9.2 Performances of Life Insurance Companies

The performance's indicators (the exam's list): (i) the premium income (the new-business's growth — the first-year premium's collection: the expansion's measure); (ii) the policies-in-force (the persistency's craft — the lapse-rate's discipline); (iii) the sum-at-risk (the cover's aggregate); (iv) the claim-settlement ratio (the death-and-maturity claims' payment record — the consumer's trust measure); (v) the surrender-and-persistency faces; (vi) the asset base-and- investment portfolio (the policyholders' funds' growth). The liberalisation-era story: the life sector's dramatic growth (the companies' proliferation: the joint-ventures' entry — the foreign- technical partners; the branch-and-agent network's expansion — the rural penetration's faces); the products' evolution (the traditional endowment's dominance → the unit-linked-and-riders' diversification); the bancassurance's boost (the bank-channels' distribution); the honest audit: the concentration's problem (the urban bias; the low-penetration's reality — the population's insured- minority); the misspelling's-and-lapse's complaints (the market-conduct's challenge); the competition's intensity (the commission-wars' pathology — the regulator's discipline).