Singapore’s life insurance industry garnered $2.68 billion in weighted new business premiums for the first six months of this year, surpassing the same period in 2019 before the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n
New sales for the first half of this year surged 61 per cent from $1.66 billion in the year-ago period, which felt the impact of Singapore’s circuit breaker measures. But new sales were also higher than the $1.91 billion recorded in the first half of 2019.<\/p>\n
Mr Khor Hock Seng, president of Life Insurance Association Singapore (LIA), said that the strength of the life insurance business in the first half of this year reflects a level of stabilisation in Singapore’s economy from the immediate impact of Covid-19 last year.<\/p>\n
“The growth in uptake of life insurance also seems to show that more people are placing greater importance on providing for their long-term financial and healthcare needs in the midst of an evolving pandemic environment,” he added.<\/p>\n
Singapore’s economy, which shrank 5.4 per cent last year, is now expected to grow by 6 per cent to 7 per cent this year.<\/p>\n
Weighted new business premiums measures premiums collected on new policies by taking into account 10 per cent of the value of single premium products, all of a year’s premiums for annual premium products and adjusted value for products with premium payment durations of less than 10 years.<\/p>\n
Single-premium products recorded a 106 per cent annual increase in sales, generating $1.28 billion in weighted premiums, LIA said yesterday in its report on the industry’s first half performance.<\/p>\n
Annual premium products also saw significant uptake, with sales rising 35 per cent from the same period last year. This amounted to $1.4 billion in weighted annual premiums.<\/p>\n
LIA said that single-premium par and non-par products comprised 84 per cent of all single-premium purchases, while single-premium linked products made up the remaining 16 per cent.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, 8 per cent of the overall single-premium policy sales came from Central Provident Fund Investment Scheme-included products, with cash-funded products accounting for the remaining 92 per cent.<\/p>\n
New policies bought online grew to 203,351 in the first half of this year, compared with just 32,952 in the same period a year before.<\/p>\n
As at June 30, 43,000 more Singaporeans and permanent residents were covered by Integrated Shield Plans (IPs) and riders which provide coverage on top of MediShield Life.<\/p>\n
A total of 2.85 million lives – or about 70 per cent of Singapore residents – are now protected by IPs and riders.<\/p>\n
Total new business premiums for individual health insurance for the first half of this year amounted to $176.8 million, with IPs and IP rider premiums accounting for 82 per cent and other medical plans and riders making up the remaining 18 per cent.<\/p>\n
A total of 22,137 retirement policies were purchased in the first six months of the year, up 34 per cent from the first half of last year.<\/p>\n
Employment in the life industry dipped slightly compared with the corresponding period last year, taking the Singapore life insurance industry’s workforce to 8,589 employees as at June 30.<\/p>\n
In the same period, 14,893 representatives held exclusive contracts with companies that operate a tied agency force.<\/p>\n
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