the ESG environment, social and governance approach, and initiatives of the company and its subsidiaries. The detailed report on ESG will be published along with the annual report for FY 2021 as part of our business responsibility report. I would strongly recommend all of you do go through that when it is available.
As we start FY 2022, I would like to highlight here a major event, is that both our insurance businesses will be completing 20 years of service to policyholders in FY 2022. We are pleased to see the significant progress both companies have made, and we remain among the top insurance groups in India in terms of market presence, number of customers acquired, customer service, brand, and profitability. I would like to point out that both our insurance companies are among the lowest in terms of capital infused by shareholders, which is a testimony to their efficient utilization of capital. Let me now come to the performance for Q4 FY 2021 and for the full year FY 2021. Overall, we saw greater momentum in Q4 as the level of economic activity reached pre-COVID levels across most of our businesses and verticals.
During the second half of the year, as the economy started showing signs of revival, our businesses had shifted their focus to recovering growth while remaining cautious to manage risk. Building on the momentum from Q3, our businesses did well in Q4, both on the growth and profitability front. Towards the end of Q4, there was a resurgence in COVID-19 cases. Based on the learnings and experience from the first wave, all our businesses have further strengthened, augmented their digital capability, which along with greater digital acceptance by the customers, should, we hope, help overcome challenges and deliver a strong performance in FY 2022. Let me now touch upon each of our businesses, starting with general insurance.
BAGIC's growth was lower than industry during the first half but is back on track as seen from the fact that during H2 FY 2021, BAGIC grew by 8.1%, versus a degrowth in H1. During Q4, BAGIC's gross written premium grew by 5%. Excluding crop and government health, where some of our competitors are not participating, the gross written premium grew by 11%, in line with our industry growth of 10.8%. Bajaj continues on its approach to calibrated growth that is seeking to grow in preferred segments, which are private cars, two-wheelers, commercial lines, property and engineering, and retail health, while remaining cautious on group health. We continue to take a reasonably cautious stance on group health. Within commercial vehicles, passenger vehicles, the segment in which Bajaj has had a strong presence, is yet to reach pre-COVID-19 levels.
To give some more details, continuing from the turnaround seen in the motor segment during Q3. In Q4, motor two-wheeler and motor four-wheeler reported growth of 27.9% and 21.4% respectively. While growth in commercial vehicles is not back to pre-COVID levels yet, but it's coming back gradually. A lot depends on how the second wave will play out in terms of the office sector. The growth in commercial lines for the first three quarters of the FY 2021 was a mix of IIB-based rate change hikes for property and pure growth in terms of new customers acquired and increases in some assured and other increases. As property price increase benefit was accrued since Q4 of FY 2020, the base for Q4 is already at the higher rate. Therefore, year-over-year, you will not see the effect of rate to a significant degree.
Notwithstanding this, commercial lines have shown very strong growth during the quarter. Property fire growing at 23%, engineering grew by 64%, and liability by 20%. The demand for retail health insurance in H1 was partly driven by sale of COVID-related health policies, but availability of vaccine and price hikes by Bajaj, along with peers, has led to lower growth in retail health. Bajaj registered a growth of 9.1% during the quarter. While COVID claims affected loss ratios, they were to a large extent compensated by fewer non-COVID claims. The crop insurance business was profitable. Final results of the abi crop will be known only in May, but initial indications are for a reasonably good season. Bajaj also reported a very strong insurance operating result with a combined ratio of 96.6%.
Since Q4 FY 2020 was a very strong quarter with a 93.8% combined ratio, the underwriting profit is lower in the quarter compared to the previous year. The underwriting profit for FY 2021, however, has increased to INR 237 crores in FY 2021 from a loss of INR 11 crores in FY 2020, which we hope will be among the best in the industry. As we reiterate in our calls, general insurance is a highly seasonal business with high degree of quarter-on-quarter volatility and needs to be seen in terms of consistency over a cycle of three to four years. There are catastrophes, claims, even the premiums. A lot of corporate premiums come in Q1, the cyclone and other events usually the monsoon season is in Q2. Therefore, one has to see this in terms of a cycle of years.
The company continues to be conservative in its motor third-party ultimate loss provisions, and we have further strengthened reserves in the year to account for the possible interest on delayed court judgments due to the pandemic. Provisions were also strengthened in the old book, rising out of the motor third-party pool, which was disbanded in 2012. Overall, Bajaj's reserving remains comfortably prudent, as can be seen from the reserving triangle. Overall, Bajaj has had an excellent year with 33% growth in profit after tax at 20.3% return on equity. The profit after tax of INR 1,330 crores in FY 2021 is the highest ever full year profit after tax that Bajaj has reported in its 20 years of operation. In summary, it has been a very good balanced year for Bajaj. Let me now come to life insurance.
In December 2020, the industry was continuously reporting growth month-on-month, which is contrary toward the trend which we saw in H1 and the first month of this half, the second half. As a result, Q4 was a generally good quarter for the industry, and the industry's individual rated pure business premium grew by 29%, with private players growing by 40%. On the back, partly of the lower base, given the negative growth observed in Q4 of FY 2020, especially in March FY 2020, post the lockdown. Despite all the challenges during the year, Bajaj consistently reported an industry-leading growth. We have seen that month-on-month, quarter-on-quarter, and for the full year. Bajaj was the fastest growing life insurer among the top 10 players, a growth of 63% in Q4 and 28% for the full year in terms of individual rated premium.
Given the uncertainty due to the pandemic, the demand for guarantee products has remained high throughout the year, and hence contribution of non-par savings to the product mix stands at 24% for the quarter and 29% for FY 2021. Retail term protections contribution to the product mix was moderate in the quarter and stood at 4% for the quarter and 6% for FY 2021. With equity markets recovering in Q3, demand for unit has improved and has picked up momentum. During the quarter, the Union Budget was announced, which also announced that the amount received from redemption of ULIPs with annual premium of more than INR 2.5 lakh will be taxed as long-term capital gains. With this announcement, the demand for ULIP was expected to be impacted. Although impacts, we believe will be fully known only in FY 2022.
