Life insurance companies in India

The first Indian Insurance Company was formed in December 1870 In India. To commemorate this Government of India had issued a Postal Stamp with insurance centenary footnote in December 1970. Life insurance business was nationalized in India through a Presidential Ordinance on 19^th January 1956. From the year 1956 to 1999 life insurance business in India was under the government. The life insurance business in India was carried on by the Postal Department of the Government of India (Postal Life Insurance)    and the Life Insurance Corporation of India, a statutory corporation established under Section 3 of the LIC Act, 1956- an Act of Parliament.

Under Section 30 of the LIC Act, 1956 LIC enjoyed “the exclusive privilege of carrying on life insurance business in India”. By inserting Section 30A in LIC Act (through the IRDA Act 1999) the government saw to it that this “exclusive privilege ceases” when the IRDA Act 1999 becomes operational. Since then private sector life insurance companies too operate in the Indian economy. There are more than twenty such companies now who are known as ‘Indian Insurance Companies’.