Axis Max Life Insurance expects the sharp improvement in its new business profitability to hold through the rest of the financial year, with managing director (MD) and chief executive officer (CEO) Sumit Madan saying the company is unlikely to make any changes to products in the near future.
Madan told Mint that the company’s profitability gains appear sustainable, as its current product mix now aligns with its long-term strategy. "You will not see much of the product mix changing for us. So we should be okay as far as the rest of the year is concerned."
The insurer's value of new business (VNB), which measures the expected profit from policies sold in a period, grew 33% in the June quarter, with the VNB margin at 23.2% against 20.1% a year earlier. Axis Max Life Insurance is a joint venture between Max Financial Services and Axis Bank Ltd.
Madan isn’t the only one who’s upbeat—his enthusiasm is mirrored by analysts as well. Motilal Oswal Financial Services said in a note on 13 August that the insurer "maintains a better-than-industry APE growth trajectory", referring to annualised premium equivalent, a standard measure of new business sales. It added that "strong traction in the protection and annuity segments, new product launches in the non-linked segments as well as yield curve movements have resulted in robust VNB margin expansion offsetting the GST impact".
Nomura analysts also view Axis Max Life’s focus on new products and distribution channels favourably, noting that it reinforces confidence in the insurer's long-term growth prospects. “Distribution reform remains a key trigger for the stock and the sector, in our view,” Nomura analysts said in a note to clients on 14 August.
Meanwhile, Madan said the company had spent about three years concentrating on two categories, protection and annuity, and that the pull in retirement products reflected a genuine change in how customers think, rather than a passing trend.
He noted a visible shift in how Indians plan for retirement. Five or six years ago, many customers viewed supporting their children’s future as their primary retirement plan, expecting to be looked after in their old age, he said. Today, that mindset is fading. Driven by longer life expectancies and a growing awareness of the need for dedicated financial planning, households are formally building retirement funds—and starting earlier, often in their forties rather than their fifties, he added.
On protection products, Madan said the shift to a lower goods and services tax (GST) rate did more for demand than the industry had expected—less because customers calculated the exact savings, and more because it made sales pitches far simpler. "The customer simply asks, ‘what has become cheaper, how much has it become cheaper’," he said, adding that protection numbers across the industry rose after the change. In September 2025, the government exempted retail term and health insurance policies from GST to make insurance more affordable and to drive penetration.
Beyond tax changes, Madan described the underlying problem in the market as one of adequacy rather than affordability, a view he traced to his years in banking. "India has plenty of savings, but too little of those savings are actually converted into adequate life insurance," he said, adding that the industry has historically focused on maximizing premium collection rather than the actual sum assured.
Axis Max Life's individual new business sum assured increased 32% to ₹1,17,277 crore in the first quarter of the current financial year, with the three-year compound annual growth rate at 30%. Nearly 75% of customer contributions now come from tier 2 and tier 3 towns.
Having spent the majority of his career in the banking sector, Madan joined Axis Max Life as its chief distribution officer in February 2024 before taking over as CEO in October 2025. He highlighted the company's reduced reliance on Axis Bank as one of its biggest strategic shifts over the past three years. When he joined, the insurer depended heavily on that single channel, but it has since aggressively expanded partnerships across both retail life insurance and group credit life cover.
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