Early trends in February and March show increasing demand for ULIPs as a category. Yes, there has been some dip in the over INR 2.5 lakh tickets, but overall ULIP has been very strong. It has also been compensated by a stronger performance in the below INR 2.5 lakh ticket segments. As a result, ULIP's contribution to the total product mix was 44% during the quarter. During the quarter, BALIC also launched a new unique competitive retirement product, a Guaranteed Pension Goal. This is an annuity product. You can have deferred annuity. You can have regular premium annuity, single premium with deferment. Various options are available. This will strengthen its position in the retirement space and during March, this product did quite well.
In fact, we have got 4% of product mix coming from the Guaranteed Pension Goal in this, with little over a month of launch. With this, BALIC's product offering is now complete across all segments of term, savings, ULIPs and annuities. On the back of quarter-on-quarter industry beating individual rated premium growth, revival of group protection business with 34% growth in group protection business in Q4, which I must emphasize was helped by strong disbursement growth from banks and NBFC. A 25% growth in renewal premiums during the year. BALIC ended the year with an all-time high record gross written premium of INR 12,025 crores. New business value, net of expense overruns, the key metric of profitability for life insurers, increased by 59% to INR 361 crores.
The 13-month persistency, which was somewhat lower in H1, has rebounded, and BALIC ended the year with 80% persistency, a tad higher than the previous year, but still some way to go there as we go to the next few years. BALIC's profit after tax for Q4 at INR 234 crore was significantly higher than Q4 FY 2020 of INR 38 crore on the back of higher capital gains and better operating result on the policyholder account. Overall, an excellent year. Finally, both the insurance companies are financially among the most solvent. BALIC with 666% and BAGIC with 345%. Hence are well poised to weather any external adversity. During the quarter, both companies paid dividends, differing amounts, about INR 165 crore from BALIC and about INR 148 crore from BAGIC. Both BAGIC and BALIC continue to utilize their digital properties and continue to emerge stronger through the crisis.
We have seen a substantial increase in the digital penetration across several parts of their distribution and service chain across both our insurance companies. Further details of or a flavor of BAGIC and BALIC's digital capability are covered in the investor deck loaded in the website. Let me now come to BFL. BFL has already had its call, as I said before. We'll only broadly touch upon BFL results. Quarter four was a good quarter for the company with most lean financial indicators normalizing to pre-COVID levels. BFL's business transformation plan is on track. Company expects to launch its three in one financial services in a phased manner so that it get completed probably by Q3. After near standstill in the first two quarters of the year, new loans booked by BFL during Q3 and Q4 were a little over 6 million and 5.47 million, respectively.
This is compared to 7.7 and 6.03 million in Q3 and Q4 of FY 2020. This is a significant improvement in H2 over H1. The company's diversified business model has enabled it to revert to pre-COVID levels of AUM growth across most of its verticals. BFL remains cautious on its wallet and retail EMI card business based on its assessment of the risk matrix. In FY 2021, BFL recorded an all-time high annual pre-provisioning profit of INR 11,961 crore and made loan loss provisions, including expected losses. This is one difference between NBFCs and bank financing because we have to provide expected losses across our lifecycle of the loans that we hold. The expected losses were INR 5,969 crore for the year as compared to INR 3,929 crores. A shade under INR 6,000 crores versus a shade under INR 4,000.
This is within the earlier guidance given by BFL of over INR 6,300 crore at credit cost during FY 2021. BFL continues to balance growth vis-à-vis risk and collections while maintaining strong liquidity and excellent capital. BFL still carries a management overlay of INR 840 crore in its provisions for expected credit losses. In addition, BFL experienced continued improvement in portfolio quality in Q4 and new volumes originated across businesses during Q4 has just metrics better than the ones originated prior to COVID. Gross NPA and net NPA recognized as per extant RBI prudential norms and provision as per the expected credit loss method described in Ind AS as of March 2021 stood at 1.79% as the gross NPA and 0.75% as the net NPA.
Standard assets provisioning ECL stage one and two stood at 1.81%, including additional provision on standard assets as against 1% during the pre-pandemic. While pre-provision operating profit was higher, BFL ended the year with a PAT of INR 4,420 crores, which was 16% less than FY 2020. The H2 result obviously was better than H1. Overall PAT for Q4 FY 2021 was more than Q4 FY 2020 on account of lower provision during the quarter, INR 1,231 crores in Q4 versus INR 1,954 crore in the previous. The capital adequacy ratio as of 31st March 2021 was very strong and stood at 28.34%, with Tier one capital alone being 25. For Bajaj Housing Finance as well, 100% mortgage subsidiary of BFL, the capital adequacy ratio, including Tier two capital, stood at 21.3%.
In summary, with improved bounce rates, higher collection efficiency and overlay position, BFL is positioned to navigate any temporary stress, and the company is entering FY 2022 on a strong footing. The only serious downside for any of our businesses would be really a national lockdown that we saw last year. Although we are better positioned than last year, a national lockdown will have impacts or a statewide lockdown in the top five or six states. Otherwise, we believe all the companies are in reasonably good position to handle the near-term volatility because of the external situation. For those who have not gone through the BFL investor deck, I would urge you to go to the website and go through that when you have the time. To summarize the consolidated results, consolidated total income for Q4 for BFS was INR 15,387 crores versus INR 13,294 crores. A strong growth there.
Consolidated profit after tax was INR 979 crores versus INR 194 crores. This is almost five times that I will explain to you why it is. Bajaj Finance consolidated profit after tax INR 1,347 crores versus INR 948 crores. The general insurance profit after tax INR 273 crore versus INR 304 crore, and life insurance INR 234 crore versus INR 38 crore. The whole year, we close the year with total revenue exceeding INR 60,592 crores. This is exceeding INR 60,000 crores, right, as against INR 54,351 crore last year. A consolidated profit after tax of INR 4,470 crore versus INR 3,369 crore. As mentioned before, general insurance profit after tax was INR 1,330 crores, 33% higher and the highest in its history. Life insurance at INR 580 crores as against INR 450 crores was again a strong growth. BFL had a lower profit, as I mentioned earlier.
