Hong Kong life insurers' 2020 revenue premiums jump to $70.6b

But new office premiums shrank 22.8%.

Hong Kong life or long-term insurers saw their total revenue premiums jump 4.5% to $70.6b (HK$$548.1b) in 2020, according to the city’s Insurance Authority (IA).

Non-linked individual life and annuity business comprised $59.7b (HK$$463.9b) which increased by 1.5%, followed by linked life and annuity business at $3.5b (HK$$27.7b), as well as $6.5b (HK$$50.7b) from the retirement scheme business.

On the other hand, new office premiums, excluding retirement scheme business, plunged 22.8% to $17.1b (HK$133.4b), made up of $15.4b (HK$$120.2b) from non-linked individual life and annuity business and $1.6b (HK$$12.8b) from linked business.

Last year, some 64,000 Qualifying Deferred Annuity Policies (QDAP) were issued that netted an inflow of $579.8m (HK$4.5b) in terms of new office premiums, representing 3.4% of the total for individual businesses.

Continued restrictions on cross-boundary passenger traffic caused new office premiums attributable to Mainland visitors to nosedive 84.3% to $876m (HK$6.8b), representing 5.1% of the total for individual businesses. About 98% of policies taken out by Mainland customers were settled at regular intervals (i.e. non-single premiums), with critical illness, whole life and medical insurance accounting for 48%, 36% and 8% of the policies, respectively.