Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited Q2 FY23 earnings conference call. 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 call, please signal an operator by pressing star then zero on your touchtone phone. Please note that this conference is being recorded. I now hand the conference over to Ms. Vibha Padalkar, MD and CEO of HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited. Thank you, and over to you, ma'am.
Thank you, Faizan. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for the discussion on our results for the half year ended September 30th, 2022. Our results, including the investor presentation, press release, and regulatory disclosures, are already available on our website as well as that of the stock exchanges. I have with me Suresh Badami, Executive Director, Niraj Shah, CFO, Easwari Murugan, our appointed actuary, and Kunal Jain from Investor Relations. I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate Suresh on his elevation as the Deputy Managing Director. We look forward to continue building an industry leading and customer-centric franchise. I will take you through the key highlights of our H1FY23 results and would be happy to take questions post that.
As you may be aware, our subsidiary, Exide Life, merged with HDFC Life on October 14, pursuant to the receipt of the final approval from IRDAI. The entire transaction, right from the announcement of the deal in September 2021, followed by the acquisition in January 2022 and the eventual merger, was completed in less than 14 months. I would like to thank our regulator and all other authorities involved in the M&A for their encouragement, support and timely approvals. Customers across both entities will now have access to a wider bouquet of products and service touchpoints. All policyholders of Exide Life will continue to receive best in class service from us. All Exide Life distribution partners will now have access to HDFC Life's market leading products and services and digital capabilities.
This merger accelerates the scale up of HDFC Life's agency and broker channels and also enhances its geographical presence in tier two and tier three markets. We strongly believe that this amalgamation will result in value creation for our customers, shareholders, employees, and distribution partners. As we emerge from the shadow of COVID, we wanted to take stock of the performance of the Indian life insurance industry compared to regional insurers. The Indian private life insurance sector has grown at a two year CAGR of 14% during the COVID years and continues to record double digit growth in the current year. While growth in retail protection continued to be a challenge, companies had several other levers to deliver consistent margin expansion and hence robust growth in value of new business while maintaining balance sheet resilience.
This is commendable, especially given that large life insurers in the Asia Pac region have experienced degrowth in both top line as well as value of new business. We're happy to have played our part holistically, delivering a two year CAGR of 17% in top line, 18% in value of new business, and about 150 basis points expansion in new business margins between FY 2020 and FY 2022. This was possible on the back of continued product innovation, diversified distribution, balanced product mix, focus on technology, and calibrated risk management approach. It is worthwhile to note that despite a claims payout during the pandemic of over INR 40,000 crore in FY 2021 and around INR 69,000 crore in FY 2022 by our industry, adequate solvency levels were maintained and there was a range bound impact on the embedded values of large insurers.
This speaks quite highly of the inherent strength of the Indian life insurance sector. We continue to be excited about the growth prospects of the industry on the back of renewed support and encouragement from our regulator. We are enthused by the regulator's vision of significantly improving the global ranking of Indian life insurance from its current number ten position to number six and look forward to being a meaningful contributor in this journey. Starting with our business update. We continue to maintain a steady growth trajectory, growing by 11% in terms of total APE in H1FY23 on a pre-merger basis, i.e., excluding Exide Life. We have grown in line with the industry and faster than listed players this quarter, which also led to market share improvement from 14.6% in Q1 to 15% in Q2 on a pre-merger basis.
We have maintained our market leadership position as a top three life insurer across individual and group businesses. Market share in terms of individual WRP for the merged entity, i.e., including Exide Life, stands at 16.1% among private players and 10.2% within overall industry. Our product mix, both on a pre-merger basis as well as for the merged entity, remains balanced. On a pre-merger basis, non-par savings stood at 37%, participating products at 29%, ULIPs at 23%, individual protection at 4%, and annuity at 7% based on individual APE. Within the non-par segment, our shorter tenure product, Sanchay SMP, continues to grow well and now contributes over a fifth of our non-par individual APE. The prevailing high interest rate scenario continues to augur well for demand across our traditional savings products.
On the protection front, the Credit Protect business has registered strong growth of 66% for H1FY21 on the back of rise in disbursements across most of our partners. While growth in retail protection remained tepid on a YOY basis, quarter two growth is sequentially higher by 26%. We expect YOY growth to gradually pick up in the second half of the year. We also launched a new product, Click2Protect Super, during the quarter. This product has been received well across channels, especially on digital platforms. We continue to steadily improve our individual protection policy conversion ratios through process efficiencies and several other initiatives. Protection APE has grown by 24% in H1 FY23 on a pre-merger basis. On the retirement front, our annuity business in H1 FY23 has grown by 4% on received premium basis compared to a 4% degrowth for the industry.
Growth of annuity on an APE basis is 44%. Our regular premium annuity product, Systematic Retirement Plan, introduced in December 2021 last year, continues to attract interest from customers across channels. We also launched Click2Protect Optima Secure in partnership with HDFC ERGO. It is a comprehensive financial protection plan that offers dual benefits of health and life insurance. We continue to explore innovative ways to help deepen protection penetration. Hence, in addition to the existing products such as Pure Term, Return of Premium variants, Credit Life and Group Term, we are also now offering savings products that offer higher than typical 10x risk cover. Moving on to key financial and operating metrics. New business margin for H1 is 27.6%, up from 26.4% in H1 FY22 on a pre-merger basis.
There has been margin expansion for both the existing business, i.e., pre-merger, and the acquired Exide Life business in H1 FY23. We are close to achieving our aspiration of maintaining FY22 margin neutrality for the combined entity, having delivered 26.2% NBM compared to 26.4% in H1 FY22. The value of new business has grown by 16% on a pre-merger basis and is at INR 1,258 crore for H1. Our embedded value on a pre-merger basis stood at INR 33,015 crore as on September 30th, 2022, with an operating return on embedded value of 17.7% for H1 FY23. The embedded value of the merged entity stood at INR 36,016 crore.
Profit after tax on pre-merger basis stood at INR 682 crore, a year-on-year increase of 18% during H1 FY 2023. This was aided by strong growth of 35% in existing business profits. Our solvency ratio is 210% as on September 30th, 2022, as against 178% last year. The solvency was strengthened by way of an equity capital raise of INR 2,000 crore during the quarter. Renewal premiums have grown by 21% on a pre-merger basis. Persistency continued to improve for both the existing business, i.e., pre-merger basis, and the acquired business. Our 13th and 61st month persistency for limited and regular pay policies is at 88% and 54% respectively on a pre-merger basis, and 87% and 51% on merged basis. Next, on channel performance.
