Life insurers registered a growth of 22.6 per cent in new premium at Rs 17,513.44 crore for August this fiscal.

This compares with Rs 14,282.45 crore as new business premium during August of 2016-17.

India's largest and the only public life insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) recorded a jump of 25 per cent in its new premium collection at Rs 13,382.30 crore during the month as against Rs 10,713.55 crore in the same period year ago, data from Irdai showed.

There are 24 life insurance firms in India, of which 23 are from the private sector.

Among major private players, SBI Life logged a fall in its new premium collection at Rs 820.33 crore, from Rs 822.28 crore in August 2016, according to the numbers from the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai).

ICICI Prudential Life new premium grew a mere 4.8 per cent to Rs 768.19 crore while that of HDFC Standard Life jumped 37.5 per cent to Rs 750.97 crore. Max Life's was up 22.5 per cent at Rs 295.91 crore and Bajaj Allianz Life's Rs 217.31 crore, gaining 13.6 per cent.

Among others, Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual showed a decline of 6.5 per cent in premium income at Rs 199.25 crore in August. In the case of Sahara Life, it was Rs 14 lakh, down 95 per cent from a year ago, while for Bharti Axa Life, it fell to Rs 46.64 crore, from Rs 52.71 crore a year before.

On the cumulative basis, new premium income of all the 24 life insurers went up 19.7 per cent to Rs 71,173.29 crore during April-August of this fiscal.

For LIC, the premium collection in April-August jumped 20.2 per cent to Rs 52,921.31 crore and that of the private sector increased 18.3 per cent to Rs 18,251.98 crore.