Total premium inflows for life insurers grew by 13.4% to $9.2 billion for the 12 months ending September, according to research house Plan For Life.

This compares to $8.1 billion in the corresponding 2009 period and $6.9 billion in the 12 month ending September 2008.

The group life market reported the strongest annual premium growth in 2010, up 17.6% to $3 billion.

Tower has continued its aggressive growth with total life insurance premium inflows for the year ending September up 40.7% to $1.1 billion.

The insurer has been particularly aggressive in the group life insurance market with 392.6% annual premium sales growth for the 12 months ending September of $291 million.

Plan For Life MD Simon Solomon says the group life market is very volatile due to the continual cyclical remarketing of the business.

“Tower saw its group life sales jump dramatically year on year, while last year’s big winner AIA experienced what can probably be best described as an ‘only to be expected’ significant pullback from its record result in the previous year,” he said.

“In that year, AIA captured almost 40% of the total sales in this market – similar to Tower’s position this year.”

AMP reported 20.3% total annual premium growth to $805 million while AIA recorded 18.2% growth to $806 million.

Based on total life premium inflows, MLC remains market leader with 15.3% share followed by CommInsure with 12.5%.

CommInsure continues to suffer falling premium inflows, with a 7% drop for the 12 months ending September to $1.14 billion.