The consolidated results include one adjustment because the insurance companies are in Indian GAAP and we do Ind AS. The investment that they hold on the shareholders account for banking and all equity investments held by bank, all equity investment, they are treated as fair value through profit and loss accounts, a profit and loss account. Therefore, last year in March Q4 of FY 2020, we saw a big fall in the stock market, resulting in a charge into the consolidated results. During the year, the Sensex has rebounded by 68% and the performance of the equity portfolios have also been pretty good. This has resulted in an increase in the consolidated profit after tax of INR 892 crores for FY 2021 compared to a decrease of INR 451 crore in Q4 and FY 2020. I thought I should highlight that.
The mark-to-market adjustment however for Q4 is not very significant in relation to the size of our balance sheet and P&L. Finally, India is swamped by a second wave of COVID, with daily infection rates of the kind not seen in the first wave. It's difficult for us to predict how long the second wave will last and with what intensity and when it will subside to manageable levels. as business people, for us is to look at this as a risk and see how we can manage it. The risk of this is expected to remain elevated in Q1 and Q2 as per our current assessment. With strong solvency well above the required capital, supported by healthy liquidity, continued focus on risk and collections, digitized processes, and improved cost structures, we are in a better shape than we were last year to face any adverse events.
We will take the events as they come along in Q1 and Q2. Thank you for your patience, and I now open the floor for questions and answers. Thank you.
Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touch-tone telephone. If you wish to remove yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handsets while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question on the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Thanks for taking my question. I had two questions. You did mention it's difficult to quantify the impact of growth, especially due to the second wave. If I look at the general insurance sector, most of the key states, top five states, be it Maharashtra, Delhi, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, all are facing cases and intensity of COVID much larger than the first wave. What kind of an outlook for growth are we looking at for the sector and for us? That's the first question. On the crop segment, if you could give us some color, because it's a high contributor for us in general insurance. What is our stance on crop going forward?
Yeah, thank you for your question. The first one I will repeat. See, the issue is not with COVID. Obviously, we offer health insurance policies, and therefore, there will be some amount of COVID claims. The issue is whether you have lockdown. That is what affects business a lot more than the pandemic itself. As of now, we are seeing a limited lockdown. It is not like the lockdown we saw last year. There is reasonable movement of people. Insurance companies are exempted in some of these states. They are treated as an essential. In terms of growth, we will have to wait and see. For example, car stopped selling. I mean, it's the wrong time to ask about growth, actually. Any business will be now focusing on the balance sheet and profitability over growth and taking the events as they come.
A lot of the business which are asset-based, which are car insurance or property insurance, obviously, if the level of activity in the economy reduces, all businesses will get affected, quite a lot of business. We will also have an effect on growth. As we have seen last year, the general insurance business is very diverse, and there are pockets where you will have better performance. There may be lower claims if your cars are running on the roads. I mean, we have seen the last 15 days we go on the roads, I am really living in Pune, so we can see that it's about maybe 20% of the traffic that you normally see. These are temporary. We would rather see growth and full traffic than this temporary thing. That is what it is.
We want to prognosis in the near term, that is what it is. Now I'll ask Tarun to just add to this and also answer the question on crop.
Yeah. Thank you, S. Sreenivasan. I think both questions are very relevant. If you look at overall for the industry last year, the growth hovered around 2% or so. The industry does have an impact because the car sales, as S. Sreenivasan was mentioning, if they go down, and car sales is a big component of the business. If you look at other expansion from economic perspective of industries being set up or marine happening or transactions happening at that level, if those goes down, there would be an impact on the business. Like S. Sreenivasan mentioned, that it is very significant if a complete lockdown happens. If the complete lockdown happen, there would be an impact, but not to an extent as it would be in a complete lockdown.
It all also depends on the mood and the sentiments, so we'll have to watch for the next two, three months. Yes, compared to normal circumstances, the growth would be lower. That definitely would be there. Compared to last year, maybe same or bit higher. Now coming to crop. Now, crop we have been doing now for the past, I think from the time the government started six years, the new crop scheme for past five, six years, and we've been doing consistently. We have tried to maintain our share in the crop business like we do for our overall market share. If we look at the overall market share, close to 7%, crop business share would be around that, about 8%, 9% or 7%, 6%, depending on how the year goes, how the tender goes, but the big tender is still there.
We maintain that, I think at all points of time. There's no change in our philosophy and how we look at crop business going forward.
I'll join back in. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hasmukh Gala from Finvest Advisors LLP. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hello. Congratulations to Mr. Sreenivasan and the team for giving really good numbers. I have a couple of questions. Sir, my first question is just a sort of a clarification that the profit number which we report in BALIC and Bajaj 2021 versus 2020. I think then we had last year a more than 100-odd crore worth of some special provisions, which I think are not there in current year if I am not wrong. The real comparison of PAT, I think, will be slightly different because according to the numbers which were last reported-
Are you talking about investment provision?
Yeah. The provision for DHFL and corporate bonds and all that.
That's not in the last quarter anyway. Yeah.
Yeah. That was there in the last quarter, basically. Taking that off, if you really compare in BALIC, our PAT, I think, has increased only by 1%. Just correct me if I am wrong. In case of Bajaj, it has increased by 20% and not 33%. I'm just referring to those numbers. That was my first question. Just a clarification. The second question is, as far as BALIC is concerned, how do you see the growth now in the individual business? Because if you see today, group is constituting almost 60% of our total new business premium. How do you see the movement in the individual rated premium amongst different products that we have so that our VNB margin can improve? That is my second question. Third question, you talked about BFL, that they are into this digitalization and technology transformation process.
Are they on the way to become a fintech type of company? These are the three questions.
I will take broadly the question on the individual versus group and the question on BFL, and the question on the numbers clarification, I think the CFOs will take it, and then Tarun can add to what I say on the individual versus group.
Sure.
If you see our proportion of individual to group over the last few years has been significantly weighted towards individual business. In fact, growth in individual rated premium remains a primary priority for the company. however, that doesn't mean we do not grow our group business. There are opportunities present, and because it is profitable and because we have been, historically when you look at the last 10 years, at one time we were the only players in the group protection space who were really big.
