15 March 2019
The Insurance Authority (IA) today (15 March 2019) released provisional statistics of the Hong Kong insurance industry for 2018, with total gross premiums reaching $531.7 billion, indicating an increase of 8.6% over 2017.
(Percentage changes in brackets in the following paragraphs represent changes over 2017)
Long term business
The total amount of revenue premiums of long term in-force business was $478.2 billion in 2018 (increased by 8.3%). Revenue premiums of Individual Life and Annuity (Non-Linked) business were $396.5 billion (increased by 4.0%) while those of Individual Life and Annuity (Linked) business amounted to $34.8 billion (increased by 9.9%). Contributions of Retirement Scheme business reached $41.7 billion (increased by 74.2%).
On new business, new office premiums (excluding Retirement Scheme business) of long term business were $162.2 billion (increased by 3.7%), including $144.1 billion from Individual Life and Annuity (Non-Linked) business (increased by 0.8%) and $17.4 billion from Linked business (increased by 37.0%).
New office premiums in respect of policies issued to Mainland visitors totalled $47.6 billion (decreased by 6.4%), accounting for 29.4% of the total new office premiums for individual business. Among these new policies, about 96% were medical or protective in nature, such as critical illness, medical, whole life, term life and annuity products. In terms of premium payment pattern, about 99% of the policies were paid at regular intervals, i.e. non-single premiums.
General business
In 2018, the gross and net premiums of general insurance business were $53.6 billion (increased by 11.3%) and $35.3 billion (increased by 6.6%) respectively. Overall underwriting performance turned from a loss of $792 million in 2017 to a profit of $583 million in 2018.
On direct business, gross and net premiums stood at $38.4 billion (increased by 6.5%) and $25.2 billion (decreased by 0.1%) respectively. The growth of gross premiums was mainly contributed by Accident & Health business (comprising Medical business), General Liability business (comprising Employees’ Compensation business) and Property Damage business, of which the amount were $15.8 billion (increased by 9.4%), $9.5 billion (increased by 4.7%) and $4.4 billion (increased by 7.3%) respectively. In spite of the premium growth, the underwriting profit of direct business reduced from $445 million to $267 million (decreased by 40%). Due to the impact of Typhoon Mangkhut, which affected the direct business significantly, the underwriting performance of Property Damage business turned from a profit of $209 million in 2017 to a loss of $189 million in 2018. The underwriting performance of Ships business also deteriorated due to adverse claims experience, turning from a profit of $73 million to a loss of $225 million. On the other hand, although Motor Vehicle business and Employees’ Compensation business still suffered from underwriting losses, the losses shrank from $395 million to $368 million and from $541 million to $172 million respectively.
On reinsurance inward business, gross and net premiums reached $15.2 billion (increased by 25.4%) and $10 billion (increased by 28.3%) respectively. The major contributors of the growth were General Liability business, Property Damage business and Ships business. Gross and net premiums of General Liability business increased from $1.6 billion to $3.6 billion (increased by 127.4%) and from $1 billion to $3 billion (increased by 196.7%) respectively. The underwriting performance also turned from a loss of $1.2 billion, attributable mainly to Typhoon Hato related claims in 2017, to a profit of $317 million in 2018.
A summary of provisional statistics of the Hong Kong insurance business for 2018 is in the annex . Further details are available at the IA website ( www.ia.org.hk ).
Ends