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The Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) today (September 30) released the Hong Kong insurance business statistics for 2009 with reference to the audited returns and actuarial information submitted by insurers.
In 2009, total gross premiums of the Hong Kong insurance industry decreased by 2.1% to HK$184.6 billion, representing about 11.3% of Hong Kong's Gross Domestic Product, which was on a par with that in 2008.
General insurance business recorded an increase of gross and net premiums by 6.9% to $28.6 billion and 9.1% to $20.5 billion respectively in 2009 when compared with 2008. Overall retention ratio increased slightly from 70.5% to 71.9%.
The business growth in 2009 was largely led by General Liability business, of which the gross premiums surged by 16.4% to $7.1 billion attributable to the robust expansion of construction-related Employees' Compensation business brought about by the MTR West Island Line and Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong Express Rail Link (Hong Kong Section) construction projects. Accident and Health business (comprising Medical business) also recorded an increase in gross premiums from $7.2 billion in 2008 to $7.7 billion in 2009. For other major classes of business, gross premiums for Pecuniary Loss business (comprising Mortgage Guarantee business) rose by 8.9% to $2.2 billion while that for Property Damage business and Motor Vehicle business stood at $5.7 billion and $2.8 billion respectively, comparable with the level in 2008.
The overall underwriting performance of general insurance business showed a significant increase in profit from $1.3 billion in 2008 to $2.4 billion in 2009, mainly attributable to premium growth and favourable claims experience. Net claims incurred ratio dropped from 57.1% for 2008 to 52.8% for 2009.
Property Damage business posted an underwriting profit of $779 million in 2009 and became the largest contributor while Accident and Health business continued to register strong profit which rose from $515 million in 2008 to $567 million in 2009. As regards the two major classes of compulsory insurance business, the underwriting loss for direct Employees' Compensation business and Motor Vehicle business significantly contracted from $489 million to $125 million and from $292 million to $56 million respectively due to better claims experience. The improvement for Motor Vehicle business was partly due to the exclusion of the claims incurred figures of a local insurer placed in liquidation.
For long term insurance business, office premiums of new Individual Life business lost 24.0% to $45.2 billion in 2009, mainly caused by a decline of Individual Life (Linked) business which plunged by 58.5% to $14.8 billion. On the other hand, new office premiums for Individual Life (Non-Linked) business increased by 27.9% to $30.4 billion. The corresponding total number of new policies decreased by 4.8% to 960,026 in 2009.
In respect of in-force long term business, total office premiums dropped 3.6% from $161.9 billion in 2008 to $156.1 billion in 2009. Individual Life remained the dominant line of business, taking up $136.2 billion or 87.3% of the total business. The corresponding number of polices stood at 8.6 million, carrying net liabilities of $624.0 billion.
Yearly contributions for Retirement Scheme contracts administered by insurers decreased 1.2% to $15.6 billion. By the end of 2009, there were 61,382 Retirement Scheme contracts carrying net liabilities of $151.6 billion.
In-force office premiums of Group Life business rose slightly by 0.4% to $1.4 billion, whereas the number of policies decreased by 1.7% to 16,078 and net liabilities increased by 4.5% to $610 million.
In-force office premiums of Annuity and other businesses (comprising mainly Permanent Health business) grew by 18.4% to $2.8 billion, accounting for 1.8% of the total in respect of long term insurance business.
The detailed statistics, including industry aggregates and those of individual insurers, are available from the website of OCI at www.oci.gov.hk.
Ends/Thursday, September 30, 2010
Issued at HKT 15:02
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