INSURANCE RANKINGS: HONG KONG
Health and wellness will continue to be a trending focus in Hong Kong’s insurance industry
Time for a comeback? Hong Kong’s top 50 insurers show a 9.75% surge in assets Health and wellness products still remain a priority for the industry.
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ith the skies clearing, Hong Kong consumers will still make sure they have an umbrella handy—something Hong Kong insurers took note of as they ready health and wellness products for 2022. Insurance Asia’s 2022 Insurance Rankings has revealed that the industry’s top 50 insurers total assets surged by 9.75% to HK$709b in 2020 from HK$646b. AIA International continued to retain its number one spot in the rankings despite its total assets declining to HK$126b in 2020 from HK$141b in 2019. This was also the case for Prudential (HK) Life. With its total assets dropping from HK$111b to HK$92b, it still managed to retain the second spot in 2021’s rankings. China Life took the third spot with HK$67b in assets with Manulife following close behind at fourth with HK$63b. Completing the top five is HSBC Life at $54b. Going by the numbers More Hong Kongers are starting to act upon their future, instead of just
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More Hong Kongers are starting to act upon their future, instead of just worrying about it
worrying about it. This has been evident in Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority’s (IA) annual report with the Individual Life business remaining to be the dominant line in the business, making up HK$458.5b or around 87.9% of total long-term business. The report also saw a modest rise in total office premiums for in-force long-term business by 2% to HK$521.4b in 2020. What probably slowed down the long-term business is the 20.9% decrease in office premiums for new individual life business to HK$119.6b in 2020, including HK$106.8b from Individual Life (NonLinked) business and HK$12.7b from Linked business, which recorded a decrease of 23.4% and an increase of 8.8%, respectively. The total number of new policies decreased by 20.8% to 1 million in 2020. Office premiums for the new Individual Annuity business decreased by 36.3% to HK$13.3b. Meanwhile, the general insurance market performed admirably despite the considerable challenges in the past two years. Total gross written premiums recorded a growth rate
of 8% to HK$59.8b in 2020. Overall underwriting profit hit HK$2.3b, a major increase from HK$869m back in 2019. The IA said that the biggest contributor to the general insurance market’s growth was property damage, general liability, and pecuniary loss business. Rate increase and new business continued to fuel property damage and general liability business which both showed double-digit growth of 17.6% and 10.4% each. Upward adjustment of the maximum property values for the Mortgage Insurance Programme propelled forward mortgage insurance business, driving an upsurge of 57% in the Pecuniary Loss business. The pandemic, however, took its toll on direct sales of medical and travel insurance and had dampened the accident and health business, which saw a decline of 3.5% in 2022. Health and wellness Despite challenges in sales of medical insurance, however, HSBC Life Hong Kong CEO Edward Moncreiffe said that health and wellness will
