SBILIFE — earnings call

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Prepared remarks

Moderator · Conference Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to SBI Life Insurance Company Limited

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal Financial Services.

Please go ahead.

Prayesh Jain

Hi.

Congrats on a great set of numbers.

Just coming to the channel performance, how do you see the SBI as a channel growing from here on?

It's been showing a very strong momentum in the last few months.

Do you see this momentum getting stronger going ahead?

How should we think about SBI as a channel and what are the kind of levers we have there to grow this business more aggressively?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

Our next question comes from the line of Madhukar Lada from JPMorgan.

Please go ahead.

Madhukar Lada

Hi, good evening.

Congratulations on a good set of numbers.

I have a couple of questions.

First on the VNB margin, I think in the first half call you had mentioned that ceteris paribus the impact of GST is about 175 basis points.

That would be sort of on a full year basis compared to like FY'25 full year margins.

I wanted to get a sense that now that this quarter is over, what would that number be?

And, what is the sort of benefit that we have got because of a better product mix in 3Q?

So, if I were to just look at 3Q margins, where are we tracking in terms of the impact of just the 3Q margins, just GST on the 3Q margins?

And second, so when I look at, protection growth, so versus peers, our individual protection growth has been lower.

And in this environment, because of the GST cut, etc., one would expect like even stronger protection growth.

So, what's the thought process over there?

And how are you sort of looking at protection over next SBI Life Insurance Company Limited January 28, 2026 couple of years, if we can see further acceleration happening over there?

Lastly, for these new labor laws, can you quantify what is the impact?

I may have missed that in your opening remarks.

And have you accounted for this impact in your EV disclosure that you have given?

Those would be my three questions.

Thanks.

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Sanketh Godha from Avendus Spark.

Please go ahead.

Sanketh Godha

Thank you for the opportunity.

Sir, if I understood right, you said in 2Q, annualized impact was 175 bps on the margin due to GST, which you cut it down to 150.

And by end of the full year, the impact should not be on annualized basis more than 30-40 basis points.

That is the way you are trying to tell, sir?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Rishi Jhunjhunwala from IIFL.

Please go ahead.

Rishi Jhunjhunwala

Yes, thanks for the opportunity.

A couple of questions.

One is this quarter, the amount of par that we have sold is almost more than what we have sold the entire last year or last four quarters.

So, just wanted to understand, I mean, what is driving this, right?

I mean, is there a specific push towards this product because it was easier to absorb some of the GST impact here or how do we look at it if it is a one-off and then it will drop down to the normal rate going forward?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Vinod Rajamani from Nirmal Bang.

Please go ahead.

Vinod Rajamani

Thank you for taking my questions.

I have two questions.

The first one is on the protection products specifically.

So, if I look at the individual sum assured that has gone up by almost 74% but your individual protection new business premium has grown by 25%.

So, this sum assured inflation which is happening, is that because of say selling more of say return of premium kind of term plans or is it because the sum assured on your savings product itself has gone up?

So, that is question number one.

Second question was on this channel economics and so on.

So, the bancassurance productivity has jumped around 15% and your agency productivity is at 3 lakhs despite adding some 25% more agents.

This OPEX ratio has gone up by 90 bps to 6.2%.

So, I just wanted to know how much of this OPEX increase is related to agency and what is the realistic timeline we should have in mind before this agency productivity also starts inching upward.

So, these were two questions.

One was on agency productivity going upward and the second is on why there is a divergence between the sum assured and the new business premium on the protection side?

SBI Life Insurance Company Limited January 28, 2026

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Raghvesh from JM Financial.

Please go ahead.

Raghvesh

Hi sir, thanks for the opportunity.

I had a couple of questions.

So, first on the gross impact of GST in this quarter.

So, on an absolute number, the impact is around 1.3 billion which is almost 5% of the 3Q VNB.

So, I am unable to reconcile that how that fits with the overall 1.75% or 1.75% impact for the full year.

And secondly, on the Banca growth.

So, this quarter, in fact, starting from September, the Banca growth has been a positive surprise.

So, anything to read into that?

Should we start extrapolating this kind of growth in our models?

Because say a couple of quarters back, weak growth from Banca was a key concern.

So, these were my two questions.

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum.

Please go ahead.

Mohit Mangal

Thanks for the opportunity and congratulations on a good set of numbers.

I got three questions.

My first question is that if you can throw some light on the ratio of return to premium to pure term, in the individual protection segment, at the end of nine months, and maybe how it has, evolved over the last 2 to 3 years, then that would be helpful.

My second question is towards the attachment rate, if you tell me what was the attachment rate in the credit life segment?

And my third question is in terms of the number of branches, I think you said that, you have increased the number of branches by 66 in this year.

So, wanted to understand your strategy in terms of how it will go in financial year '27 and will it impact the cost ratio?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Harshal Mehta from AMSEC.

Please go ahead.

Harshal Mehta

Hi, sir.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Two questions from my end.

First, in terms of non- par, so if you can just highlight how we see the traction in our new product launch smart platina advantage, and do we expect non-par side again inching up and par and ULIP going down?

