Ladies and gentlemen, good day and welcome to the Q4 and FY25 earnings conference call of SBI Life Insurance Company Limited. As a reminder, all participant lines will be in the listen-only mode, and there will be an opportunity for you to ask questions after the presentation concludes. Should you need assistance during the conference call, please signal an operator, pressing the star, then zero on your touch-tone phone. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amit Jhingran, MD and CEO of SBI Life Insurance Company Limited. Thank you and over to you, sir. Good afternoon, everyone. It is a pleasure to welcome you all for the results update call of SBI Life Insurance Company for the year ended March 31, 2025. We appreciate and thank you wholeheartedly for the valuable time and efforts for joining our earnings call. Update on our financial results can be accessed on our website as well as on the websites of both the stock exchanges. Along with me, Mr. Sangramjit Singh Sarangi, President and CFO; Mr. Abhijit Gulanikar, President, Business Strategy; Mr. Subhendu Bal, Chief Actuary and Chief Risk Officer; Mr. Prithesh Chaubey, Appointed Actuary; and Ms. Smita Verma, Senior Vice President, Finance and Investor Relations, are present. It is a momentous occasion as we announce our financial results today while stepping into the 25th year of business operation of SBI Life Insurance Company. Looking back, we have witnessed significant transformation, not just within our organization but across the insurance industry itself. From introducing life insurance to a relatively untapped market to becoming a household name with a comprehensive suite of products, SBI Life has consistently evolved into a trusted brand. Our ability to adapt, innovate, and respond to the changing needs of our customers has been key to this journey. The milestone stands as a testament to the enduring trust of our customers and the dedication of our people who deliver on our promise of protection and peace of mind every day. Our strong partnerships, the expertise, and commitment of our employees have been instrumental in our growth. Through strategic investment in technology and an unwavering focus on customer satisfaction, we have delivered robust performance and strengthened our position in the market. Over the past year, we have strengthened our foundation, enhancing customer experience, driving innovation, and reinforcing our position in a dynamic and competitive industry. The results we share today reflect not just financial growth but the real impact we have made in the lives of our customers. I am pleased to report progress across three areas, particularly in agency and bancassurance productivity, thanks to focused efforts and strong teamwork. We have also continued to evolve our offerings by staying close to customer insights and market trends. In four months, we added four new non-unit products to our portfolio: Smart Platinum Supreme, Smart Bachat Plus, Smart Platinum Young Achiever, and Smart Future Star. These products sold more than 1.5 lakh policies and collected more than INR 1,100 crore of new business premium from just these four products. Moving forward, we remain committed to continuously assessing and refining our offerings, ensuring that we are well-equipped to meet the dynamic demands of our customers. We recognize that staying attuned to customer preferences and market trends is essential for our continued success. Now, let me give you some key highlights of the year-ended 31st March 2025. New business premium stands at INR 355.8 billion and maintained private market leadership with a share of 20.8%. Individual new business premium stands at INR 263.6 billion with a growth of 11% and private market share of 25.3%. For Q4 FY 2025, the company's individual new business premium grew by 7% over the same period last year as compared to industry growth of 5%. Gross return premium stands at INR 849.9 billion, a growth of 4%. Profit after tax stands at INR 24.13 billion with a strong growth of 27%. Value of new business stands at INR 59.5 billion. VNB margin stands at 27.8% for period ended March 31, 2025. Embedded value for the company as of March 31, 2025, stands at INR 702.5 billion, registering a growth of 21% over March 31st, 2024. Our asset under management stands at INR 4.48 trillion with a growth of 15% over last year. Our solvency ratio at 1.96, sorry, take that as 1.96 as against the regulatory requirement of 1.50. Now, we will update you on some of the key parameters in detail. Let me start with premium. Individual new business has grown to INR 263.6 billion with a growth of 11% over last year. The company's private market share stands at 25.3% and industry market share stands at 15.8%. On individual rated new business, we stand at INR 193.5 billion with a growth of 12% over last year, and we maintained our leadership position with private market share of 22.8% and total market share of 16.1%. The company's three-year CAGR of individual rated new business premium stands at 15%, outpacing the industry CAGR of 11%. We have witnessed some headwinds in group business, particularly with our group savings product. Group new business premium stands at INR 92.2 billion with a contribution of 26% in new business premium. Having said that, we have collected total new business premium of INR 355.8 billion. The company's private market share stands at 20.8% and total market share stands at 9.0%. The company's three-year CAGR of new business premium stands at 12%, outpacing the industry CAGR of 8%. Renewal premium during the year grew by 14% to INR 494.1 billion, which accounts for 58% of the gross return premium. To sum up, the gross return premium stands at INR 849.8 billion with a growth of 4% over corresponding previous year. In terms of APE, premium stands at INR 214.2 billion, registering a growth of 9%. Out of this, individual APE stands at INR 195.9 billion with a growth of 13%. During the year-ended March 31, 2025, total 22.03 lakh new policies were issued. Number of lives covered during the year-ended March 31, 2025, is 25.5 million. The growth in sum assured serves as a positive indicator of consumer confidence and the increasing awareness of the importance of financial protection. Individual new business sum assured registered a growth of 43% over corresponding