We will continue to see growth opportunities there, but we would see better growth opportunities in the individual premium segment, where you have product mix and the opportunity to create more sustainable long-term business and with a focus on NBV as well as top line and a balanced product mix. Tarun can add to that later. Coming to the question on BFL.
Yeah.
It is a difficult question. You see, BFL is a manufacturer of products and solutions.
Yes.
Obviously, technology is becoming more and more important, and therefore, they are investing heavily, so they are having platforms for sale and sell more to their customers in a more meaningful manner through their own marketplace. They will remain a manufacturer of financial products, a risk-taker and who will be lending money and who has requirement of capital. We have another entity under BFL, Bajaj Finserv Direct, which will do the other thing. It's a pure tech platform. They will provide the tech platform to BFL. At the same time, they will also be an open architecture company where fully customer-centric and we'll be attracting customers to go through those platforms because all our vertical lending-
Okay
Everybody and companies in the market can participate in that. The combination of the two is what will make it very powerful because one is a manufacturer. They can't really sell other companies products. The platform is going to be used for that. Together we want to create a holistic experience for our Finserv customer.
Will that fintech activities remain in some separate subsidiary? Like I think you have created one subsidiary under-
Yes, but it is a separate subsidiary. You can call it a fintech if you want. We don't use that terminology. We just look at the customer-
Yeah. Correct
Technology as enablers. If you want to call it a fintech, you may call it so. It requires more capital because it's a platform that we are developing internally for the group.
BFL continue to offer technology-based support to their existing customers in lending.
Okay.
Tarun, would you like to take the individual versus group?
Yeah, I'll look at that. yeah, thanks for your question.
Yeah.
See, I think S. Sreenivasan correctly talked about the focus on individual business. The growth of 28% was largely what we talked about in the prelude to the Q&A session. That's what we will keep focusing on.
As you're aware, the VNB largely from individual products is what is important and provides for sustainable cash flows in the future as well. That's where the focus will remain. As a company, we've been focused on ensuring that we have a balanced channel and balanced product mix. I think that was the first step, and I think now we've achieved that. With the launch of the pension plan as well, now we are in all need segments of the customers as well now. Here on the focus is towards VNB and profitability, of course.
The basic risk elements of over-reliance of a product mix and channel mix is now taken care of. Yes, the product mix will be a significant driver to the VNB, if I might put it this way. We will always remain focused on the customer and not necessarily just try to tweak our product mix only for the VNB purpose, because we are here looking at a sustainable business for long term.
Correct. I mean, generally how will you look at the VNB margin, which was at 12.3% in FY 2021? say, if you compare with companies like HDFC Life, they reported a 26% VNB margin. how will be our journey to reach to that level, say double digit 20% type, may not be 26?
Yeah. see, I can't make any statement which is a forward-looking and also comparative with competition.
Every company has its own capability, history, and lineage.
I think what you see is a positive trajectory in the last three years.
Yes.
We intend to be directionally in the same way. Of course, last year was a significant flip but that was a good aberration in our favor. directionally we shall remain positive and, I mean, beyond that, I cannot comment. Yes.
Okay, fine. Thank you very much. Wish you all the best. I'll join in the queue.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Bharat Shah from ASK Investment Managers Limited. Please go ahead.
Yes. Hi. Good afternoon to everyone. My question is more about long-term strategy rather than the quarter results.
Essentially, on the insurance piece, which is basically a business of risk and protection, most insurance firms tend to put a centrality to the insurance as the core part. Of course, for valid reasons, because the protection and risk control is the core business of the insurance firms. I would like to submit that investments and managing the investments is equally a critical function in any insurance business. So far in India, by and large, we have seen investment function kind of a peripheral one rather than a central one in the operations of the insurance firms.
If you talk about the core part of operation, Bajaj has consistently been very, very prudent and extremely competent in the way it has managed risk with combined ratio always favorable, well below 100, and therefore it enjoys a source of negative cost kind of a float of the money. Even though contracts are relatively of a shorter term, but a core part of the contract money is something which is forecastable, renewable, therefore, large part of that money insurance float is a long-term money. Equally, Life in any case is core underwriting profits are high, and there is a long-term non-ULIP portion, there is a long-term investment float. Managing this entire float through fixed income is unlikely to ever give any meaningful significant returns, and therefore return on equity magnified on that float.
Therefore, a judicious, well-balanced risk control increase long-term equity capability and equity component in the investment portfolio of both the businesses is very vital to raise a bar on return on equity and to really improve the strength and the caliber of both the insurance businesses. Because the core part, Bajaj has always been very strong. In BALIC, after initial hiccups in last some time, the business has been very nicely ramping up. What are the strategic thoughts on the investment management? Earlier on the fixed income, we had some hiccups. We went through that. That phase is behind, and I'm glad about it, that there are no hemorrhages on account of fixed income portfolio. Even with the best job on the fixed income, it will still produce meaningfully low return.
Unless there is a well-calibrated equity management strategy of a long-term nature with a judicious percentage of the overall investment portfolio committed there, the return on equity in zero or negative float, which is the core advantage of the insurance business, how do we propose to take that advantage?
Yeah. Thank you, Bharat. I will take that question. See, in insurance, we are not asset managers. This is a mistake that a lot of people make. We are liability managers. If we come to life insurance, our job is to manage liabilities, and unlike mutual funds or PMS and other people, we have to give guarantees. There are very tight regulations on how different buckets of the money can be invested, and there is a large proportion of this money has to necessarily go into Government of India bonds or housing or infrastructure or social structure. There's a detailed regulation on that. The purpose of that is to ensure that because of volatility, the policyholders who are getting their money out are not affected.
To some extent, ULIPs can be compared to mutual funds, except that ULIPs always come with a bundled life cover, and it has to have a minimum term of five years. I don't know how much of money of the other competing industries actually stay for five years, maybe a quarter, maybe a third, but not like us, where more than half the money stays for five years. Now with the new regulation, I think because most of it stays for hundred and conforms. In terms of value, in terms of the policyholder return, I think we rank among the best. ULIP this year may not have been good, but if I look at the three, five-year performance, I don't think it is inferior to mutual funds either. There may be some-
Just-
Hello?
