HDFC Life had a troubled May like most other private life insurers with a sharp decline in annual premium equivalents. CNBC-TV18’s Sonia Shenoy and Latha Venkatesh discuss with HDFC Life's CEO Vibha Padalkar to find out what is behind this, if June has been better and what the rest of FY21 looks like now that India has exited the lockdown.

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“We are doing a quarterly forecast as against an annual budget - this being such an exceptional year - and we don’t know what the shape of the recovery is. A few investment houses have put out that India recovery is going to be very different, US is looking at a V-shaped recovery while India could be W-shaped or any other letter, so it is going to be two steps forward, one step back. So it is very difficult to forecast. Given current degrowth in terms of gross domestic product (GDP) is going to be 5-6 percent then a flat growth – so flat versus FY20 would be a good outcome for the industry I feel. This is based on current visibility,” she said.

Speaking about COVID-19 related claims, Padalkar said, “We have had 3 COVID-19 claims so far. Although, we have told our customers that even if they have difficulty in terms of getting the paperwork done, we will go ahead and make the payment.”

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