previous period, and for the quarter, growth was at 67%. Let me give you some details about the product mix. For FY 2024-2025, guaranteed non-par savings products grew by 18% on new business premium basis, while in quarter four, guaranteed non-par savings products registered a growth of 56%. On individual APE basis, the segment now contributes 20%. Individual ULIP new business is at INR 162 billion with a growth of 18% over last year, and it constitutes 62% of individual new business. However, in last quarter, ULIP witnessed degrowth. The movement of ULIP can be attributed to the movements in the equity market, and this trend is evident across industry. This apart from our focus on the traditional products. Individual protection new business is at INR 7.9 billion. Individual protection business for Q4 FY 2025 has grown by 40% on NBP basis as compared to quarter three FY 2025. Group protection new business stands at INR 33 billion. Credit life new business has grown by 11% and stands at INR 25.2 billion. Protection business contributes 10% of APE and stands at INR 20.5 billion. Retirement plans assist customers in building a substantial corpus of funds to maintain the desired lifestyle and manage expenses in their golden years. Total annuity and pension new business underwritten by the company is INR 71.6 billion. Moving to update on distribution partners, with a strength of more than 59,000 CIFs, SBI and RRBs, Bancassurance business contributes a share of 61% on total APE basis, and on individual APE basis, it stands at INR 127.5 billion with a growth of 9%. SBI branch productivity on individual APE terms stands at INR 5.4 million for the year and registered a growth of 9%. With enhanced focus on agency channels and strategic launch of Agency 2.0 in last financial year, we have witnessed impressive strides in agent activation, agency channel productivity, and onboarding of new agents and better collaboration between agents. Our agent productivity for the year stands at INR 2.9 lakh on individual NBP terms, registering a growth of 20% over previous year. Agency registered individual new business growth of 28% over corresponding previous year and contributes 27%. Agency channel individual APE showed a growth of 23% over last year and stands at INR 59.5 billion. As on March 31, 2025, the total number of agents stands at 240,304. During the year-ended, the company added more than 97,500 agents on gross basis. As part of our strategic initiative to strengthen our presence across the country, we have opened 70 new branches this financial year. This expansion is aligned with our vision to create infrastructure that supports the long-term development of our agency channel. Our expansion strategy targets are carefully designed to cater not only to tier one and tier two cities but also to underserved tier three and tier four regions. All these steps have resulted in an increase in the share of agency channels in individual rated premium from 28% in previous year to 30% in current year. During the year ended March 31, 2025, other channels, that is direct corporate agents, brokers, online, and web aggregators, grew by 22% in terms of individual new business premium. Linked business through other channels registered a growth of 39% on APE basis. We are investing in building our online business channel. Individual rated premium through this channel has grown by 66% for the current year as compared to previous year, and protection business through this channel on IRP terms grew by 31% as compared to previous year. Coming to updates on profitability, the company's profit after tax for the year-ended March 31, 2025, stands at INR 24 billion, with a robust growth of 27% as compared to previous year. Our solvency remained strong at 1.96 as against regulatory requirement of 1.50. Value of new business stands at INR 59.5 billion with a growth of 7%, and VNB margin stands at 27.8% for the year-ended March 31, 2025, as compared to 28.1% in FY 2024. The shift in VNB is mainly on account of an increase in the share of ULIP business as compared to the previous period. We have doubled our VNB in the last four years. However, during the fourth quarter, VNB grew by 10% as compared to the same period previous year, faster than Q4 APE growth, and VNB margin stands at 30.5% for the quarter. A gain of 220 basis points as compared to the same period previous year. The shift is driven by a change in product mix. Embedded value for the company as on March 31, 2025, stands at INR 702.5 billion, registering a growth of 21% over March 31, 2024. Embedded value operating profit stands at INR 117.8 billion with a growth of 20% over the previous year, and operating return on embedded value stands at 20.2%. Coming to operational efficiency, OpEx ratio stands at 5.3% and total cost ratio stands at 9.7% for the year-ended March 31, 2025, as compared to 4.9% and 8.9% respectively for the year-ended March 31, 2024. With respect to persistency of individual regular premium, 13th month persistency stands at 87.41%, an improvement of 63 basis points, and 61st month persistency stands at 62.69%, an improvement of 528 basis points. As mentioned in my opening remarks, asset under management stands at INR 4.48 trillion as at March 31, 2025, having a growth of 15%. Death claim settlement ratio stands at 99.4%. The company has registered an improvement of 23 basis points over last year. Our mis-selling ratio stands at 0.02%, which is one of the lowest in the industry, and this is achieved through our consistent approach adopted by the company to ensure right selling to the customers. Digitalization is transforming the life insurance industry, enabling us to deliver enhanced services and a more seamless experience for our customers. As we embrace this digital transformation, we remain committed to innovation and excellence, ensuring that we stay ahead in an increasingly competitive landscape. The company contributes efficient usage of technology for simplification of processes, with 99% of our individual proposals being submitted digitally. 