Just an interruption. My comments are on non-ULIP business, not on ULIP.
Yeah. For non-ULIP business, we have to provide guarantees, we have to protect them, and there are very strong ALM-based management principles that have to be adopted. You have to hedge your risk and you work on the margin. Finally, you come to the shareholder fund. We are in a unique position that we have some surplus capital, and in that you can say ROE, but over what period do you measure ROE when you invest in the financial markets? If you invest in equity, you have to take the volatility. If I look at the period between, say, 2017 to 2019, if you look at the index at least, I think fixed income did outperform equities. On a five-year basis for a long period, fixed income was superior to equity. With the market revival, last year we saw in March what happened.
These are not times when you have to put in capital, because we are a solvency-heavy industry. While it may not be applicable to us as an industry, I don't think companies can say that market fell, so I want more capital. Nobody will give that. In terms of GI business, a bit different. Entire money is one bucket. Well, there is an internal demarcation. I think all the money is of the shareholder. Majority of the liabilities are short-term. You have significant exposure to reinsurance. While you may assume that all the reinsurers are of high quality and well-rated, that is what we deal with. There are occasions in the international markets when there are heavy headwinds from the reinsurance side as well.
If, God forbid, even 5% of your reinsurance panel goes under, then you will need the liquidity to pay the claims immediately. It's worked actually bottoms up. There is a big science behind how much should be the asset allocation. There is a leeway. Again, it is highly regulated. I think pretty much 75% has to be in fixed income as per regulation. Both insurance industry is a big contributor to the entire funding of the fiscal deficit of the Government as well, along with the SLR of banks. Overall, as we look at it, we have been increasing exposure to equity as and when we grow our surplus. If you see now, BAGIC has grown to about 7%. As we go forward, we will continue to increase it.
We will see the right time to increase it as well, because when prices are looking very high, there's no point in increasing exposure to equity. That's a call the investment team will take. There's no strategy there. It is more about the investment performance. Same with BAGIC. We already have, I think 20% of our surplus in equities. At the moment, we may be a bit lower, but 20% is what we look at. Within that, we have not bifurcated between what is required for solvency and what is not required, the surplus, because with more guaranteed products, with more this thing, the consumption of capital is increasing. You must have seen some other companies are actually raising money in the market to meet solvency requirements because of the higher proportion of the non-participating and the guaranteed products.
Term as well require capital at about 0.3% of the sum assured. This again is work by the actuaries and the investment team together. As and when the surplus comes, and we do a review every quarter, and maybe once a year, we do review whether we need to increase it or not. Directionally, that's the approach I'm taking. As I said, it's a liability manager. Therefore, the liability makeup, the duration, the need for liquidity, the impacts of credit defaults, potentially on the non-financial investments like reinsurance and the reasonable margin for that, all these contribute to deciding how much you have surplus. Within that, obviously, you can say it is each company to its appetite to see how much you want in equity or debt. Maybe there is some leeway. You could say why not 20 can become 25. Can it become 35?
I don't think so. In BAGIC, maybe the seven can go up to 15. Yes. 20, maybe. More than 20, I doubt. This is something we also continuously discuss with Allianz as well because globally they have seen all kinds of cycles, equity, debt, solvency, crisis, all kinds of cycles, the write-off of sovereign debt, and therefore we get input from them as well before we decide. Does that answer your question, Bharat?
Yeah. No, thank you for that. I had two, three kind of points on that.
I'm not talking about ULIP part. Obviously, ULIP is what is dedicated as per the objective. I'm talking of non-ULIP part. I completely accept that liability management is the first job in ensuring prudent, sustainable, solid, and confidence in inspiring capability to stand by liability mitigation is absolutely core, especially in life insurance, where long-term confidence in the viability of the insurer is very, very vital. unequivocally, that is completely correct. My mere point is general insurance, given our very prudent underwriting policy consistently for a long time, we have been in a situation of a favorable combined ratio all through, well below 100. Therefore, essentially, we are in a negative float situation. I accept that most of the contracts, they are of a yearly duration or thereabout.
Given the fact of a core portion out of even those short-term contracts, which is renewable by experience that we know is essentially long-term money, therefore long-term float at a negative cost. If we multiply that, if we compound that float at the rate of 5% and 6% compared to if we are able to do it at 9% or 10%, will make a world of difference to the return on equity. Steady, well-carved out, controlled risk equity exposure with a strong capability without in any way mitigating liability management capability of the core insurance businesses, is something I believe is possible to carve out. Possible to kind of really make it work over a period of time. There will be volatility, there will be interim points where it will cause discomfiture.
Through that, over a period of time, in a controlled well-planned way, I would say that is a route through which far superior return on equity can be generated without compromising on risk standards or without deviating anything away from our core need of protecting liability.
Bharat, I can use our returns, our return on average returns over the last five years. I think it will be closer to eight to five. It is not lower. Maybe last year may be a bit lower because we are required by regulation to keep 75%. We're keeping 75% in fixed income. Whether you put 15% or 25% in equity and you look at the kind of extra returns on equity coupled with the volatility, I don't know how many basis points it will make in the total thing. It may move it by 1% or so. That compounding, the math, arithmetic is very clear to all of us, and we do that on a regular basis. We have been delivering that kind of investment return. We also do not go by the IRDAI solvency.
We also maintain internally a target solvency which is a bit higher. As you know, most of our risk-based capital requirements are not risk-based, and they are premium-based and claim-based. At some point, IRDAI will come with risk-based and you will be charged with more capital.
Sorry to interrupt. Mr. S. Sreenivasan, your audio is breaking. We're not able to hear you clearly.
Hello. Yeah. Can you hear me now?
Yes, sir.