Our bancassurance channel grew by 12% in H1 FY23 based on individual APE. Within bancassurance, we continue to see strong growth momentum across our newer relationships such as Yes Bank, Bandhan Bank, IDFC First Bank, amongst others. In our quest to expand and diversify our distribution, we have won the bancassurance mandate with India Post Payments Bank. IPPB has a vast network of 650+ branches and over 1.5 lakh post offices, serving a customer base of over 55 million customers. A large part of the post offices are in rural areas, thereby giving us wider access and furthering our goal of insuring India. Our agency channel grew by 23% based on individual APE in H1 FY23 on a pre-merger basis.
We added about 24,000 agents in H1 FY23 and continue to focus on improving activation and productivity across our base of financial consultants. The share of agency to individual APE has increased from 15% to 18% in the merged entity. We expect growth in this channel to be driven by the larger agent base with access to a wider suite of products. Moving on to tech and innovation. We have integrated our customer journey with external databases such as credit bureaus, TRACES, and EPFO to ensure seamless onboarding. This will enable us to access latest ITR returns and EPFO passbook with customer consent, ensuring stronger and faster underwriting and quicker policy issuance for both salaried and non-salaried customers. Innovative solutions such as enabling cardiac risk assessment at the customer's residence for medical underwriting furthers our motive of simplifying customer journey and provide best in class service.
In an industry first initiative, we have now launched home medicals for our overseas customers in over 20 countries. Now an update on HDFC Pension. As on September 30th, 2022, HDFC Pension had a market share of 39.3%, up from 35.9% a year ago and an AUM of INR 35,146 crore, clocking growth of 57%, thereby maintaining its leadership position in the private NPS pension fund manager space. Moving on to regulations. IRDAI has taken several measures with a clear focus on increasing insurance penetration in the country and enhancing ease of doing business. One of the initiatives they have taken is in the form of Bima Sugam, a digital platform that will give more choice to the customer. We believe this is a step in the right direction.
Having several insurers on this platform would increase collaboration and help save resources spent on individual campaigns to increase customer awareness. Bima Sugam can help sharpen underwriting through real time data access from account aggregators and multiple repositories with due customer consent, thereby enabling faster turnarounds. The most noteworthy distinction between Bima Sugam and existing digital marketplaces is opening up a direct to customer connect that besides policy purchase, shall also serve as a platform for servicing, and grievance redressal. To conclude, our objective remains to empower individuals to provide financial protection to their loved ones and widen insurance coverage through a mix of innovative products and diversified distribution. The detailed disclosure on our results is available in our investor presentation. We are happy to take questions now.
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 touchtone 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. A reminder to the participants, anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one at this time. The first question is from the line of Suresh Ganapathy from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah, hi. Hi, Vibha. I had three questions.
Suresh Ganapathy, your line is in talk mode. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah. Hello. You can hear me? Hello? Hello?
Mr. Ganapathy, your line is in talk mode. Please go ahead with your question.
Yeah, sure. Okay. I had three questions. One is on the FRA aspect.
If there's no response from the current participant, we'll move on to the next question from the line of Avinash Singh from Emkay Global. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi. Good afternoon. A couple of questions. The first one particularly is a bit on, you know, your segmental surplus deficit. What kind of, you know, product dynamics changes are there-
Sir, I request you to.
Hello? Am I audible?
Yeah. Avinash, go ahead.
Yeah. One is on the segmental part. I mean, in the non-par, your surplus deficit movement now seems in this financial year with tied and untied non-number, it looks like almost like, you know, you have no surplus, no deficit. In earlier years we had an expense on par life, there used to be a bigger deficit. What kind of product dynamics has changed because of this merger that's sort of leading to this, you know, the better surplus? Of course, I know that, okay, the government keeps on moving with the product dynamics in that particular quarter. That's one. Second, or more in terms of, because you touched upon Bima Sugam, I mean, do you see, I mean, not immediately, but then that could be a meaningful number contributor.
How is that going to behave with other channels? Because, I mean, I'm coming from the fact unless there's a kind of a pricing difference, as a customer, I mean, you have n number of reasons to be in touch with, you know, a lot of distributor, be it agent or bank. If I'm going to get the product at the same price on that platform, why should I just get attracted to that platform? If there is a sort of a price benefit, then how is it going to manage channel conflict? Thank you. Over to you, Vibha.
On the first point, Avinash, the segmental non-par, it is largely because of the claim settlement. Segmental non-par will have a profitable outcome. As you know, compared to unit link, unwinding of profits to Indian GAAP will take little bit longer. That should be very, very healthy. Also in terms of your next question on Bima Sugam, the way we see it is that, may a thousand lotuses bloom, to put it very succinctly. That it is not this or that. It should be in whatever form or shape that we're able to extend insurance to the average Indian, so that by 2047, we are able to ensure that this is a regulator's vision, that every Indian has some level of insurance cover.
The more modes of reach to the customer, the better. Now to your point, will it be cheaper? I think some of those modalities will get worked out, but there will be no intermediation. There will be no calling. It is not that you log in something and there is a calling or there's an intermediary. That is not to say that either all business will come through Bima Sugam or no business will come. I think it's a question of, you know, different avenues of purchase. Like with everything else, some people will want advisory, at least for more complex products. Some low, lower ticket simpler products might go through the Bima Sugam and so on. I think what is very credible is the vision of the regulator.
In a way, it is like farm to table concept, wherein as a manufacturer, I'm directly able to offer it to the customer. Another important aspect is what the regulators rightly said that even existing distributors or partners can come onto Bima Sugam. It can be that there's a broker, for example, who's also on Bima Sugam, who says, "I'm broker XYZ slash Bima Sugam slash dot," you know, whatever. You go through that broker. Somebody might want that. It's a hybrid model. It's a digital model. Really it is a one-stop shop. We'll have to see how the pricing evolves, but I think it will be more attractive at least for certain types of products than perhaps with some other channels.
Okay. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Suresh Ganapathy from Macquarie. Please go ahead.
Yeah. Hi, Vibha. Am I audible now?
Yes, Suresh. Please go ahead.