54% of the individual proposals are processed through automated underwriting. To conclude, by fostering a culture of resilience and continuous improvement supported by a clear focus of developing agency channel along with the partner bank networks, we are confidently positioned for the future. Our commitment to exceptional customer service strengthens client relationships and reinforces our status as a trusted leader in the market. In order to maintain our leadership position, our strategy moving forward will center on three main areas: innovation, customer centricity, and sustainability. We will achieve this by enhancing digital capabilities, expanding reach, strengthening distribution networks, and product development. With a focus on long-term sustainable and profitable growth, we aim to create lasting value for our customers, shareholders, and communities, paving the way for a prosperous future together. Thank you all, and now we are ready to take any questions from you. Thank you very much. We will now begin the question and answer session. Anyone who wishes to ask a question may press star and one on their touchstone telephone. If you wish to withdraw yourself from the question queue, you may press star and two. Participants are requested to use handset while asking a question. Ladies and gentlemen, we will wait for a moment while the question queue assembles. The first question is from the line of Avinash Singh from Emkay Global Financial Services. Please go ahead. Yes, sir. Good Good evening. Thanks for the opportunity. Very impressive growth on margin, and I mean, this again demonstrates your ability to tweak the product mix and your specific effectiveness that, of course, helps deliver this margin. My question will more be focusing on growth. The first one is that now, of course, this year, your conscious choice to leave a space or vacate a space due to hyper-competition in group business and also kind of a lead to headline number being a bit muted. Now, with this base and also whatever is happening now, the base turning favorable, but on the retail side, of course, you're first on non-bankers and also banker base turning reasonable, but the noise remains around bankers. In all, I mean, if you were to connect the dot, how do you sort of see growth next year? Because that's one of the key metrics. Second, within, I mean, if I see, of course, I mean, your focus on non-banker is delivering numbers, agency has improved. Two things I noticed about agency. If I look at just Q4 in isolation, the growth in agency is just like a very, very muted 4%. The agency channel that was growing at 28% in nine months, the full year-end number has come up to 21%. Q4, what happened to this agency growth? In relation to that, agency has seen a large number of deletions. Is there some sort of a strategic choice that you are kind of removing the inactive agents or so? There has been a large amount of deletions, so there has not been a net addition this year in agency. These are my two questions: growth outlook and second on agency. Talking of the growth first of the Q4, you would have noticed that the overall industry growth in Q4 has been sluggish. Our company, although agency channel was somewhat affected, but there were other reasons also for the agency's slower growth. Our focus on agency channel during the quarter was making more agents active by way of our traditional and protection product. While the overall agency growth was only around 4%, there was substantial growth in contribution of non-ULIP products from the agency channel. That number is reflecting in our overall product mix also. Talking of overall growth, we delivered on individual IRP basis 12% growth. Going forward, we expect that we will continue to grow at around 13%-14%, which will be slightly above the industry growth that is being expected today at around 12%. This growth we are expecting from our continued focus on the agency channel, where we are again opening more branches, having addition of more agents and increasing agent productivity as well as their activation. That growth from the agency channel, we are again expecting at around 25% on this strong base. On the banker side, we have grown by around 8% during the year, and we expect that going forward, we will be growing at around 10% or in low double digits in the banker channel. Overall, the growth expectation of 13%-14%, we are standing by. As far as the number of agents you talked about, you rightly picked that despite a gross addition of around 97,000 agents, our net addition was slightly negative, marginally negative. That was rightly on account of de-leading of inactive agents. We stuck to our minimum business guarantee, minimum business from agents, and all those agents who were not contributing substantially to the company, to the business, were removed. Okay, sir. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Nischint Chawathe from Kotak Institutional Equities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks for taking my question. Just trying to understand that in the group protect business, what has driven such high growth this quarter? Grown very strongly in quarter four for us in group protect business. And there have been some other GTI deals, employer-employee kinds also, which have come. The big growth has happened in fund business, but the protection business has done well in quarter four. Yeah. Credit protect is up, I think you mentioned around 10%, right? That is for the year. For the quarter, it is higher. Credit rate. Okay. This is told for the year figure. Quarter figure, if I remember number right, is 20%. In the credit rate. Yes. Got it. In the VNB walk, what is the change in operating assumption? I believe if I look at the nine-month walk, the number was or the ratio was higher, and it's now gone down in this quarter. If you look at the nine months, that comparison was the last year's March. When you come to this year, it is last March to this March. The assumption we take mainly on account of the mortality and persistency. Because as you see in this, as a company, we use the sustainable assumption for future. Continuously, we are making operating surpluses on both account and mortality as well as persistency. Some part of that we capitalize that reflected in this assumption change. When we look at the rolling 12 months for them in the nine-month presentation versus now, I mean, it kind of means that maybe some of the assumptions may have been toned down? No. Actually, if I understand correctly, last year we mixed assumption change and the resume work is around 