In March 2025, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) released annual data on Claim Settlement Ratio (CSR) in its latest ‘Handbook on Indian Insurance Statistics 2023-24’. This report provides comprehensive information on how different insurers handle claims, which helps the policymakers to make informed decisions.
- As per the report, the overall CSR for individual death claims within 30 days, including both private insurers and Mumbai(Maharashtra) based Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) stood at 96.82% for Financial Year 2023-24 (FY24).
- Notably, CSR for individual death claims within 30 days by India’s private insurers stood at around 99% for FY24.
Top Performers:
i.Top Life Insurers in terms of number of policies: As per the report, New Delhi(Delhi) based Axis Max Life Insurance Limited with 99.79% CSR in terms of number of policies (19,569), emerged as the biggest insurer in India, closely followed by Mumbai based HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited with 99.97% CSR, settling about 19,333 policies within a time period of 30 days.
ii.Top Life Insurers in terms of numbers of policies settled: LIC, India’s largest public-sector insurer, topped in terms of most number of policies settled within 30 days i.e. it has settled 7,99,612 policies in less than 30 days, with CSR of 96.42%.
- It is followed by Mumbai based SBI Life Insurance Company Limited which has settled 37,344 policies within the span of 30 days.
iii.Number of insurers with 100% CSR: Mumbai based Kotak Mahindra Life Insurance Company Limited, Mumbai based Ageas Federal Life Insurance Company Limited , Mumbai based Future Generali India Life Insurance Company Limited (FGILI) and Gurugram(Haryana) based Aviva Life Insurance Company India Limited achieved 100% CSR, which means they processed all individual death claims within 30 days.
iv.Top Insurers in terms of CSR by benefit amount: HDFC Life Insurance topped, with 99.98% of total benefit amount paid out for claim settlement within 30 days, followed by Axis Max Life Insurance with 99.97% of total benefit amount paid out for claim settlement within 30 days.
Other Key Points:
i.The report revealed that private insurers lead with highest CSR (99%) in terms of number of policies settled i.e. 1,51,770 policies, within the time period of 30 days.
- Whereas, the combined CSR of LIC and private insurers in India stood at 96.82% with 9, 51,382 policies settled by them within 30 days.
ii.In FY24, Rs 11004.72 crore was paid as total benefit by private insurers, of which Rs 10738.9 was paid within the time period of 30 days, with CSR by benefit amount stood at 97.58%.
- While, the cumulative benefit amount paid (including both private insurers and LIC)in FY24 was Rs 28,867.59 crore, of which Rs 27,750.33 crore was paid within the time period of 30 days, with CSR by benefit amount stood at 96.13%.
Note: The data for 2023-24 does not include Sahara India Life Insurance Company Ltd (SILIC), as its life insurance business was transferred to SBI Life Insurance on June 2, 2023, following an IRDAI directive.
Important Terms:
i.Claim Settlement Ratio (CSR): It is an important metric that shows the trustworthiness of an insurer. It is expressed in terms of percentage of total claims settled by the company in the shortest possible window of 30 days.
ii.CSR in terms of number of policies: This means number of life insurance policies sold by individual insurers during the year.
iii.CSR in terms of benefit amount: This term refers to the company/insurer which is paying out a higher proportion of the total claims it has collected during the year.
About Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI):
IRDAI was constituted in 1999 and was later, incorporated as a statutory body in April 2000.
Chairperson– Debasish Panda
Headquarters-Hyderabad, Telangana
