The 22-member life insurance company league collected nearly Rs 5,053 crore as first year premium in May, a 40 percent growth over Rs 3,602 crore garnered in April with growth coming from products aimed at individuals - both single premium as well as non-single premium.

Contribution from individuals rose to Rs 3,600 crore in May (Rs 2,135 crore in April) while the same from group segment remained flat at Rs 1,452 crore (Rs 1,466 crore in April). Industry experts indicate that individuals have resumed interest in market-linked products with the stock market showing signs of recovery.

Private players witnessed 22 percent growth at Rs 1,811 crore even as contribution from group business fell. LIC achieved 53 percent rise in first year premium at Rs 3,242 crore in May on the back of 80 percent growth in individual business, as per latest Irda data.

Among major private players who saw big growth in premium collections, ICICI Prudential Life managed to collect nearly Rs 350 crore (up 156 percent over April), MetLife garnered Rs 50.17 crore (up 98 percent), Birla Sun Life accumulated Rs 160 crore (up 92 percent) and Kotak Mahindra Old Mutual gathered Rs 49.06 crore (up 68 percent).

"Private sector growth in individual non-single sales came in at 28 percent in May. Although the headline looks bad, we note that there was a base effect in play, as 1H 09 had seen a fairly rapid growth rate. Adjusting for the base, our analysis indicates that the deceleration in growth rates seen from 2H FY09 until March 2009 has been arrested," Srikanth Vadlamani of Nomura said.

Others like Aviva, Tata AIG, HDFC Standard and Reliance Life found 30-40 percent growth in their premium collections. Lower contributions from individuals for Max New York and a hefty cut in group business collections for SBI Life led to 9-30 percent lower first year premium collections than April, data shows.

Most of the new entrants such as Aegon Religare (153 percent), Future Generali Life (67 percent), IDBI Fortis Life (38 percent), Bharti Axa Life (31 percent), DLF Pramerica (11 percent), Star Union Dai-ichi (8 percent) did well in May. Only Canara HSBC OBC Life saw premium collections drop 34 percent to Rs 30.3 crore.