1% impact. From last March, March 2023 to 2024. When we were reporting the nine-month number, that was kept reflecting. If I compare the March 2024 assumption to March 2025 assumption, it is impacted only 20 basis points that affected in this one. That is mainly on account of some refinement and some capitalization on account of mortality and persistency. Sure. Similar question in EV walk. We have an operating variance of around INR 750 crore and assumption change of INR 220 crore. If you could just maybe give a breakup of that. If you look into this INR 727 crore operating variance, INR 277 crore is coming on account of persistency, INR 423 crore on account of mortality, INR 17 crore is coming from approximately on expenses. You see this mortality has significant INR 423 crore, persistency also, which has received significant improvement in long-term persistency. When I'm looking into long-term persistency, 51st month and onward, that we have turned out to be. That we capitalize in some of the assumption that also reflect in the EV. Because the EV book is bigger, the impact you might be seeing in the EV work is higher than what we're looking into the VNB walk. Sure. Just one final question. There was a very smart product mix change this quarter, which supported margins. How do you see the product mix in this financial year? Going forward, what we are looking for is a 65/35 kind of product mix. I mean, 65% of ULIP and 35% of our traditional policies that include participating, non-participating, and protection products. There, we are expecting a 5% tilt towards traditional products from ULIP during the year. This year, ULIP was 65, right? 64. What you are trying to essentially say is that it will more or less remain at a similar level? This year is 70. 70. This is FY 2025, Nischint, it is 70/30. We are expecting that it will go towards 65/35 in FY 2026. Quarter four was slightly less than that. Right. You are talking on the APE basis. I was talking on the IRP basis, basically. That is the difference. Got it. Basically, around 500 basis points will be what we are talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got it. Thank you very much and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shreya Shivani from CLSA. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. My first question is on the P&L. If I look at the net commissions and rewards as a percentage of total premiums, that is slightly up between FY 2024 and FY 2025. What can it be attributed to? I mean, are you paying more to the agents or have some terms and conditions been changed with banker channels? My second question is on any idea you can give us on the possible regulation, if anything can come up on banker channel, are there any advanced talks with the regulator or with any government entity? Any idea over there would be useful. Thank you so much. The thing is that this talk on banker channel, I have been listening from either the journalist or the analyst, but not from any of the IRDA authority or from the government authorities. You are aware that the IRDA's process is very consultative. Till date, they have not floated any paper or any draft guidelines regarding any restrictions on banker channel or anything. This has been going on for more than nine months, almost a year now. As of now, there are no formal discussions or formal guidelines or even formal draft guidelines for these restrictions or anything. That is our stand. We have, of course, always been with the regulator on any front, and we will keep discussing. If anything comes, we will adjust the company's stance with that. With reference to the net commission, which you have seen that there's a little increase on that part, it is due to the product mix change during the last two quarters, quarter three and quarter four. It is basically the traditional movement has started for us in the last two quarters. That is the reason the net commission has gone up. Overall, OpEx and the total cost ratio of it is under the control in a single digit. We are quite comfortable on that. Yeah. Thank you so much. That is useful. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Prayesh Jain from Motilal Oswal. Please go ahead. Yeah. Hi, [audio distortion]. Firstly, with respect to VNB margins during the quarter, are we also seeing some improvement in margins at product level with respect to protection or with respect to ULIPs where the attachment could have gone up? Could you give us the mix of in the individual protection, how has been the mix between return of premium and the normal? There is slightly improvement because there are two reasons. If you mainly moment is happening on account of product mix. Within the quarter, if you look into that, we have launched high sum assured protection product six months back. We also launched several riders. Rider attachment also coming from. When the rider attached with the quarter, the inbuilt margin is going up. We have launched children product where we also make some of the inbuilt protections. That protection is also inbuilt protection also helping the enhancing the margin. You can say there is inherent margin enhancement also to some extent reflected in this quarterly margin. Okay. While you gave the guidance on growth and also you gave the guidance on product mix, is it fair to expect the VNB margin for full year FY 2026 to be closer to the fourth quarter average, or how should we think about VNB margin if your product mix kind of pans out the way you have highlighted for us? In our last analyst call, we had given a guidance of around 28% margin. I'm happy to note that our overall margin was in the same range. Barring spikes or dips from quarter to quarter, we expect to maintain the margin of around 27%-28% for the full year. In spite of the fact that the product mix will have such large shift towards non-linked products, which are having higher margins, why should the margins be stable? Partially, it will also be shift towards par. And par and ULIPs have similar margins. There could be some uptick, but broadly, I think VNB has guided what is the broad margin. Around 28% of margin, yes. Okay. Just my last question on banker channels. You mentioned that the productivity growth has been around 8-9% for the year. The premium growth also has been in the similar range. There is no incremental branch that's kind of contributing, or how should we read this? Only the gains are coming in from productivity only, and there is a lot of scope, right, to penetrate into SBI banks. How should we read this, and how should we think about the outlook going ahead? All SBI branches are authorized to sell our banker products. Any increase in number of branches by the bank will automatically increase the number of branches authorized to sell insurance for us also. The increase, of course, is coming from the productivity per branch productivity, and that is what we are focusing upon also. You are rightly saying that banker is one channel which has a lot of opportunities, and we will continue to harness these opportunities in the best possible way with our parent bank and other banker partners also. Thank you so much. All the best. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Dipanjan Ghosh from Citi. Please go ahead. Hi. Good evening. Hope I'm audible. Three questions from my side. First, you guided for around 25% growth at the agency counter. Now, if you look at for FY 2025, your productivity growth at agency was around 20%, but the training coming in from incremental agency. If I were to look at the future guidance of 25% growth at agency, how would that break up between new agent additions versus productivity improvement, and how much scope is there to improve productivity? Second question on this part is on the agent part. Are you also focusing on improving the product mix at the agency counter? Basically saying that maybe trying to improve the margin at the agent mix? The third question is in terms of the contribution of the parent bank. While you have mentioned the APE mix, can you give some color of the contribution of the parent bank to the overall VNB of the company? Those are my three questions. On the agency front, the growth will come from increasing agents and increasing productivity both. A 65/35 kind of product mix broadly is also target for agency. Agency might be slightly lower ULIPs than the company average on the banker front. On the banker side, I mean, we do not divulge the VNB margin channel-wise or that way. Of course, in the banker partner, parent bank, the growth is coming from higher activity and better productivity per branch. We have grown by 8% in parent bank, and that is the dominant banker partner for the bank. Almost more than 90% business is coming from parent bank itself. The guidance that we are giving for the current year, the same stands for the parent bank also. Just one data-keeping question. If you can give the credit life APE for the year or quarter? Credit life APE is around INR 250 crore for the financial year 2025. INR 250 crore. INR INR 250 crore, you said. Okay. This is for the financial year, you're saying? Yeah. Yeah. This This is full year. Okay. Sure. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Supratim Datta from Ambit Capital. Please go ahead. Thanks for the opportunity. My first question is just wanted a clarification. When you're saying 13-14% growth, is that on total APE or individual APE alone? If you could clarify that. And then if I take that into consideration and take this 500 basis point product mix improvement that you're talking about, it seems like back of the envelope math, forget that you're still expecting around 8%-9% kind of growth in the ULIPs front. In this quarter, you have seen a decline. What gives you confidence that ULIPs growth will come back next year given how our markets are? My second question is on the non-PAR side in financial year 2023 as well, when you had launched PARS Platina, we had seen a significant surge in non-PAR, and then it kind of fizzled out, and the mix again went back to what it was prior to that product launch. Can you just help us understand why you think that this trend is going to be different and this trend, the product mix shift, is going to be more permanent as compared to what happened in FY 2023? Those are my two questions. Thank you. See, the first one is about the growth that is related to individual APE, and that we are expected to grow between around 14%. The product mix switch, which will happen, why we are confident is that we have already seen this during the last quarter, which is fourth quarter of FY 2025. That precisely also shows a positive side of the agency because agency, which has been doing for the last three quarters, that is first nine months, and they have shifted significantly toward the product mix, which is non-PAR protection, non-PAR Smart Platinum Supreme, which is guaranteed, as well as the PAR. That is a big boost to us that we are very optimistic that it will help us in the agency side. With this product mix, the banker has already said the banker also is moving towards that. Overall, we believe that will help us to achieve our product mix along with the growth. This product mix shift is not based on any single product like the last time. It is more broad-based. As I told in my opening remarks, we have launched four products which cater to different market segments, including guaranteed returns, and there are children plan also, and we are seeing good numbers across the products. Got it. I had another question. On the agency bit, agency channel, when I compared the kind of commissions that you would be paying in the agency channel versus PIR, it seems like not only are you more efficient on the banker channel, but your commission levels on the agency channel are also fairly lower as compared to PIRs. I understand there is a ULIPs mix. You have a higher ULIPs mix in the agency channel as well. Adjusting for that as well, it seems like your agency commission costs are significantly lower than peers. Could you help us understand what is really allowing you to operate at such a low commission, and why isn't there a risk to it? What happens is agency, we have been consistent investors for many, many years and have had steady focus on agency for at least the last 15 years plus and never wavered, even in 2012-2013 when the whole agency was going down for the industry. To that extent, agents appreciate the steadfastness of SBI Life focus on agency in spite of being a banker dominant insurance company. Second, we are present across all tiers of the market, not only in tier one and in metros, but also in smaller towns. To that extent, our SBI brand plus the way we have managed agency has helped us keep agency costs in control for last many years. It is not a new thing. This is a phenomenon which you would see for last 8-10 years at least, that the agency cost for SBI Life is significantly lower than agency cost for anybody else in the industry. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Swarnabha Mukherjee from B&K Securities. Please go ahead. Hi sir. Thank you for the opportunity. I had two or three questions, specifically first one on the channel side. I just wanted to understand that in terms of the cost structure and the margins in banker and agency, just if you could highlight between banker and agency, which one is margin accurate? Given that you have highlighted that agency would be growing faster than bancassurance, this tilt in the mix, would there be any impact on margin when I think about FY 2026? This is the first question. Second is in terms of the group protection side, so credit life and group term life, as you have highlighted that both have done well in group term life. Also, you have gotten some new mandates. Just wanted to understand that your peers have been highlighting that there is some pricing pressure in this part of the business. I mean, how are the pricing that you are getting and whether as a whole in terms of group term life, for example, has the margin profile deteriorated in the last year compared to what it was previously? I understand that it is possibly a lower proportion of our mix than credit life, but just wanted to understand this part. Lastly, the drop in ULIPs this quarter that we are seeing, this degrowth, is this a conscious strategy or due to the lack of demand? Because particularly in agency, we see that there has been a sizable drop, and you have highlighted that the focus was on the traditional side more. I just wanted to understand that part and also how easy or difficult it is to reorient the product mix in the agency channel particularly. These will be my questions. If you talk of the cost structure in reply to the previous question, we said that we continue to have a low cost structure even in the agency channel, and the agency channel costs are lowest in the industry, the kind of commission we pay. Of course, the total cost structure, if you look at, then the Agency Channel is slightly costly because of the physical infrastructure that we have to create and maintain by opening more number of branches. That way, there is a slightly higher cost in Agency Channel compared to the Bancassurance channel. The cost of commission for both the channels is almost similar. As far as drop in ULIPs in the last quarter, you are saying for last one year, we have been trying to change this product mix, and we have been working. You have rightly identified that it is slightly difficult to change the orientation of the agent or the partners in selling the product mix. These are efforts of one year which have started rectifying this. Of course, this also might have helped by the volatility in the market. Demand might have gone down, but the good thing is that even in the current month, we are seeing the similar trend as of now in the first 22-23 days of this month. This is a conscious strategy also. You will see that we launched new products also during this period in the non-ULIPs segment. This has been in works, and we have been making efforts because this is margin accurate for the company and good value proposition for the agents and partners also. Group CI, what do you like to hear? On the GTI overall, if you see the group protection, the credit life has been good for us, and it is very consistent for the last two quarters, quarter three and quarter four. We have been seeing good traction in the credit life. We ended with around 12% growth in our credit life. As far as the GTI is concerned, it is doing good, and we as a policy, we do not get into the business where we have a negative UNB, and that has also grown this year around 5%. Our clear call is that the negative UNB business we generally avoid, and we go for a good client, good business as far as the GTI is concerned. Overall, our portfolio has given a better result as compared to what others are doing. Understood, sir. Just a couple of follow-ups on this. One is on the credit life side, sir, if you could highlight what would be your mix between different categories, say, home loans, personal loans, etc., which would be the most dominant? Because normally we are hearing that MFI part is under a bit of a stress. If you could provide your comments on that. See, majorly our credit life portfolio is from the home loan customers that we cover as per under the credit life portfolio. Okay, sir. Understood. Thank you so much and all the best for attending today. Thank you. Thank you. I would request all the investors to please limit their questions to one per participant as there are several people waiting for their turn. The next question is from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead. Hi, good evening. Congratulations on a great set of numbers. Just two quick questions. First, on individual protection, we're seeing some weakness over there. This year, we've seen a little bit of a decline in that part of the business. Can you help understand what is happening over there? While persistency has improved across most buckets, in the 49th month, I think there is still some decline over there. Some understanding on that as well. Yeah, thanks. See, as far as the protection on the individual side is concerned, we have started seeing good numbers in the last quarter because we launched, as you already said, we have launched some new products in the last six months, and we just started now seeing the traction. We are very optimistic that this will give us a good number in FY 2026. As far as this persistency is concerned, the 49-month persistency is the, we generally call it as a COVID cohort. There we have seen some of the geographies where the persistency is getting hit. We have taken a lot of measures, and we have got some positive result on that. We have launched revival campaigns, and we have got actually control of this particular situation. We do not see much dent on this going forward, but overall experience is good for us as far as the persistency