Yeah. No, I was saying that this is a highly regulated industry, and 75% you have to keep in fixed income anyway. Within that 25%, you have to say, Do I keep 15? Do I keep 10? Do I keep 20? It depends on how much excess capital you have, not the absolute amount of capital. Solvency capital is not risk-based in India. It's the old norm that they are following. The moment they go into risk-based, they've already announced what we call economic capital. There are chances that the required capital may go up as well. All you can really invest in equity is the high proportion of your surplus capital over and above what we call a target solvency that we maintain. We are doing that on a regular basis. I could give you the numbers.
Bharat, you have the return on shareholders' funds last few years or Raman?
Sreenivasan, for BAGIC, this year we did about seven point seven. Last year comparative was 8% almost. This is-
Before that I think we were doing eight and a half, nine percent.
Yeah, this is on book value basis. If I take market value, this year is actually 11% and last year was 8%.
11 and eight. Okay.
Yeah.
I think BALIC is similar as well, right, Bharat?
I think it's also on the lines. Yeah. S. Sreenivasan, this was upwards of 10%.
Yeah. Bharat, we have been increasing it in a calibrated fashion, and given the requirement of an excess capital and how much it is and what we need to keep for supporting our business, and that's all it is.
Okay. Point noted. I thought I'll just leave my point for thinking.
If you want any more of my thing, we can have a call later and we can explain to you what are the historical returns and how we have managed them, what changes we made.
Sure. I was referring to basically non-mandatory part of the investment. What is mandatory-
Basically, you're talking about excess capital or shareholders.
Yes. We'll take it up. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Hitesh Kochhar from Haitong Securities. Please go ahead.
Yeah, thank you for taking my question and congratulations on a good set of numbers. My question is, in motor TP claims ratio, we have seen an increase this year, which you also mentioned that we have strengthened our reserves in motor TP segment because we expect future claims to be higher because courts are giving such orders. If you look at the reserving triangle, there still is release this year. Is my understanding correct, or is there something wrong that I'm looking at?
Hello, Raman, would you like to take that?
Yeah. You're right. If you look at the loss triangles, there is a release of upwards of INR 300 crores, and that reflects on our approach of conservation in the past reserving. However, if you compare the number versus last year, it's a dip of about INR 100 crores, and that's where the indication of strengthening comes. Overall, while we have strengthened it, but there is still a release. It's a temporary thing. On a long-term basis, we will still be close to what we've been delivering in the past. Whatever you see in the past few years, we've delivered almost a release of five%-seven% almost every year, and hopefully that trend should continue.
Okay. Just one more question-
To add to that-
What I would like to add here-
Release happens when you settle claims less than what you reserved. As a policy, you can see from a triangle that our reserving at the point of claim and throughout the management of the claim generally is more conservative, which is why you have releases when the claim is actually settled. Now, this is part and parcel of every GI business. Some companies may have more and more charge if they have not reserved prudently. Those who reserve prudently will have more releases, but those releases will come every year.
When you reserve more, it's not necessarily that net the reserves have increased. That means the release can be lower in that particular year, because on the settled claims, you will have releases. On the expected losses, you would have increases. The two will offset, but that offset net amount after offset this year is about INR 100 crores lower than last year. That's what Raman is saying.
Exactly. If you look at the claim settlement this year, has been lower because of courts being closed.
Yes.
That's why you see that difference. The more claims get settled, because we are a prudent company and reserving is right for us. Once we settle claims, then the difference gets released. That is how you look at it. The other thing is why we are strengthening it is, if you look at, there's a particular judgment, which is the TP judgment, in which the court now says that even notional income for all the unemployed will be taken for calculating the amount to be paid. Now that means the quantum of claims is going to move up in the TP segment for the entire industry across. Because that is going to happen, that is the strengthening part of it. That is what is done. I think S. Sreenivasan explained it very beautifully in terms of there are two different things.
Reserving is for a different set, and release is on a different set of business.
just to add-
Yeah.
Just to add on the release, which Tapan indicated, the number of claims settled have gone down. That is to the extent of almost 30% lower than last year. Last year we settled about 31,000 claims. This year we've settled only about 20,000 claims. That's the kind of impact.
Sure. Sir, can you also quantify the quantum of COVID claims paid by you in the life and general insurance business?
Overall, till date, we've done almost 400 crores of claims. While registered are more, but paid is actually close to 400 crores of claims paid out.
This is in general insurance.
Yeah, general. Bharat Life-
In case of Life, we have paid 1,335 claims worth INR 73 crores rupees for FY 2021.
Sir, operating variance, operating assumption change that you have taken in your embedded value that is related to mortality only, is that understanding correct?
that is to have a somewhat of a mortality. There is not much of a variance, but it is because of a persistency of our one of the product line, and that is a little negative. then we have moved to the effective tax rate, which is positive, and hence the net number is plus INR 16 crore. That's where the numbers are. The COVID impact-
the future assumption changes.
That is the COVID part. We have kept another INR 39 crore as our COVID reserves, and we have also strengthened our IBNR by around INR 18 crore. Those are the two numbers which are sitting in the assumptions part, assumption change part.
Thank you, sir. That's it from me.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi, sir. Thank you for taking my question. First on BAGIC. The higher claim provisioning is happening mainly on the TP side. This is because courts are now considering notional income, as Tapan explained. Sir, what is our expectation of price hikes in FY 2022, and what are we seeing on competition on the OD segment? Second question on health. Loss ratios have improved in the fourth quarter. What would be the main drivers of there, and I think we're still growing in the group health segment. What are we actually seeing there? Finally, for BALIC, my question is, how is the Axis channel done, and what are our expectations for that channel going into FY 2022? Do we have targets in mind? Is there a written agreement between the two partners of how much growth should be there on a year-over-year basis? Yeah. Thanks.
Hello?
Hello.
Okay.
Yeah. S. Sreenivasan, Tapan Singhel, can you take that? Motor OD, expectation of price increase in TP.
Yeah. Okay. If you look at the TP price increase, would come from the regulator. It is not something which the market controls. It is still controlled by the regulator. Last year, there was no TP price increase. This year till now, there has been no announcement. On how much will it be, I don't think that anybody can tell you in terms of how much will the increase be or will it happen, will it not happen. That is speculative in nature, if anybody makes a guess on that. When we run businesses, we always start with the philosophy that, okay, there's no price hike. How do we look at business? How do we go about it? If it happens, good, then we can recalibrate and re-look into the business model and how do we take on business.
