India's ICICI Lombard posts higher profit as tax breaks lift motor, health insurance demand

Oct 14 (Reuters) — ICICI Lombard General Insurance, India's largest private-sector insurer, reported a 15.5% rise in second-quarter profit on Wednesday, helped by higher retail sales of motor and health insurance policies. The country's non-life insurance sector is seeing steady automobile demand after last year's tax cuts, alongside rising healthcare costs. Net profit rose to 9.46 billion rupees ($99.42 million) in the July-September quarter, from 8.2 billion rupees a year earlier Motor insurance, ICICI Lombard's biggest business, recorded net premium growth of 9%. Retail health net premiums increased 49.5% while corporate health premiums rose 47.5% from a year earlier Net premiums earned rose 17.7% to 66.52 billion rupees during the quarter ICICI Lombard's combined ratio, a measure of underwriting performance, worsened to 107% from 105.1% a year earlier The company's shares have fallen about 13% so far this year, compared with a 13.4% fall in India's benchmark Nifty 50 index ($1 = 95.1500 Indian rupees) (Reporting by Abhinav Parmar in Bengaluru; Editing by Pooja Desai) ((Abhinav.Parmar@thomsonreuters.com;)