Okay, great. So I have two questions or rather three questions. One is on the FRA aspect itself. I mean, now that we have seen some problems emerging in some of the European banks, and also the fact that the yield curve has significantly flattened out, do you think there could be an issue of supply of FRAs in any way which could, of course, hamper your ability to offer non-par guaranteed products? That's question number one. Second thing, Vibha, very clearly there is weakness in the protection segment. I mean, you may argue QOQ has gone up, but YOY, the individual APE in the protection segment is down 39% as per my calculation. You know, even in your overall business you have lost market share.
I mean, your overall growth for the quarter has been only 4% APE. The other guys have done brilliantly well. Some of your other channel, HDFC Bank channel partners like Tata, Birla, all of them have done very, very well with very strong growth. You have actually lost market share this year. Wanted to understand what's happening on the growth front, because it's pretty rare that HDFC Life loses market share. The third question is on Bima Sugam. Obviously, you did explain, but do you think it can possibly take away some of the market share from other digital marketplace players? In case they're really coming up with a great deal and an open platform like UPI, there is a possibility that the other digital market players may lose market share. Just wanted your views on that. Thanks, Vibha. Over to you.
Yeah. Typically in the private space, you know, Suresh, I'm taking the second question first, which is on market share.
Yeah.
We have trended at about 14.8%-15%. We are very much there in terms of market share. It is the mid-tier companies that have grown quite significantly on market share. You know, when you triangulate that holistically with how much of risk is being taken on the balance sheet as well as what are the cost ratios, very little disclosure, then this one aspect of it is quite. You know, it become unidimensional. We are fairly confident of continuing to grow down the line, and I'll talk about it, faster than the market. This I'm talking about the private life insurance sector. Yes, there will be some blip.
One of the reasons for the blip, while quarter two has been better in terms of market share than quarter one, market share excluding Exide Life has been 15% in quarter two versus 14.6% in quarter one. We will definitely trend upwards. If I were to deconstruct between growth in HDFC Bank versus other than HDFC Bank. Other than HDFC Bank in terms of versus every metric you take, whether on quarter two, whether it is on H1 and so on, we have grown faster than the industry, at least 2-3x faster than the industry, other than HDFC Bank. This is my proprietary channel, broker channel, new tie-ups. That has happened.
With HDFC Bank, we have slowed versus the industry growth and consequently some of the mid-tier players have grown. Now, two things here. One is that there is a base effect, so base effect will also normalize. Also the merger itself, wherein HDFC Bank becomes our promoter. It is bound to happen, and HDFC Bank management has also alluded that closer to regulatory approvals coming through, there certainly will be alignment because your promoter is also your largest distributor. Some of those things, alignment will start happening. I think deconstructing where there's been de-growth, wherever we've had a direct control, we have grown. Quarter one, quarter two and so on, we have grown much faster than, you know, the market.
How much does HDFC Bank contribute now compared to a year earlier?
It's about 48%, between 46%-48%.
Year before?
It's about 200 basis points higher.
Oh, okay. It's 200 basis points lower now, you mean to say?
Lower, yeah.
Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Yeah. Just about 50-50, if you see then, you know, in quarter two, for example, we've grown other than HDFC Bank, we've grown about 18%, which is about 2.5x what the industry growth has been.
Okay.
Right. It's more in terms of this, you know, getting this part of it sorted out with some of the structural changes should come through. Of course, you know, we continue to offer innovative products and customer service and all of that. I think structurally that change will happen. Second, if I can move on to Bima Sugam.
Protection. When the protection has been weak. Vibha, I want you to address that also.
Yeah, yeah.
Target protection. Yeah.
On protection, yes, we continue to, you know, like you mentioned, while Q2 is better than Q1, but yes, last year there was a bit of a ramp up before, if you recall, end of December, when again price changes happened. Second price hike at reinsurers. So it was reasonably gaining traction before again reinsurers, you know, increase the prices. Now on retail protection, we, Suresh, try to continue taking a calibrated basis. Obviously, we would not want to say no to business, but say on aggregator platforms or where there's a direct comparison and we can see that the pricing at which there's an ask is not making sense to us as well as the risk is not asking the right underwriting questions is not making sense to us.
We want to stay away from those profiles of life. We do believe that down the line, we are beginning to see some level of stress when we calibrate it with either claim rejections or from some assured and so on, the balance sheet risk that is there. Anecdotally, we know that a lot of high ticket cases that we say no to does get converted elsewhere. Some of those balance sheets do show higher levels of risk that are being retained. Here we are talking about maybe 400x the first year premium. While we remain enthused and we've been the first movers in this space, we will grow this brick by brick. The traction we are seeing quarter two versus quarter one.
Another data point is that we did mention that we are low six, you know, around 60%. That is some of the channels have now exceeded 70% in terms of conversion. We are looking at aspects that we can get right. We are also doing another thing. We are also retaining more risk in the sense calibrated risk on our balance sheet. For example, if reinsurer, we are taking a very, very conservative view to say that, you know, I won't say last three years of tax returns. We have the last two. The third year from today, going back in time that individual doesn't have. We will try and triangulate that with some other means, rather than saying no to business.
Now that we have more capital and we raised that in this quarter it's come through, we are taking some calibrated calls, rarely in the case of medical calls, but in the case of financial calls. We're doing that, but we have no reason to believe that the business we're saying no to will magically exhibit very good levels of mortality. When you triangulate that, Suresh, with some of the most of the industry apart from mid-tier players, that there is no disclosure versus what has been assumed by actuaries of their companies. In the absence of that, you know, it's very difficult to understand what is going on. Suresh, you want to add anything on this particular point?
No, I think you covered it, Suresh. Just to say, I think there has been a fair amount of focus in continuing to diversify and grow on our proprietary channels as well as in partnership with banca. We see significant traction there in terms of both market share and quality of business. I think even at HDFC Bank, while there has been a slight dip in share, Vibha correctly mentioned that it should correct once the overall merger is in place and we see the value in the synergy. I would also say that look we've been fairly cautious in terms of which business, what quality of business, and we're quite happy in terms of the business that we're writing through HDFC Bank.
We do believe that over the next half of the year, we will see significant growth in terms of our market share in hedge funds.
We're also trying to get to the same answer, like I mentioned in my opening remarks of higher levels of Sum Assured rather than going through just a pure protection. Also looking at return of premium, how do we increase that to customers that want to buy that? Also riders. These are different ways of getting to the customer rather than just loosening on risk management.
