Life Insurance Companies – Comparison

I have a query about how value is assigned to life companies in the market

Among the 3 large private life insurance companies icici life looks reasonably valued compared to sbi and hdfc

Icici’s business size is similar to hdfc and sbi in terms of ev, vnb and vnb margins but it is available at a 40-50% discount.

Their share in retail sum assured is just marginally below LIC, they have build out a good agency business and have little dependency on the parent bank, doubled vnb in the last 5 years

Hdfc will have good growth because it will become a subsidiary of the bank but they will probably suffer from the same restriction that icici bank had with icici life where the bank prefers non par savings to not be sold so there is less compitition with fds

I looked over the last 3 years earning confrence calls of icici life and while they have been over cautious on non par savings ex ulips they’re reasoning was because they were worried about implications on the balance sheet. It looks like a conservative management which is good in life insurance

I don’t understand why icici is so cheap compared to the other two, if the sector itself has a massive runway of growth the top players should participate unless the management is completely incompetent