Hong Kong insurance business statistics 2016

3 October 2017

The Insurance Authority (IA) released today (3 October 2017) the Hong Kong insurance business statistics for 2016 with reference to the audited returns and actuarial information submitted by insurers.

In 2016, the total gross premiums of the Hong Kong insurance industry increased by 20.7% to $451.7 billion.

Long term business

The office premiums of new Individual Life business increased by 39.8% to $179.1 billion in 2016 when compared with 2015. New office premiums for Individual Life (Non-Linked) business increased by 47.2% to $173.4 billion, while Individual Life (Linked) business dropped by 44.6% to $5.7 billion in terms of new office premiums. The total number of new policies increased by 8.5% to 1,267,560 in 2016.

For in-force business, the total office premiums increased by 23.8% from $328.1 billion in 2015 to $406.2 billion in 2016. The Individual Life category remained the dominant line of business, making up $384.6 billion or 94.7% of the total business. The number of policies in 2016 stood at 12 million, carrying net liabilities of $1,531.8 billion. Yearly contributions for Retirement Scheme contracts administered by insurers increased by 9.9% to $8.5 billion. There were 61,192 Retirement Scheme contracts carrying net liabilities of $112.7 billion. The in-force office premiums of Group Life business increased by 2% to $3.3 billion, carrying net liabilities of $1.1 billion. The in-force office premiums of Annuity and Other businesses (comprising mainly Permanent Health business) rose by 23.8% to $9.8 billion.

General business

In 2016, the general insurance business recorded a decrease in gross and net premiums by 1% and 1.9%, to $45.5 billion and $31.5 billion respectively compared with 2015. The overall retention ratio decreased from 69.8% to 69.2%.

The gross premiums of the Accident & Health business rose by 2.7% from $13.6 billion in 2015 to $14 billion in 2016 while the gross premiums of Motor Vehicle business increased by 3.6% from $5.3 billion in 2015 to $5.5 billion in 2016. However, such increase was offset by the fall in gross premiums of the Property Damage business and the General Liability business. The gross premiums of the former decreased by 4.6% from $8.7 billion in 2015 to $8.3 billion in 2016 and the latter by 1.6% from $11.1 billion in 2015 to $10.9 billion in 2016 respectively.

The overall underwriting profit of general insurance business increased from $1.2 billion in 2015 to $1.8 billion in 2016, mainly due to improved claims experience. The net claims incurred ratio decreased from 62.2% in 2015 to 58.6% in 2016.

The Property Damage business recorded an underwriting profit of $900 million and continued to be the largest contributor in 2016. This was followed by the Accident & Health business and the Goods in Transit business with an underwriting profit of $270 million and $255 million respectively. As regards the two major classes of compulsory insurance business, the underwriting loss of both the direct Motor Vehicle business and the Employees’ Compensation business widened from $152 million to $199 million and from $412 million to $431 million respectively.

A summary of the statistics can be found in the annex. Detailed statistics of industry aggregates and individual insurers in 2016 are available on the IA website (www.ia.org.hk).

Ends