Okay.
Yeah. The next one is on Bima Sugam. I'll just finish that before I hand over to Ni raj on FRA. On Bima Sugam, you mentioned as to how this is versus other digital platforms and so on. In the near term, I don't think it will get impacted. However, what we've seen in the payments ecosystem of at least on smaller ticket payments massively taking off.
Mm-hmm.
I expect to see that happening at lower end or lower ticket, kind of simple products, and younger people coming there and buying without the need for a intermediary. I do see that taking off, but it'll take some time. It'll take some time and traction, word of mouth, because none of this is going to be massive advertising budget. All companies have to come together to perhaps pool together advertising money. We already have that through the Life Insurance Council, but everyone needs to join to be able to also include it in there.
Otherwise, how do you pass on the message that, hey, you know, you can come onto this website, and if you're reasonably savvy, you can do your own search, pinging the companies you want to ping and then, you know, do your buying journey from here. It's conceptually very, very strong proposition. I think, over the next two or three years, that kind of a roadmap, it can start getting meaningful, especially in the term space.
Okay.
Yeah. FRAs, I'll hand it over to Niraj. Do you want to take that, Niraj?
Yeah. Just to touch on FRAs, a couple of things that you mentioned in terms of situation with a couple of banks and takeaways in terms of the way the interest rates are moving.
Mm-hmm.
I'll start with the second one first. The primary objective of FRAs is risk management. Yield pickup, if it comes because of a certain interest rate environment is just a bonus. Yeah, that source has obviously, you know, dried up now compared to what it was couple of years back, but that's fine. It's about spread management to be able to, you know, be neutral on that front, and that is something that we continue to do. For us, we continue to focus on FRAs as one of the tools of risk management for us. Our dependence on FRAs probably is, you know, very different and lower than, you know, some of the other players who may be actually looking at this instrument.
For us, this continues to be, you know, diversified across more than 10 counterparties. The two banks that are in the news are, you know, not more than about 10%-12% each. Again, from a instrument perspective, as you know, these are basically daily margin settled in many cases, so there is no credit risk that is carrying on in this instrument. What happens is, in a scenario where there is an event because of which, you know, further operations are not possible to be continued, it's about unwinding the contract and, you know, carrying on that contract with somebody else.
That's the only aspect of it, which can be a, you know, bit of an operational issue or challenge for maybe a couple of weeks before that can get done.
Nothing really beyond that. As we speak, we see more and more banks coming into this way. Domestic banks are getting larger in this space, so we don't see a supply side issue here. Suresh.
Okay. Thanks, Niraj.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prakash Kapadia from Anived Portfolio Managers. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Two questions from my side. On the EV walk-through, could you give the break up of the INR 12.4 billion negative impact between debt and equity this quarter?
Yeah, I'll hand it over to Ishi. Ishi.
Yeah. Yeah.
INR 5,260-odd crores of negative investment variance is mainly because of the increase in the interest rates, thereby having an MTM on the bonds that we hold, that is about INR 1,000 crores. The balance is from the equity. We expected around 4% return on the equity based on our unwind rate. But the equities have been more or less static. That is why there's an impact due to the equity on the
Okay. Got it. With the current interest rate regime, any change in unwind rates from the 8% envisaged earlier? Do we expect any-
We have been following the method of setting the unwind rate at the start of the year. At the start of the year, we take a view based on the economic environment at that time. The 8.1 has been set based on the environment at the start of the year, and we don't change it during the year. Any difference is reflected in the investment variance. At start of next year, again, based on the environment at that time and based on the assets we hold, we'll reset the unwind rates.
Sure. That's helpful. Lastly, you know, now, you know, given the Exide Life merger is done, what kind of, you know, APE growth and VNB margins can we look at in the second half? Because, you know, this quarter also few months have been good in terms of, you know, growth. Few quarters have been muted. As we step into the second half, you know, Q4 was a bit muted. So on a, you know, consolidated basis, what are we looking at in the second half of the year?
We are looking at about a 15%-17% kind of a growth. Again, you know, some of the things that I mentioned in terms of our parent company merger also will help accelerate that. On the margins, what we have said is that we will get to margin neutrality by middle of next year, which means that if you exclude this one year from fourteenth of October onwards, one year from that of a merger with Exide Life, thereafter we should get back as if we're back on the treadmill of where HDFC Life standalone was. The entire merger and synergy extraction would have got subsumed within that.
Okay. Fine. Thank you. All the best and Happy Diwali and Happy New Year to the team there. Thank you.
Likewise. Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Swarnabh Mukherjee from B&K Securities. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. My questions are on two areas. First of all, on your group portfolio. If I look at the product categories, group term life and group annuity, it's a very divergent picture there and I wanted to have your comments on the same. Group term life seems to be doing pretty well, but what are the trends you are seeing about pricing in that portfolio and how do you see it growing ahead? On the group annuity book, it seems to be degrowing every quarter. Your annuity portfolio seems to be driven by the individual side. What is happening on the group annuity side? If you can give some color on that as well. That is the first area.
On the second thing, I wanted some color on how we should think about the EV roll forward after this merger for the combined entity. How should we think about the, say, unwind rate? How should I given that VNB is a very small component for Exide Life right now. What would be the operating ROEVs you expect when you start reporting the consolidated number in March? How could be the persistency given that the renewal rate for Exide Life is much lower than what our standalone entity has right now? Those are my questions.
Yeah. Hi, this is Suresh here. Let me address your question on the group product. I think you are referring to the Group Credit Life. I'll cover both the Group Credit Life as well as the group term insurance kind of product. See, GTI, which is actually we have still not picked up and gone into it fully because we are calibrating in terms of the risk as well as the pricing. It's an annual renewable product. In some sense, you know, we will monitor and come into the group term. On the Group Credit Life, which is where you know, we see and you know, to add on to the earlier questions which are there on protection, we have been fairly agnostic in terms of how do we cover protection overall.
That business has been growing considerably for us because of multiple fundamentals. One, of course, is the fact that our partnerships by themselves are growing in terms of disbursement. Second, there has been a deepening of relationship across most of our partners in terms of the value penetration as well as the newer loan verticals that we've been able to add on. We've also been able to add on a fair number of newer partners, and more importantly, having gone through the whole COVID experience, understanding the market across each of these relationships, we have been able to reprice significantly in terms of what is it that we can do across each of these verticals. You know, both in terms of profitability as well as growth, we are seeing a significant improvement on the Credit Life business.
