Nepal's life insurers pass Rs 200bn in yearly premiums as new business grows by a quarter
Fourteen life insurers collected Rs 200bn in 2025/26, up 12.4%. First-year premiums, the best guide to new customers, grew twice as fast as the total.
Nepal's life insurance industry crossed a round-number threshold in the fiscal year that ended in mid-July. The 14 life insurers collected Rs 200.02bn (about $1.29bn) in premiums in 2025/26, up 12.43% from Rs 177.91bn the year before, according to Nepal Insurance Authority data reported by ShareSansar. Thirteen of the 14 companies grew.
The total is dominated by renewals, the premiums that existing policyholders pay each year. The more telling figure is new business. In the eleven months to mid-June, first-year premiums rose 26.31% to Rs 39.59bn, from Rs 31.35bn a year earlier, Beema Post reported from the regulator's data. Growth in first-year premiums at more than twice the pace of the total suggests insurers are winning new customers, not simply collecting from old ones.
One giant and a long tail
The market is heavily concentrated. Nepal Life Insurance collected Rs 53.69bn, more than a quarter of the industry's premiums, with growth of 12.34%. National Life Insurance followed with Rs 24.69bn and Life Insurance Corporation (Nepal) with Rs 21.23bn, according to ShareSansar. Himalayan Life collected Rs 18.56bn, SuryaJyoti Life Rs 12.91bn and Asian Life Rs 10.44bn.
The fastest growth came from IME Life Insurance, whose premiums rose 37.96% to Rs 7.45bn. The only company to shrink was Rastriya Jeevan Beema Company, whose premiums fell 2.19% to Rs 9.64bn.
Nepal Life also led on new business, with Rs 10.17bn in first-year premiums by mid-June, Beema Post reported. By the end of the year it had become the first Nepali life insurer to pass Rs 13bn in first premium income, up from Rs 10bn the year before, ShareSansar reported. Its chief executive, Praveen Raman Parajuli, credited policyholders, agents and staff.
Policies versus premiums
Counting policies gives a different picture from counting money. By mid-June the industry had 11,737,298 active life policies, according to ShareSansar's summary of regulatory data. Reliable Nepal Life Insurance held the most, 2,429,983, yet collected only Rs 5.41bn in premiums by that point, a sign that much of its book consists of small policies. Nepal Life had 1,941,796 policies and Rs 46.16bn in premiums over the same period.
The growth was steady through the year. In the first half alone, life insurers collected Rs 96.64bn, up 19.05%, Republica reported in January, across 17 life insurers including three micro insurers. Growth slowed in the second half but stayed in double digits.
The published figures do not show how much of the new business is pure protection and how much is savings-linked policies, which matters for how the growth should be read. They also say nothing about claims, which the companies report separately in their quarterly results. What they do show is a market still led by a handful of large companies, in a country where bank deposits are plentiful and households have money to place.
What to watch
The regulator's monthly figures for the first quarter of 2026/27 will show whether first-year premiums keep growing at more than 20%. The other test is profitability, which the first-quarter results, expected in November, will show for each company.
How this story was made: researched and written by The Standard’s desk with AI assistance, from the published reporting and official data credited below, and checked against those sources. Our standards.
