Total assets held by South Korea's private insurers surpassed the 1,000 trillion won ($926 billion) mark in 2016, 94 years after the first firm started operations, industry data showed Monday.
The 2016 insurance statistical yearbook released by Korea Insurance Development Institute, showed combined assets held by local insurance agencies reached 1,034.1 trillion won. The total includes 782.1 trillion won controlled by life insurers and over 252 trillion won in assets owned by non-life insurance companies.
(Yonhap)
The total represents a two-fold increase from six years earlier. Total assets held by insurers in 2010 reached some 500 trillion won.
After the first commercial insurer was launched in October 1922, asset size has increased steadily, hitting the 100 trillion won milestone in 1997, 200 trillion won in 2003 and 400 trillion won in 2008.
By sectors, non-life insurance outpaced life insurance sectors in terms of growth in the last 10 years, with big companies making up a large percentage of the industry.
Samsung Life Insurance accounted for 30.9 percent of all assets in the life insurance business with assets tallied at 241.9 trillion won, followed by Hanwha Life Insurance and Kyobo Life Insurance Co.
The top three accounted for 56.1 percent of assets held by the 25 life insurers in the country.
In the non-life insurance sector, Samsung Fire and Marine Insurance led the pack with assets valued at 67.8 trillion won.
Hyundai Marine and Fire Insurance and Dongbu Insurance Co. and KB Insurance Co. rounded up the top four that accounted for 66.7 percent of total assets in this sector.
Despite the increase in size, the long period of low interest rates caused profitability to drop to a record low of 3.8 percent last year, down sharply from 10 percent range reported in the 1990s and 8.9 percent in 2000.
The rise in South Korea's key rates, meanwhile, may help improve earnings for insurers going forward, market watchers said. (Yonhap)