That would be my answer to your TP price hike, because it is controlled. It is not market price driven, so it has to come from the regulator. Last year it didn't happen. This year till now, there's been no announcement. If you look at the OD premium movement, which would happen, discount, this is controlled by the market. Depending on the risk, the way the company sees for a particular risk for particular vehicles, and the business philosophy, they would underwrite or discount OD or harden it as time progresses. This is market controlled, so this fluctuates. Sometimes when you see, like last year, the first two months, there was two and a half months was complete lockdown. The loss ratios fell down, so the discount in OD moved up. Again, the loss ratios are moving up, so there'll be some trending happening again.
It fluctuates in the market as the year progresses. There's nothing fixed that for the whole year, this is what the discount or this is how the price hardening will happen. That will keep on moving. Depending on how the loss ratios move, individual company will decide how it goes. That is how to look into it. If you look at the health portfolio also on the group health-
But just-
Go ahead
just to interrupt on this point.
Yeah, please.
Sir, what is the competitive intensity? Are we seeing any improvement? Because now for one year you've not seen price hikes, and economic activity has sort of come back. Were we seeing some improvement in the pressure in OD pricing from competition? Some sense on that.
See, as I told you, every company has their own philosophy, where they want to be. There are some companies which would be heavily discounting because their philosophy would be to work on discounts. Some company would be adding a lot of value in terms of claims settlement. They would be looking at servicing the customers well, and they would not be heavily discounting. It is not a fixed price that you see. Let me explain to you, I think. Let's say there are 10 companies-
No, I understand that, sir. I understand that.
No.
I was just looking for any trend, if you're saying.
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say. Let's say there are 10 companies into the market, yeah. Let us say, hypothetically, let's say there's 10 companies. Four of them were discounting till yesterday. Six were not discounting, and only four were discounting. From these four, three may actually move to hardening because they would have suffered more losses. From the above six, two may actually move to discounting more. It's a moving target between companies. You would never find that the market is moving up or down. You'll always have in the market, in any year after 2007 when free pricing happened, any year you'll find some companies which are heavily discounting, and then if they suffer losses, they start trending. There's some company which would be prudent. There's some company who would fluctuate depending on the strategy which is there.
It is very difficult to say overall how the market will move. I would want the market to correct and become more sustainable. We have seen how solvency has become an issue in the industry for quite some companies. We have seen how companies have been losing money. That is not good for the industry because companies, typically which lose money, there the customer service get affected. I think that is also what we have seen in terms of grievance ratios moving up. If you ask my personal opinion, I would say a fair price in the market and a very good service to the customer is what should be. I cannot predict in terms of how companies would react to different scenarios because it's a moving target for every company on the strategy which is there. That is what it is.
If you ask me will it move up, go down? For individual companies, yeah, they can decide how it goes. Overall, there will always be some movement happening. It's a moving target.
If I can just add to that, I think if you see the market till 2012, I think people were losing money on third party. Most companies were losing money. We were pretty much making money most of the years anyway, except the one year when the pool loss happened. Thereafter, when the rate increased, people started making money, more companies started becoming profitable. I think at one time, more than 2,000 of the market was profitable just a couple of years ago. Now, if rate increases do not happen and if they're not managing their third-party claims properly, they will be under pressure to find other sources of profit. One could logically argue that this should result in better price discipline in other segments like motor OD or property.
Depending on how much capital is there available to burn and whether their goal is to just get market share in terms of GWP, the company can have a different way of looking at it. As long as there's capital to burn, you can build a business by just writing business at a loss for some time, till the capital runs out.
Got it. On the BAGIC side.
The health segment also is left out.
Okay. Health, maybe Tapan should answer.
Yeah.
Sir, health, what was the question? Sorry.
We've seen an improvement in the health loss ratios in 4Q. What are the main drivers?
Okay
The group health also seems to have done well.
Yeah.
What are we seeing there on the market side?
Okay. If you look at, again, the health portfolio, there are two ways to look at it. If a company is growing very aggressively, they get new business. New business has much lower loss ratio than the older book. If you analyze health portfolio, you should look at it year-wise loss ratios. First year loss ratio for the health book is always much lower than, let's say, a fourth year loss ratio for any company, because that is how the health portfolio moves. If you see a company which has high growth and loss ratio is moving up, that is an area of concern, because then that means the older books is getting pretty bad as it's progressing. You have a lot of claims in the first year itself. Typically, if you look at BAGIC, we have a moderate growth.
We don't have a very high growth, and we don't have a very low growth also, negative growth also. On a moderate growth, typically, if a loss ratio improvement happens, it will happen for two reasons. One is your segmentation of customers and your price. If you look at we did a price hike early on in the book that was there. If you combine that together and the segmentation of the risk that you take, you would have an improvement in loss ratio which is there. In group health also, I think Sri mentioned earlier also. If you look at our growth, we're not overboard in terms of going and picking up any business.
We have customers whom we service in the corporate business, and we also have individual customers who look at us from a servicing perspective, and we were the first in the year 2004 to set up our own HAT network of servicing customers directly, which was called the Health Administration Team. On that basis, we price our risk, and that's how we serve the customer. That's why you see this difference which is there. Basically, as a company, to understand us, we are a company which would be a prudent underwriter and very focused on customer obsession servicing. I think if you look at our claim settlement ratios, our grievance ratio is the least among the industry and all that stuff. That is where our obsession would be. Our customer delight has to be very high.
that's why most of the questions, if you put this as a judgment parameter, the answers would come there as to why and how no crisis and how do we look at it.
On the group segment?
Yeah, group health, I told you. That group health, if you look at it, we write risks which we feel comfortable with at the price, and customers which want pretty good servicing to be done, they come to us, and that's how we write it. There's nothing that we say that we don't write. We look at BAGIC, we write all lines of businesses, and we do business through all channels which is possible. We do business where the customer values high servicing and customer obsession and solution providing for the customer. That is how we look at it. Group also we do it, but we're not overboard or aggressive on group and picking up any business for the sake of picking up.