across cohorts are concerned. Great. Just on this 49-month side as well. Madhukar, I would request you to please come back in the queue for further questions. The next question is from the line of Sanketh Godha from Avendus Spark. Please go ahead. Yeah, thank you for the opportunity. You are holding the call, but your contribution of pure term has improved in the entire protection, and that is probably one of the reasons your term protection has slowed down a bit. I just wanted to know what is the mix between ROP and pure term and how much Delta contributed to the margin. The second thing is that you also alluded to the point that you are trying to attach more riders. I just wanted to understand in the total series business, how much business has a rider attachment or has a summation which is more than 10? Rider attachment for ULIPs policies came only in late quarter four. You would see some impact on that. On traditional policies, it came a little earlier, so there is impact on that. Yes, pure protection proportion has improved this year, both on the high-term 2 crore plus product that we have launched, also on the E-shield Instar that is available on ULIP. The overall proportion has also had. Yeah, so just to give you, the proportion of the business has tilted from 90/10 to 80/20, which is very positive for us. 80 is ROP and 20 is pure term, right? Yes. Yes. Yes. Okay. Okay. Okay. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Aditi Joshi from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead. Yeah, good evening. Thanks for taking my question. Just one question from my side. This is with respect to the solvency ratio. Quarter on quarter, we have seen some 8 percentage point decline in the solvency ratio. Whereas we at the same time look at the interest rate, those have gone down. You could have some gains on the bond valuation. Equity markets were also broadly flat quarter on quarter basis. I am just wondering, apart from the macro being either flat or favorable, what actually caused that decline? Thank you. First thing, when the assets for solvency purpose, assets are valued at market value. Asset is valued at book value. With the market movement, the equity argues, there is no impact on the asset side. If you see the fall on this solvency, it is business as usual. We make the payment dividend payouts. That has some rent incoming on that basis. Subsequently, this quarter, we retained protection and non-par. Solvency requirement into protection and non-par is higher than in leading quarter. That's the reason required solvency margin has gone up. As a result, you might see some fall in solvency margin. Still, if you see compared with the last year to this year, last month to this month, it is stable at the same level. Okay. That's clear. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Mohit Mangal from Centrum. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thanks. And thanks for taking my question. Just one question. It is about the charges with the business partners. I just wanted to know how much of this 14,000 branches are actually actively selling our products? What products they sell? What are the growth rates? If you can just sum up, that would be helpful. Yeah. Across our branches of 14,000 in SBI, they. Non-bank partner, the experience is different from partner to partner. Obviously, the activation rate ratios are much lesser than activation ratios that we see in SBI. The endeavor is to see that in every branch, we are able to sell at least few products. As of now, that is not the situation. Okay. What products they mostly sell, the growth rate, anything that is ongoing? Broadly speaking, 30% of the product portfolio is ULIPs. 70% is non-ULIPs as far as non-SBI banks are concerned. All right. All right. That's useful. Thank you so much. I wish you all the best. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Neeraj Toshniwal from UBS Securities. Please go ahead. Thank you. Congratulations, sir. Just wanted to understand on the guidance rate, given we have a higher base in agency and a lower base in bankers, we are guiding on a kind of a similar lower growth from the banker and higher from agency. How confident will we be making 25% growth on a high base in agency? Is the 10% new normal, which will kind of remain, or can we see improvement maybe going ahead? See, as far as agency growth is concerned, we are very, very clear about the trajectory which we are focusing for SBI Life as far as our next two to three years are concerned. This year, we have delivered with a base of 17% growth in FY 2024. Now we have delivered 23%. The kind of investments as we have been making on the agency channel, which is very consistent, and our productivity per agent is also quite encouraging. Our number of additional agents are also quite good. We are expanding our reach across tier two, tier three cities also. Our branch, last year we opened 70 branches. This year we are planning to open around another 87 branches. All taken into account, we are very confident and optimistic that the agency can grow around this rate. As far as bancassurance is concerned, I think that, as already said, we are in the range of around 19%, which we are aspiring for the bancassurance channel to grow. Overall, taken into account, it will be approximately around 14%-15% growth, which we are looking for in FY 2026. Thanks for the VNB margin, but as somebody also asked, as the mix is kind of improving, why are we guiding for a higher, faster growth in VNB compared to what we are guiding currently? There are two aspects to look at it. One is that one is growth, then corresponding to that, the product mix. At the same time, we are also, as I said earlier, we are expanding our reach through opening our branches. We are putting a lot of investment in our infrastructure. That is like our IT cost plus our number of employees. We have already crossed 26,000 employees. This year also, we are going to add another 1,500 employees. If you see all together, there will be a contrast from the product mix growth vis-à-vis the expense. In that situation, the range which we are guiding is around 28%, which is, I think, quite good as far as the current product mix which we are proposing for FY 2026. Also, as I said, some of the mix is going from ULIPs to PAR. Not everything is going to non-PAR. Thank you. