Life insurers trim advertising spend by 20% in FY26 amid cost pressures | Insurance News
The advertising and publicity expenses of life insurance companies declined in 2025-26 (FY26) compared to FY25, owing to a drop in these expenses of private life insurers.
According to experts, private life insurers cut their expenses post the goods & services tax (GST) relaxation in individual term insurance.
This led to growth in the segment during the second half of FY26 and restructuring following the loss in input tax credit.
According to data analysed from the public disclosure of life insurers, advertisement and publicity expenses dropped by 19.16 per cent to ₹3211.6 crore in FY26 from ₹3972.66 crore in FY25.
Of this, private life insurers’ expenses dropped to ₹2528.18 crore in FY26 against ₹3420.88 crore in FY25.
State-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India’s (LIC’s) expenses went up to ₹683 crore from ₹551.8 crore.
Leading private insurance players like HDFC Life has reduced advertising expenses to nearly ₹498 crore in FY26 from ₹1,042 crore in FY25. Also, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance’s expenses dropped to ₹252.5 crore from ₹520 crore.
SBI Life Insurance’s advertisement and publicity expenses rose to ₹238 crore from ₹196.6 crore last year.
Axis Max Life Insurance’s expenses declined to ₹502.4 crore from ₹551.8 crore and Bajaj Life Insurance slipped to ₹322.4 crore from ₹392.6 crore.
First Published: Jul 12 2026 | 5:30 PM IST