In some sense, frankly, while the individual protection has been slightly muted overall for the industry, we have managed to get our overall, protection growing on a combined basis. On the, annuity, group annuity side, clearly, you know, we had invested in the, pension company. We have also a huge amount of relationships which is happening in terms of
The PSU relationships. We do believe that market in terms of market share across most of the key plans, we have a significant presence. So we have been able to grow that. We have had a steady increase in market share if you were to look at it in terms of the annuity business. In fact, you know, while the overall annuity numbers for the industry have de-grown, we have been able to get a growth at HDFC Life. So there has been a little bit of a slowdown in the group annuity because of, you know, deferment and anticipation of better rates. But I do believe that over a period of time, the annuity segment will continue to grow at fairly significant rates over and above the industry growth rates.
Yeah. To your question on, what happens, to the embedded value, post, Exide Life. A couple of things here. We did discuss, in terms of our aspiration to, get to margin convergence, in the next, few quarters. As you know, on a half yearly basis already including Exide we are very close to last year's margin levels. The two components of, the embedded value would be the VNB accretion, and the second would be what is earned on the existing assets for the unwind. On VNB, as we were talking about convergence, to HDFC Life margins over a period of, say three to four quarters, you should see that, coming through in a similar form as it is in, HDFC Life, so there should not be any sort of leakage from that perspective.
Unwind is more in terms of the kind of assets that you hold, given that, the product mix, as you're aware, is very little Unit Linked. Lastly, it's a bond kind of a portfolio. The unwind rate and the methodology will be set, when we're looking at, you know, setting our assumptions at the end of the year. That will be a uniform approach, on those assets as well. Given that Exide Life is about 10% of the Embedded Value, less than 10% of the Embedded Value of the overall combined entity today, we do not see much of a gap coming through on account of that. There could be a couple of quarters, you know, while this alignment happens.
Over the, you know, over a year or a couple of years basis, we do not see any sort of gap in the pre-merger and post-merger EVOPs. Persistence, we also mentioned it has been improving. On a standalone basis, 13 months improved from 73%- 76%. We have a line of sight of getting to 80% very quickly. Given the kind of product mix that they are that is being generated in those segments, we do believe that this can be fairly the experience is fairly close to, you know, the assumptions that have been set. That's something that we had, you know, very carefully assessed at the time of in the early part of the transaction itself. No concerns on that front either.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, in order to ensure that the management is able to address questions from all participants in the conference, please limit your questions to two per participant. Should you have a follow up question, we would request you to rejoin the question queue. We'll take the next question from the line of Akshat Mehta from Sameeksha Capital. Please go ahead.
Hello? Can you hear me?
Please proceed.
Yeah. I,
Mr. Mehta, sorry to interrupt you. The audio is not clear.
Okay. Can you hear me now properly?
Yes, sir. Please proceed.
My first question was on the ROP business. You know, what is the share of the ROP in the overall business post the merger? What kind of strategy are you planning, you know, to expand this share going forward? If there is any kind of target share that you're looking at? That is the first question.
Target. Yeah. Akshat, no target per se. We are reasonably agnostic of, as long as it's end game is to protect oneself adequately in whichever form or shape. This is a product offering we have. We are in the zone of 20+% and it'll also depend on which channel is selling it. We've had this product for quite some time and we continue to sell this. You know, really, between this, between regular premium, between limited pay to credit life, these are all different modes of getting to adequate protection.
My second question is on the FRA part. You know, given the current environment, what would be the mark to market losses in your FRAs? If you can give some kind of a number. I mean, because of that, is there any requirement to increase the rates on your annuity and non-participating products, given that the FD rates are also increasing, you know, and what would be the impact on your margins on account of that?
Yeah. On FRA, the mark to market really on a net basis is, there is no impact because of the equity FTC that you can set off against any sort of FTC negative that you may have on the debt side in an increasing interest rate environment. There is no impact on that front on a net basis. As far as you know, being competitive on non participating products, you know, the headline rates, if they continue to move up, we have the opportunity to increase the rates, and we've taken those opportunities both on the annuity front as well as on non-participating savings while managing our spreads. That is something that we can continue to offer compared to shorter-term products.
You know that these are on a tax advantage basis, fairly strong proposition from a customer perspective, and also the tenure is ten years and above. As such, we do not really compete with you know the shorter term products that are offered by other financial services.
Okay, any new products that you're planning to launch in second half of the year?
Yeah. That journey continues. In fact, across all segments, Vibha mentioned we introduced a new product with Click2Protect Super, which allows a fair bit of flexibility to customers to switch and change their cover mid policy as well. That was launched just a couple of weeks back. We've launched two products on the retirement front, one on the participating side and one regular premium annuity product. That's something that has been done in the last few months. We've launched in partnership with our sister concern HDFC ERGO a combination product with, you know, a fairly well regarded Optima Secure, best in class health product in the market. We have a combination product along with that as well. That was something that was launched last month.
As we go forward, there are, you know, many such products in the pipeline across protection, savings, as well as, retirement and pension. You'll hear more about it as we go forward. With some of the guidelines having been more flexible in terms of the go to market with Use and File, I think, there'll be more coming through in each of these categories.
Thank you. Mr. Mehta, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions. We'll take the next question from the line of Ritesh from Investec. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Firstly, under EVOP, can you share the break-up of the operating variance, in terms of persistency, mortality, and expenses?
The operating variance is mainly coming from persistency, and expenses. Mortality is almost neutral because the experience has now normalized post-COVID.
Sure. Secondly, how should we think about the volume growth for the industry as well? Because if you look at the data for last four-five years, the volume growth for industry and for most of the players have been quite weak. How should we internally think about the volume growth for the industry is weak and is this the trend going forward also or how should we think about that?
You know, I'm smiling a little bit because when you say over the last three, four years, you're saying volume growth is weak. Actually, that's exactly what I covered in my opening remarks. Wherein if you're looking at. So for us, for example, we have doubled over the last four years in terms of everything top line and bottom line and so on. Also, if you were to look at the two-year CAGR in terms of top line, it has been a 17% two year CAGR. This year, a little bit weaker. There's also. It's also a little bit weaker on the number of policies. So that I will certainly admit that as a sector, we're all selling higher ticket size policies and perhaps thanks to the father of all of this is perhaps budget plus.