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Shobhit Sharma from HDFC Securities. Please go ahead. Yeah. Thank you for taking my question. Am I audible? Yeah. Yeah. Please go ahead. My first question is only on product mix. You said you want to continue increasing the non-PAR saving mix. As we are entering, we are in the middle of the rate cut cycle. Due to the rate cuts, the product offering becomes less lucrative. How will we ensure that the product mix stays at the top of what we are expecting? Secondly, what will be the impact of margins due to the rate cuts as we may not be able to pass on that rate cut to the end customers? There has been a significant reversal in the rewards section. If you look at the commission cost, we have seen a similar trend in the last year Q4. Is there something else we have to read into that? Because the product mix in both the quarters has tilted towards the traditional products. These are my two questions. See, non-PAR product perspective, the question we're looking at is first thing that we are looking to increase the mix of the non-PAR, including protection. It is not only a non-PAR saving. It is non-PAR protection and NOTI as well. Altogether, it's clubbing a bucket, which improvement will happen on the side. This is the part. As for rate cut is concerned, as we keep mentioning that we keep doing the active pricing, both NOTI and non-PAR guiding products. Interest rate as much possible, we try to pass on to the as quickly as possible, pass on to the customer. From that perspective, rate cut will not have any adverse impact to our margin as far as non-PAR saving is concerned. Now, reflecting into rate cut will have the less attractive, slightly possible. At the same time, we have to look into other financial instruments available in the market, being the fixed deposit, other parts. You might notice the equity market is also slightly volatile. That will also help to, that will also make this non-PAR product more attractive. Most important point that I would like to mention here in non-PAR saving is as a company we are giving the non-PAR saving, people give a guarantee. Even slightly lower guarantee, but longer-term guarantee continue to be attractive. Hence, we expect that we are able to drive this product mix that we are aiming for. The second one is small follow-up on both. Sorry? Sorry. Just a small follow-up on this. What's the IRR rate at which we are operating at currently? There is some product to product. Product to product is a different type of product saving, so. Okay. Yes. Yeah. The second one, I think you were referring about the expense provision. That is generally part and parcel of our overall mix and the partners. We generally do that. By end of the year, whatever is not done, we reverse that. Okay. Thank you and all the best. Thank you. The next question is from the line of Madhukar Ladha from Nuvama Wealth Management. Please go ahead. Hi. Thank you for taking my question again. In the notes to accounts, it's also mentioned that there is a change in expense allocation methodology, which has resulted in about INR 48 crore increase in policy liability. I mean, is that sort of set off against the assumption change that you made? Can you explain what this is regarding? Second question on what you mentioned about the COVID cohort, I wanted to just know, is that any particular type of policy or any specific product because of which this is what we've been observing? Yeah. Or is it just because of that time frame? Thanks. It is also similar for all the channels, including agency as well as other banker partners and bankers. We do not have any differential experience we have seen in this particular cohort. As far as the expense allocation methodology, which we have changed, this is basically something we do once in three years to five years as far as our expense methodology assumption change based on the feedback experiences and with the guidance. That is what we have done. In fact, we have done it in the month of first quarter itself. This is just a disclosure. There is not much on this particular. It is just a change between the existing assumption to new assumption. Whatever has been changed, we have disclosed that. Actually, just to supplement on this side, we do this time-motion study things. I refine these things. You see the year in year, the time is spent and time-motion, there will be some refinement happen. We just incorporate those refinements in our expense allocation policy. As a result, there is some expenses shift happen from the different LOV. When we also look into this, each year we look into our split of expenses, both in acquisition and maintenance perspective, and really reflect in our calculation of VNB and things perspective. There is slight movement happen from the towards the non-PAR from the unit link expense from unit link to non-PAR. That's resulted in slightly increase in non-PAR unit expense in the future. That's the result. You see some increase in liability coming from in non-PAR segment. Sorry, just a follow-up. When you have an increase in policyholders' liability, that would mean that this is an adverse variance? No, no. It's not an adverse. It's a more variance of perspective. It's not because we explain that if you look at the operating profit, we see there is an expense profit coming from. If there is an expense profit coming from, there is a party balance coming from. They're not adverse. Why we say just realign to reflect the current time-motion activity and just reflect it in the unit cost, and that's why we incorporated in a very scientific way we do, and that's reflected to our increase in liability as a perspective. There is no additional provision that has been made that you might be referring to. Wonderful. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that was the last question for today's conference call. I now hand the conference over to Mr. Amit for closing comments. Thank you very much, everybody, for your time and queries. You may get in touch with our investor relations team in case you have any follow-up questions at any point of time. Thanks and regards. Thank you. On behalf of SBI Life Insurance Company Limited, that concludes this conference. Thank you for joining us, and you may now disconnect the lines. Thank you.