Tarun Chugh, CEO of Bajaj Life Insurance, leads as India’s top-paid life insurer executive in FY26 amid increasing regulatory scrutiny and a sector-wide shift towards performance metrics emphasising customer experience and service quality.
Tarun Chugh remained the best-paid chief executive among India’s listed life insurers in FY26, receiving ₹33.66 crore from Bajaj Life Insurance, according to disclosures reported by Business Standard. The figure was up 4% from ₹32.35 crore a year earlier and reflected a year in which the insurer’s premium income climbed 21.1% to ₹32,896.9 crore.
The package combined ₹8.37 crore in fixed pay with ₹21.50 crore in variable compensation, split between ₹3.79 crore in cash and ₹17.96 crore in non-cash rewards, alongside employee stock options. For accounting purposes, the company booked ₹4 crore to the revenue account and ₹22.79 crore to profit and loss, producing a total charge of ₹26.79 crore. Bajaj Life, meanwhile, said separately that it declared a record bonus of ₹1,939 crore for participating policyholders in FY26, benefiting more than 11.89 lakh customers.
Chugh, who has led Bajaj Life since 2017, is now one of the longest-serving chief executives in the sector. His pay gap with peers was wide. Kamlesh Rao of Aditya Birla Sun Life Insurance was next at ₹10.45 crore, while Anuj Mathur of Canara HSBC Life Insurance received ₹10.32 crore and Anup Bagchi of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance got ₹10.04 crore. HDFC Life’s Vibha Padalkar was paid ₹9.47 crore, while SBI Life’s Amit Jhingran received ₹1.96 crore.
The disclosures come as India’s insurance regulator tightens its scrutiny of executive compensation. According to recent changes by the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India, performance assessments for key management personnel from FY27 will place more weight on customer experience, claims servicing and grievance redress, in addition to traditional financial targets. Industry specialists say that is likely to push a larger share of pay towards service quality and compliance rather than pure profit-linked metrics.
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