The Hong Kong insurance industry recorded total gross premiums of HK$148.8 billion (US$19 billion) in the first quarter of 2019, an increase of 12.3% y-o-y, according to the Insurance Authority's provisional statistics.
The total amount of revenue premiums of long term in-force business was $132.2 billion in the first quarter of 2019 (increased by 13%). Revenue premiums of Individual Life and Annuity (Non-Linked) business were $115.9 billion (increased by 16.2%) while those of Individual Life and Annuity (Linked) business amounted to $6.6 billion (decreased by 21.7%). Contributions of Retirement Scheme business reached $8.1 billion (increased by 11.3%).
The gross and net premiums of general insurance business recorded in the first quarter of 2019 were $16.6 billion (increased by 7%) and $11.4 billion (increased by 7.7%) respectively. Overall underwriting performance turned from a loss of $166 million in the first quarter of 2018 to a profit of $44 million in the first quarter of 2019.
Personal insurance business from Mainland Chinese grows
Mainland Chinese accounted for new premiums of $12.77 billion for life and medical insurance plans in Hong Kong in the first quarter of this year, reflecting a rise of 7.9% from a year earlier.
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Mainland visitors accounted for 26.4% of the total new office premiums for total individual business in the territory. Of the new business premiums collected from mainland Chinese, about 74% or $9.4 billion were medical or protection plans, such as critical illness, medical, whole life, term life and annuity products. The remaining 26% were related to saving plans or investment-linked policies.
The 1Q2019 growth in new business premiums from mainland Chinese represented a turnaround in business from the first quarter of 2018 when new business sales to mainland Chinese in Hong Kong plunged by 37.1% to $18.8 billion.
Indeed, business related to mainland Chinese declined in the previous two years, as the Chinese government cracked down on capital outflows. New business premiums attributed to mainland Chinese declined by 6% to HK$47.6 billion in 2018, and by 30% to HK$50.8 billion in 2017 from a peak of HK$72.7 billion in 2016.
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