Life insurance industry premium inflows grew 11.5% to $12.7 billion last calendar year, according to research house Plan For Life.

Strong growth from TAL – up 21.2% on 2012 – helped it take the market lead from AMP, which could only manage 3.8% growth.

TAL’s premium income moved to $1.87 billion from $1.3 billion, while AMP recorded $1.83 billion, up from $1.6 billion.

MetLife achieved the strongest premium growth, up 101% to $493 million. Other insurers to achieve double-digit growth were AIA (17%), BT (19%) and Zurich (10.5%).

The only insurer to record a drop in premium inflows was OnePath, down 1.5%.

There are now six insurers with inflows exceeding $1 billion a year: TAL, AMP, MLC, CommInsure, AIA and OnePath.