HDFC Life the top pick; SBI Life, Max Financial at 2nd spot: Haitong's Hitesh Gulati

Hitesh Gulati, director-equity research at Haitong Securities, said HDFC Life Insurance Company Limited is their top pick and it generates 20 percent return on enterprise value. SBI Life Insurance Company and Max Financial Services would be second in the pecking order. Gulati said that life insurance has traditionally been a savings-dominated sector.

Speaking in an interviews to CNBC-TV18, he said, "In the last 10-years, the embedded value profit in HDFC Life is 19-20 percent and it's our top pick in the insurance space. SBI Life and Max Financial will be close second depending on what price they are at."

"SBI Life has not done so well on growth in the last 9-10 months. But in the last 3-4 months we are seeing growth coming back. And once SBI Life gets its act together, there is no bigger distribution behemoth than them and they can kick start growth,” said Gulati.