That was one.

And secondly, in terms of ULIP, it is safe to assume like this year, it looks like 62% of the mix.

Can we expect to reach to FY'23 level, 55% odd in the next two years?

And par and non-par again inching up?

So, that's two questions I would have had.

Thank you.

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

The next question comes from the line of Shobhit Sharma from HDFC Securities Limited.

Please go ahead.

Shobhit Sharma

Hi, sir.

Thanks for the opportunity and congrats on a great set of numbers.

Sir, my first question is on your rider attachment.

You have mentioned that the rider attachment is currently in the range of 35% to 40%.

We had plans on attachment of riders in the renewal business.

So, if you can share some updates on that, where are we on that?

Secondly, Banca, we have seen very strong growth in third quarter.

Can you comment some qualitative comments around how the growth has been for the month of January?

And is it right to assume that the growth in Banca was primarily driven by the launch of the new par product, because it seems easier to shift from ULIP to a par product versus a non-par.

So, if you can help us understand that.

And we have been driving digitization initiatives in SBI Bank, which was a cause of slowdown in the SBI Bank channel via the YONO app.

So, if you can comment on that, how the business is shaping up from the SBI Life Insurance Company Limited January 28, 2026 YONO app and all of that?

And lastly, on the product pipeline for the Q4, if you can help us understand how the product pipeline is building up for the Q4 and have we launched any product?

So, these are my questions.

Thank you.

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi.

Please go ahead.

Dipanjan Ghosh

A few questions from my side.

First, when I look at your segment-wise margins, it seems that the ULIP margins are probably somewhere close to your company level margins, maybe a few percentage points lower.

Maybe due to some efforts that you have undertaken on riders or had some issues.

So, just in terms of understanding the prospects of the ULIP margins for the next 2 to 3 years, how much more scope do you really see in this segment?

The second question is on the non-SBI Banca part, you mentioned the growth data.

I just wanted to get some color on the product mix in this channel and how that has shifted in the last few quarters or years?

And the third question was, I don't know if I missed it, but could you spell out the APE for 3Q and 9- months?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

Your next question comes from the line of Megha Bagaria from BNP Paribas.

Please go ahead.

SBI Life Insurance Company Limited January 28, 2026

Megha Bagaria

I wanted to check why is the par product growing so much?

Like in the recent quarter, we see that par has grown more than non-par, which shouldn't be the case given the current yield curves.

So, can you throw some light on that?

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you.

As there are no further questions, I would now like to hand the conference over to Mr. Amit Jhingaran for closing comments.

Amit Jhingran

Thank you everyone for your time and queries.

You may get in touch with our investor relations team in case you have any follow-up questions.

Thank you.

God bless everyone.

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you, members of the management.

On behalf of SBI Life Insurance Company Limited, that concludes this conference call.

Thank you for joining us and you may now disconnect your lines.

Safe harbour

Please note that this transcript has been slightly edited for the purpose of clarity.

Except for the historical information contained herein, statements in this release which contain words or phrases such as 'will', 'would', ‘indicating’, ‘expected to’ etc., and similar expressions or variations of such expressions may constitute 'forward-looking statements'.

These statements by the Company and its management are based only on our current beliefs, expectations and assumptions regarding the future of our business, future plans and strategies, projections, anticipated events and trends, the SBI Life Insurance Company Limited January 28, 2026 economy and other future conditions and are not guarantees of future performance.

Because forward- looking statements relate to the future, they are subject to inherent uncertainties, risks and changes in circumstances that are difficult to predict and many of which are outside of our control, and actual results could differ materially from those presented in the forward-looking statements.

Questions and answers

“SBI Life Insurance Company Limited Q3 FY'26

Moderator · Conference Operator

Thank you very much.

We will now begin with the question-and-answer session.

Our first question comes from the line of Avinash Singh from Emkay Global.

Please go ahead.

Avinash Singh

Hi, good evening.

Thanks for the opportunity.

Good set of numbers considering the GST level code impact, the kind of consistent margins and a very strong VNB growth, particularly in the quarter.

That's kind of a great achievement.

First is particularly a bit I would like to know on product mix.

So, in the current environment where there has been a kind of a repo rate cut that leads to deposit rates going down, but bond yields kind of holding or inching up, typically a non-par savings growth one would have expected to be better or rather stronger than the overall growth.

But at least in the quarter it has not been.

So, what's happening there, I mean, that is kind of a hampering the demand of non-par in the market, I mean, your experience.

And secondly, slightly unrelated, solvency at 191% is far, far above, I would say, the regulatory requirement of 150%.

But typically in your embedded value assumption and all, I guess, management threshold is 180% odd.

So, do you see, I mean, this solvency and organic profit generation to be sufficient enough for you to allow a strong growth across product segment like, say, whatsoever product is growing, maybe protection non-par.

So, I mean, do you see any sort of a limitation coming from that side that can kind of lead to some optimization on product or rather your solvency or capital is totally adequate to provide a strong growth across the products?

So, these are two questions.

Thank you.