chennai after growing at breakneck speed for the past several years the indian life insurance sector has hit the speed breaker with the industry witnessing a premium fall of nearly 38 per cent in october over the september figures this yeareven the number of policies sold by the industry players has gone down by 407494 in october as compared to the previous monthaccording to the figures released by the insurance regulatory and development authority irda the life insurance sector earned a new premium of rs5087 billion rs5087 crore selling 3335418 policies last month against rs8148 billion rs8148 crore from 3742912 policies in septemberthe average premium per policy appp for the industry in october is rs15252 down from rs21770 the month beforethe indian economy is affected by the developments in the world economy life insurance industry cannot escape the cascading impact harpal karlcut chief executive of canara hsbc oriental bank of commerce life insurance choli saidadded reliance life insurance chief executive p nandagopal the two months september and october had a lot of festivals and many sales people were on leave this and the general economic slowdown led to the life sector posting lower salesnandagopal said he did not expect any drastic increase in high value policies lapsing as it happened when the dotcom companies bust in the early 1990swe are growing 100 per cent yearonyear and will maintain that this year as well the reliance life ceo saidthe 20 private players earned around rs2304 billion rs2304 crore selling 1090103 policies with an appp of rs21141 in octoberin september they earned around rs3417 billion rs3417 crore from 1300710 policies with an appp of rs26271on the other hand the asian life insurance giant life insurance corp of india lic sold 2245317 policies and earned around rs2782 billion rs2782 crore in october as against a premium of around rs4731 billion rs4731 crore selling 2442202 policies the previous monthlics appp in october was rs12393 down from rs19373 the previous monthamong the private players icici prudential life insurance co ltd continued its lead over others in october earning around rs406 billion from 158071 policiesit is followed by bajaj allianz life insurance co ltd rs344 billion from 227006 policies sbi life insurance co ltd rs325 billion from 73983 policies reliance life rs239 billion from 178932 policies and hdfc standard life insurance co ltd rs207 billion from 66981 policieswhen it comes to appp there are many surprises as several smaller companies have overtaken their bigger rivalsstanding atop is choli with an appp of rs90982 in october total premium rs2835 million from 3116 policiesasked if the appp would come down once the shareholding banks canara bank and oriental bank of commerce start selling cholis policies company ceo karlcut said we are well ahead of our plans we expect the appp to stabilise in course of timeothers on the top five list are sbi life appp rs44046 metlife india insurance co ltd rs40598 idbi fortis life insurance co ltd rs35295 and hdfc standard life rs30965