Perhaps a slightly more affluent customer. All of us need to also focus on how do we increase penetration in the real terms in terms of number of lives covered. There we do have work cut out for us. At the same time, we have covered the number of lives overall through credit life of 28 million lives or close to three crore lives, and this is a growth of 41%. Group has done well, individual not so well. Also the less than 50,000 rupee ticket size, I think that also has not done very well, while more than 1 lakh ticket size has done well.
All of this, you know, in terms of, if data is available, then we can price it more appropriately. Maybe Bima Sugam, while we've talked a lot about it on this call, what the regulator is promising is that, different databases that the government collects and with customer consent, this could be more enriching in terms of how we underwrite policies. Which today, frankly, it is a challenge, and especially, it's a challenge at the lower end, in terms of ticket sizes. A combination of that would mean nothing has changed in terms of demand. The demand is there, lower penetration or insurance coverage is there. The protection gap is there.
There's also a little bit of inverse correlation perhaps with banks, minorly, because the size is very big. Protection again, I talked about it in this call, retail protection. While credit life has done well, retail protection for almost everyone in the industry has lagged versus the past couple of years. As protection starts getting fixed, and it's a matter of time before it does, again, protection is based on much higher levels of number of policies covered. Ticket sizes are small, but number of people covered are more. Some of this should start turning around. Also, if you were to look at cyclicality on a few things, for example, unit link has not done well at all.
While for us it's always been calibrated, but even as a sector unit linked has not done. Some of our tie-ups, for example, I did mention about India Post Payments Bank. We're very gung-ho about it. We're talking about 650+ locations, over 1.5 lakh number of their feet on the street and so on. You know, the Gramin Dak Sevak. And that augurs well in terms of expansion in non-metros, tier two and three. Exide Life acquisition was also for us to increase our footprint in tier two and three. We won this RFP with India Post Payments Bank, and we will start work as we speak.
That also should see a lot more of penetration in the true sense of the word.
You want to add anything?
No, I mean, broadly, look, we will look at expanding the distribution. I think even at an industry outlook, the number of steps being taken by the chairman of IBA and the regulator in terms of looking at growth, allowing so many new flexibilities in terms of how the overall sector should open. I think at an industry level, there is clearly given the opportunity, a fair amount of growth that we will see. I agree with Vibha. I think the challenge really is for all of us to get together and look at an NOP increase, where we need to be increasing the number of lives. You know, our strategy in terms of how do we reach out to tier two, tier three, how do we reach out to newer geographies, how do we have state level coverage.
There are a fair amount of detailing that I guess each one of us is doing as insurers. Definitely as HDFC Life, we are very clearly focused. Some things like, you know, whether in terms of how do we deepen some of these markets, will you know, just the fact that we can look at Use and File, we can come out with more innovative products. There's so many such things which will aid the overall industry growth. As HDFC Life would expect to grow a little faster than the industry.
Sure. Lastly, just one question that so if you look at the competition on, earlier it used to be very intense competition on protection. Now on non participating and on annuities, I see that there is a significant price based competition which is increasing. In that context, are these products becoming commoditized? In that context, how should we build our presence so that we will be able to generate higher returns for shareholders despite these segments getting commoditized?
You know, only market share is something that every financial services industry sees, whether it's banking, mutual funds and especially banking. Growing market share isn't. If you look at insurance and you talked about growing market share on the back of non participating, when you triangulate that with when you read their balance sheets as well as what is the retained risk, also we are able to triangulate in terms of what hedging strategies based on the interest rate sensitivity that some have put out. It could be something that we don't want to go down that path. We want to have market share growth. At the same time, I think the previous caller asked in terms of what is your operating variance.
We want to have an operating variance that is close to zero, which is very close to what actuarial assumptions are. We disclose this every quarter. That's really the treadmill that we have been for the past decade, and we want to continue with this. It's not to say that we don't want to grow. We do. Among all this constraint, that's why we launched Sanchay SMP, and today it's close to 30% or actually between 25 odd% of our non participating business, non participating savings business and continuing to grow. That is easier to hedge shorter end of the spectrum. We can have an aggressive play over there as against having an aggressive play on lifelong payouts on some of the non participating products.
We will continue to push and pull on this in this space so that the combination of various stakeholders, including risk management, is something that we are fairly comfortable with. We pride ourselves on having a pristine Embedded Value, and there is no known risk that has not been factored into our Embedded Value, and we want to keep it that way.
Thank you. Mr. Ritesh Kumar, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow-up questions. Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Shyam Srinivasan from Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.
Good afternoon, and thank you for taking my question. Just on HDFC Bank again, I think you mentioned 46%-48% of your revenues comes from there. How is it the other way around, in the sense market share for you in their life insurance business? How has that been trending?
We have not really been giving what the share is. There are very many nuances to this because again, just looking the share as against looking at the share of value of new business becomes a very one sided discussion, not looking at the persistency claim ratio, and so on. I think the way we look at this is even from a risk management perspective, we like hovering around 50% in terms of HDFC Bank share, growing our other channels faster than industry growth, which we have demonstrated for everything, whether it's quarter two, the recent quarter two or FY22 or FY21. Track record of other channels other than HDFC Bank growing faster by a mile than private sector.
We'll continue to do that rather than just looking at one metric of HDFC Bank. You want to add?
No. I think, look, we do expect a greater alignment in terms of the overall strategy of the HDFC Bank team along with us, you know, and the merger is not very far away. Hopefully, you know, we will be able to get our market share up. But like Vibha rightly mentioned, I think it is also a question of, you know, what quality of business, where we want to do the business, what is the share of the VNB that we are looking at. All those are into consideration. We do believe that getting the top line back, based on our product mix, will move upwards.
Got it. Thank you. Just a second question. I think, Vibha, in your opening remarks, you talked about multiple levers for VNB growth. Right? I think retail protection, like you mentioned, has been challenging. But what are the other things now, right? I think you called out like product innovation, risk management and stuff, but I'm just looking at product mix now. We have reached a phase where do you think there is further and just keeping aside HDFC merger, right? Let's assume 2024 and 2025.
You know, what can change, right, in terms of helping VNB growth to be not correlated to APE growth, for example, what are some of the other levers that are still there?