Let me just add one thing to that. When you talk about group health, I think there may be companies operating at more than 100% loss ratio. Insurance is a business where the customer feels they have a risk, otherwise they will not buy insurance. Similarly, insurance companies also feel there is a chance that I will make money, and that chance can be reasonably well calculated or assessed. When you know that I have to take 100 and you pay more than 100, then that is not insurance, because that's a certainty. We only write business where our expectation is that we have a fair chance of making money. We normally, if it crosses 90%, we get a bit conservative. When it's lower, we can get a bit more aggressive.
Today, the times are not great for writing blind, non-underwritten policies like group because of how many COVID claims will come and all that. One has to be careful. We have a pricing policy, and if people accept that price, we go ahead with that. If people don't accept it, we will withdraw. There is no other benefit on group health. There's no float. It is a short-tail business. It is not like motor TP, where you can sit on the money for two, three years. There's nothing like that. Claims start coming in immediately after the policy is written because a large group of people, so it is not even like retail health. It is a business one has to look at it a bit differently, and that's how we have done over the years.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Securities Limited. Please go ahead.
Hi. A couple of questions from my side. We just discussed about the health claims and your pricing going up, et cetera. I was curious whether this is what has driven the big change in the fourth quarter. I understand the broad strategy, but is this what is the reason for the current quarter change in the claims ratio for health is pretty sharp.
One is obviously the price increase, which effective from 1st of October and with the renewal policy from 1st of January.
That could be the sole reason for the big change.
That's one of the changes. Raman, any other reason, or Tapan?
Yeah. I'll take it, S. Sreenivasan. On the health piece, actually, one obviously is the fact that from 1st of January, we had all policies on retail side, which is about 60, 70% of our flagship products being sold with a price increase. The second one was also that on GMC, like you've seen and like Tapan explained, we've been conservative there and picking up only the good accounts. That is also the second reason. Third is the non-COVID claims have also gone down to some extent. I think the summation of all these three has led to the loss ratio coming down in Q4.
You said non-COVID claims have gone down?
Yeah, non-COVID also. While COVID has been there for a while now, but non-COVID also because of the situation, people are fearing going to the hospitals, those have also gone down. Now that we've seen in the past, it comes back after a while when things start opening up. That's something which we'll have to wait and watch.
No, the two are opposite directions. When COVID claims increase, non-COVID claims come down because hospitals have limited capacity and people don't want to go to hospitals.
I thought we saw non-COVID claims going up in Q4. Sorry. I thought we saw non-COVID claims going up in Q4 for the industry because a lot of surgeries, et cetera, you're seeing some kind of moderation in COVID numbers.
They have sequentially moved up, Nischint they're right.
Yeah.
They have sequentially moved up, but versus last quarter of last year, it is still worse.
Fair point. Just moving on-
My fair point
If you could explain the table in slide 55, and just trying to understand how should one be reading this provision going up from 466 to 518?
Here, see, the issue on hand is that. Okay, the increase is almost about INR 100 crores, which I'll explain.
If you see the delta between the claims paid till last year, it's gone up by about INR 49 crores. If you see the total provision, that has also gone in the opposite direction by about INR 54 crores. The summation of these two is actually the strengthening of INR 100 crores. The provision movement and the claims paid movement delta adds up to the strengthening of INR 100 crores.
Sure. Just moving on to the life side. If you could give some color in terms of how do you see business from Axis Bank. I think it's ramped up quite a lot this year, while agency, I think, on a full year basis was almost flat. If you could give some color in terms of how do you see that playing out. Obviously, we know that there are uncertainties around the second wave, et cetera. Still, do we see a very similar ramp up this year as well? This is for BALIC.
Yeah. see, Axis is going to ramp up, of course-
Given the base effect. We were largely in one vertical, and now we are slowly adding to some branch banking branches as well, and that is going to help in the ramp up. It is going to pull up our company average on growth very clearly. It is going to be higher than the company average. We are very clear that we have to look at profitability as well and keep a balanced channel mix. I think we've been through that phase of BALIC where there was dependence on the agency channel. One channel contributed to upward of 80%. How we intend to differentiate ourselves from the large life insurance companies is that their dependence on one partner is so high that that increases the risk. We will be always focused on keeping this in a balanced way.
Sure. Just on the EV work side, on the operating variance side, I believe you said that persistency experience was a bit negative in one of the products. actually, if I see the operating variance on a net-net basis, it's positive. I believe the other two lines have been more positive. How should we think about it?
Nischint, two things. As I said, there's one line of non-par saving where we saw some persistency base estimate being updated. What we have moved is now this year we have moved to the effective tax rate. The way we have taken the effective tax rate is in two forms. One, whatever was the unwinding for this year, that has gone to a ROV or an operating variance.
Okay.
Whatever is the pending for the future profit, which is like whatever is the opening balance of the VIF and unwind of that we have taken as a separate line item. You would see that there is another INR 89 crores, which we haven't taken into ROV. This is only because of two things, ETR, effective tax rate change, and persistency on one line of the products, which is sitting in the ROV and operating variance.
Perfect. Just one last clarification. The reduction in unwind rate, sorry, unwinding rate purely reflects the movement in interest rates.
The reduction in unwinding rate. We follow a consistent unwinding rate. There is no reduction or change in unwinding rate.
If I look at effective unwinding rate, expected return in force upon opening EV
Yeah
that ratio has come down to around 7% in 2021 from 7.6% in 2020 and around 8% in 2019.
Should not be the case. We follow an 8% only, but let me just come back to you separately on this. Will that be okay?
Sure. Perfect. Thank you very much and all the best.
Yeah.
Thank you. Due to time constraint, that was the last question. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Bunny Babjee.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial, I would like to thank Mr. S. Sreenivasan, sir, and the senior management team of the insurance businesses and all the participants joining us on the call today. Thank you and have a good day and stay safe.
Thank you. Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you, everybody.
Thank you.
Thank you. On behalf of JM Financial, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect your lines.