BENGALURU, Jan 13 (Reuters) - India's ICICI Prudential Life Insurance reported a 20% rise in third-quarter profit on Tuesday, helped by higher investment income.
The insurer's profit rose to 3.9 billion rupees ($43.20 million) for the quarter ended December 31. Investment income swung was at 110.24 billion rupees, compared with an investment loss of 77.22 billion rupees a year earlier.
Analysts said insurers saw a pickup in demand for insurance products during the quarter after the government cut taxes on life insurance products to zero from 18% earlier.
While the move supported growth, it also removed a tax credit benefit previously available to insurers, weighing on margins, even though the measure is expected to prove beneficial over the long term.
ICICI Prudential's annualised premium equivalent sales, a key metric that gives annualised total value of single premium and recurring premium policies, rose 3.6 % to 25.25 billion rupees for the reported quarter.
The value of new business, or expected profit from new policies, rose 19% to 6.15 billion rupees.
The value of new business margin for the nine months ended December 31 was at 24.4%, compared with 22.8% a year earlier, reflecting a better product mix and cost discipline.
The firm's net premium income fell 3.7% to 118.09 billion rupees for the quarter.
Market-linked insurance plans accounted for 49% of ICICI Prudential Life's overall product mix for the nine-month period, down from 51% a year earlier.
Shares of ICICI Prudential Life were up 3.8% after the results, while India's benchmark Nifty 50 fell 0.6%.
Peers SBI Life Insurance and HDFC Life Insurance will report later this month.
($1 = 90.2713 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Urvi Dugar in Bengaluru; Editing by Eileen Soreng and Mrigank Dhaniwala)