Many. For example, new pools of profitability and obviously I can't share all of them. We've been a market leader, whether you know, with everyone talks about pure term now, market leaders in pure term or looking at the cancer cardiac to looking at deferred annuity to Sanchay Plus kind of products to riders to you know, you name it. We have the more recent kid on the block, Sanchay SMP, again, margin accretive for us. Even if you look at PAR, we believe that we are the highest in terms of PAR margins. Any switch between some of the other lower margin products to PAR, of course with customer consent, makes a lot of sense.
Also some of the tweaks in terms of whether it's riders, whether it's group annuity, whether it's individual annuity. Also in terms of expense leverage, that's an important point, why it might optically look like our expense ratios have gone up, but actually the fixed costs have continued to trend downwards. When we look at agency, in our agency channel, say about 60-70% is fixed cost. With agency growing upwards of 20+%, most of that should fall to the bottom line as margin accretive contribution to the growth contribution. Also mix change becomes important, especially on, say, participating. Even with Exide Life, we saw right in the beginning, we did mention that it's so low single digits.
Now we're talking about high single digits in terms of Exide Life around 81%. In a span of less than a year, we've been able to get Exide Life margin from low single digits to close to 10%. You know, that has not been with any major surgery, as you know, because it was still a separate entity. That can only continue to increase, getting to margin neutrality. I'm adding in a way market share of 1.2-1.3%, but at the same time able to get Exide Life very close to HDFC Life's margins. All of these are levers, but obviously, you know, I can't talk about some of the things in the pipeline, but we will continue to extract.
I think some of the core strengths, because we have not dropped margin in any quarter versus the previous year for the last several years, you know, I think except with the exception of Sanchay Plus when we launched Sanchay Plus, and we told all of you that. That was a product specific aspect. Apart from that, this margin trending up, good upward curve every quarter, every year, has been because of many, many levers to margin as against just one big bang lever that could be either copied or it could be, you know, where there's some disruption, macro disruption that happens to it.
Thank you. Mr. Srinivasan, may we request that you return to the question queue for follow up questions? Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, please limit your questions to one per participant. Should you have a follow up question, we would request you to rejoin the question queue. The next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi. Please go ahead.
Hope I'm audible. Just one question. I think you mentioned on your Credit Life business that some of the newer partnerships have been delivering strong growth and also some new product verticals have been added. Can you kind of extend this argument and give some color on the attachment rates or maybe the growth across all the newer partnerships versus the existing partnerships? How do you see it going forward?
Look, I think we have 300+ partnerships now across banks and NBFCs, SFBs and MFIs. We have registered a growth of almost 66% on this particular business in H1. We are a fairly large player in terms of across all the verticals. We do have a complete gamut of products, whether it's unsecured loans to CV/CE to home loans to LAP, MFI, all of that. In H1, for instance, the LAP housing business was almost 29%. MFI was 35%. The housing and LAP grew by 44%. The MFIs grew much faster at 100%. Any other segments grew by almost 50%. There is a complete attachment rates which range from vertical to vertical.
It varies anywhere between 30%-70%, depending on, you know, what product mix and which loan vertical we are talking about. Obviously for MFIs, it's 100% because we need to work on that particular model. We're trying to see how we can look at the value penetration more than just the attachment rates in terms of the number of loans. That's something that we have done. In parallel, what we have also done is we've integrated a lot of our technology platforms across all our partners. You know, in terms of claim settlement, in terms of processing, we have significant, you know, embedding which has happened with many of our partners. We have been looking at this.
I do believe that, look, if the industry continues to grow in terms of disbursements, we will grow so much. This is across outside HDFC also. You know, HDFC in some sense gives only less than 30% overall Credit Life business. It's fairly well diversified even within the Credit Life business.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Anand Bhavnani from White Oak Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. With regards to the India Post tie-ups, can you give us some sense of what's the rollout status? Do they have any other tie-ups other than us?
You know, Vibha did mention in terms of their vast postal network which is there, they do have an Aadhaar enabled payment service, which is the single largest platform, you know, in terms of doorstep banking to their set of customers. We have recently launched the relationship only last week or ten days back is when we had the official launch along with their field teams. You know, we see a huge opportunity in terms of both the protection and savings across the group and individual customers. The POSP model will work very well in this particular model. Secondly, you know, we should be able to go across not just through their offices, but through the Gramin Dak Sevaks, which is under the Department of Posts.
Now, you know, one of the challenges which we mentioned earlier on the call was in terms of growing the number of NOPs, as well as looking at a certain set of products which can go into the tier two, tier three and the rural markets. Normally it takes anywhere around 90 days to 120 days for us to be able to launch a relationship end to end, in terms of integration, in terms of product training, in terms of resourcing on the ground. We have been fairly successful in terms of onboarding new partners. You should see us active in terms of logins fairly quickly on this. Even as we speak, internally we have already aligned a fresh vertical which will handle this particular relationship and you should start seeing the business soon.
I want to add one more point, Anand, and that is HDFC Bank is also tied up with them. Down the line, where HDFC Bank becomes our parent promoter, there can be a lot more of integrated working and integrated offerings. These are two independent tiers. We look forward to that. The second point I want to make here is that persistency is robust. What we have struggled typically in smaller towns is one is reach, how do you get to them? Second is quality of business. What we feel very enthused is the very good work and the traction that has been seen. You know, we intend to be able to grow quite meaningfully into tier two and three towns.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Elara Capital. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you for taking my question. Most of my questions have been answered. Just a clarification. You mentioned 46%-48% of the business comes from HDFC Bank. Now, does that also include the group side of the business or this is only individual?
Only individual.
On the group side, how much comes from HDFC Bank?
It's very relatively small. Like, Suresh mentioned, all HDFC entities put together, which is HDFC Group and HDB is about 30%.
30%. Got it. That'll be it from my side. All the best. Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak. Please go ahead.
Thanks for the opportunity. Vibha, you mentioned that, you know, you're looking at margin neutrality by, you know, over the next 12 months. You know, if I look at the data today, you know, you're almost there, right? I wonder why it would take another four quarters or so for you to achieve margin neutrality?
You're right. I think the more likely scenario is faster. However, Nischint, you'll agree that now it is truly part of us. While we're very, very happy that our key distributors have continued to, you know, have migrated to us, key employees have migrated to us and so on. We're just a little bit cautious that of course some of these, the migration, golden handcuff and so on, but we want to see that stability. We'll have a better sense certainly, and we'll give you an update when we connect in January.
