India's HDFC Life reports 15% jump in Q3 profit as premiums climb

BENGALURU (Reuters) - HDFC Life Insurance Co reported a 15% rise in third-quarter profit on Friday, driven by higher income from premiums and its investments and said it expects to sell more policies in the next few quarters.

"Insurance as a sector continues to be a beneficiary of a relatively robust economy, stable savings trends and favourable regulatory regime," Vibha Padalkar, managing director and chief executive, said in a statement.

Though growth in retail protection was tepid on a year-over-year basis, it rose 13% sequentially, said Padalkar.

"... we expect individual protection to continue picking up in the coming quarters."

The Mumbai-based insurer said profit rose to 3.15 billion rupees ($38.8 million) in the third quarter ended Dec. 31, from 2.74 billion rupees a year ago.

Its net premium income rose 18.6% to 143.79 billion rupees, while income from investments more than doubled to 49.28 billion rupees.

HDFC Life's total annualised premium equivalent for the nine-month period grew 21.9% to 81.74 billion rupees.

In that same period, HDFC Life's new business margins - a measure of the expected profitability of new business - grew by 26.5%.

This includes the impact of its merger with Exide Life Insurance, which closed in the quarter. ($1 = 81.1240 Indian rupees)

(Reporting by Anuran Sadhu in Bengaluru; Editing by Savio D'Souza)