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Investing.com - JPMorgan has lowered its price target on Life Insurance (NSE:LIFI) Corporation (LICI:IN) to INR1,071.00 from INR1,115.00 while maintaining an Overweight rating on the stock.
The adjustment follows LIC’s first-quarter 2026 results, which exceeded expectations with value of new business (VNB) growing 21% year-over-year to Rs.19.4 billion, beating JPMorgan’s estimate by 6%. The outperformance was primarily driven by VNB margin improvement to 15.4%, up 1.5 percentage points year-over-year, compared to JPMorgan’s estimate of 14.4%.
The margin improvement resulted from product mix enhancements toward non-participating products and positive operating assumption changes. Unit-linked products showed the strongest growth in the quarter, increasing 115% year-over-year and representing 7% of the product mix.
JPMorgan projects LIC can achieve 22% year-over-year VNB growth for the full fiscal year, outpacing the 12-17% growth expected for private life insurers. The firm anticipates a slight margin decline for LIC in fiscal year 2026 due to higher unit-linked insurance plan portions and a lower risk-free rate.
The stock currently trades at 0.6 times fiscal year 2027 estimated price-to-embedded value, compared to 1.3-2.4 times for peers, which JPMorgan considers an attractive valuation.
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