Hong Kong premiums dips 1.1% in first nine months

Policies bought by Mainland visitors also decreased due to travel restrictions.

Hong Kong’s total gross premiums dipped by 1.1% to $58.4b (HK$455.9b) in the first nine months of 2021, according to statistics released by the Insurance Authority.

For long-term business, total revenue premiums of in-force long term business were HK$407.1b in the first three quarters of 2021, decreased by 1.3%. Individual life and annuity (non-linked) business decreased by 4% whilst individual life and annuity (linked) business increased by 62.1%. Meanwhile the retirement scheme business decreased by 8.9%.

On the other hand, total new office premiums (excluding retirement scheme business) of long term business increased by 24% to HK$122.5b. Individual life and annuity (non-linked) business increased by 10.7% and linked business increased by a whopping 179.6%.

“This positive outturn should nonetheless be viewed against a low base of comparison in 2020. During the first three quarters of 2021, some 39,000 Qualifying Deferred Annuity Policies were issued that attracted HK$2.9b in terms of premiums, representing 2.4% of the total for individual businesses,” HKIA said.

However, new business derived from Mainland visitors shrank by a whopping 92.7% from HK$6.5b in the first nine months of 2020 to HK$470m in the same period in 2021, representing 0.4% of the total individual businesses. About 96% of the policies taken out by this group of customers were settled at regular intervals (i.e. non-single premium). Critical illness, whole life and medical insurance accounted for 38%, 31% and 21% of the policies respectively.

Meanwhile, In the first three quarters of 2021, the gross and net premiums of general insurance business were up by 0.6% to HK$48.8b and 0.2% to HK$32.8b respectively. The overall underwriting profit reduced from HK$1.4b to HK$1.2b