I mean, you know, it's been almost four quarters, right? Whatever had to go out could have gone out already, I mean.
No, no. Nischint, absolutely not, because we didn't tamper with their model at all. The last thing we wanted to do is start meddling into their model. Of course, we had our HDFC Life person there, and so on. Oversight was certainly there. The board was our members from our board. The business model on the ground was as is. Given that, now it is we are, for example, having an overlay of, say, persistency. Niraj mentioned about, you know, and it's also known that lower levels of persistency. We are now mandating to say at least about a certain ticket size, please have a SI/ECS mandate, standing instruction like it is in HDFC Life. This is one example.
Like that there could be several other examples wherein there is an HDFC Life rigor, governance and so on, which we stayed away from largely up till now. Branch reductions will happen. A technology revamp will happen. Products. Today they have, from day one most of our marquee products we will also have. How is that panning out? You know, and so on. We will also move into other geographies. The whole point of this acquisition was not just to acquire it and have a 1.2% or 1.3% increase in market share. We will be investing in new geographies, because they are strong typically in the South. We will, as we speak, we are expanding into Tier two and three and replicating that model into especially West and North.
That will require investments. All of that is factored in here. There is nothing that we know that we're not telling you, but it's just that for us to really invest in the Exide Life formula and grow it and invest in it. Just little bit of caution in terms of margin neutrality. Yes, it could happen a quarter or so earlier.
Thank you. We'll take the next question from the line of Deepika Mundra from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.
Hi. Good evening, and thanks for taking my question. Just on the, again, on HDFC Bank. Post, the, you know, the bank becomes the parent, how do you foresee the visibility on, you know, better alignment given that some of the other competitors within the channel, of course, are selling very attractively priced products it seems, given the growth that we are seeing in HDFC Life versus some of these?
Deepika, this is not only the first one. You know, in terms of open architecture, how do they handle. We are in many open architecture situations. The senior management of those banks have a rough way of how they're allocating the shares between their insurance partners. While at the same time, of course, giving the customers a choice. If other banks are also doing it, and all the various partners that we work with, HDFC Bank would. There are various levers are doing it. That's what you'll see happen. It's not only a product thing. There are also many white spaces that today nobody is doing.
Obviously, I don't want to talk about those white spaces, but they are there and those conversations have already been had with the bank. Right. You'll see some of that happening. Also ultimately bank is going to be our promoter. Governance, risk management, all of that also, bank will partake in those aspects. It is not a surprise that no bank today that holds more than 50% has embraced open architecture. Right? HDFC Bank also understands that while they're not going to roll back on open architecture, but there's a reason why apart from HDFC Bank, there is no bank in India today that has opened up that whole, you know.
Clearly there is a balance between three things. One is open architecture accretion, being a parent of that entity and hence all the risks and rewards being aligned. Third is that at the same time giving customers choice. All those conversations are had and they completely align on this.
No, no. Just to add to that, so many of our products have clearly a much stronger value proposition, both from the brand servicing, claim settlement, and, you know, overall technology. Given the customer profile, given the segment we operate in, I feel there is a significant upside even in terms of the product value proposition which is much more.
I also want to add to what Suresh is saying. Hypothetically, what he's saying is that only if somebody has a much cheaper product, then, you know, in the open architecture, then that's where business goes to. By that logic, with an aggregator for example, we would not be able to sell even a single policy because we are rarely the cheapest, but we do. We have enjoyed share of anything between 20-25% and same in term. It goes beyond only pricing, when especially you're buying protection, especially when you're buying long-term larger ticket savings. Holistically in terms of the experience, the brand, are you in the zone in terms of pricing? What is your track record on claims settlement, servicing? You know, entire thing.
While it's made out to be about price, it's the full package. The bank is also, as a promoter, would-be promoter, very cognizant that this is an entire package, and so there is alignment.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we'll take the last question from the line of Anand Bhavnani from White Oak Capital. Please go ahead.
Thank you for the opportunity. Given that we are seeing as an industry-wide phenomenon that protection despite low penetration levels periodically sees bounce in VNB growth and doesn't sustain sustainable growth. As an industry, is there a kind of campaign required, like we're seeing in case of
Anand, maybe you've not seen some of those campaigns. We have had Sabse Pehle Life Insurance. That campaign again will take off. You will see some more visibility on that. Ultimately, you know, this will anywhere in the world people are not gonna wake up and buy insurance. You do require that nudge. You do require a little bit of prod. This comparison versus some of the other sectors might not really work. That's why I'm a great proponent that some level of handholding of all our channels, and that's why there is a place under the sun for all our channels to evangelize the need for life insurance. You know, even credit life was hardly prevalent.
With a CAGR of about 15%-18% growth in retail credit offtake, now credit life has come into its own. It takes time. It will, I have no doubt in my mind, especially younger population, will continue to be interested in buying this. Also, it's easier for them in terms of light touch underwriting. We do have a portal. If you've not seen it, please do. Called Click 2 Buy . That's with a K. You know, there it is meant to engage with younger people to say it's not so complex. It is. Don't buy it if you don't have XYZ situation with your family.
To have an honest conversation on what pure term is. At the same time, it will take, like I said, like I mentioned, for it to percolate for the need for it. I have no doubt in my mind that all things being equal on this reinsurance, COVID, and so on, it should grow faster than overall industry level growth.
Sure. I have one housekeeping question, if I may.
Yep. Please go ahead.
Yeah. If I were to look at the persistency numbers, we have two different sets given in the display. Yes. Like one is in the IRDAI format, which is on page ten of the PDF uploaded on the exchange. Whereas I see the 60+ month persistency has fallen year-on-year and somewhat even sequentially as well. Whereas in the presentation on slide six, we see year-on-year persistency is higher and it's different. I presume the methodologies are different in these cases. Can you kind of explain this a bit?
Yeah. Anand, it is because of the merger. One is a merged number.
Okay. Oh, so fine. The first one in the IRDAI format is completely merged, and the second one is pre-merger comparison.
Higher number is pre-merger.
Got it. Sure. Thank you. All the best.
Thank you.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today. I would now like to hand the conference over to Ms. Vibha Padalkar for closing comments.
Thank you everyone for joining the call today. I wish everyone a happy Diwali. Thank you. Take care.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited, that concludes this conference call. Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.