Financial Supervisory Service (Yonhap)
The combined net profit of insurance firms in South Korea rose 13.9 percent on-year in 2020, due partly to fewer car accidents as people stayed home amid the coronavirus pandemic, data showed Wednesday.
Life and non-life insurers saw their combined net profit increase by 742 billion won ($654 million) to 6.08 trillion won last year, according to data from the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS).
The FSS said profits of non-life insurers went up because of fewer claims as losses in car insurance products narrowed amid the pandemic.
"In particular, loss ratios for auto insurance and long-term insurance came to improve as the number of car accidents and hospital treatment cases decreased due to COVID-19," the FSS said in a statement,
For life insurance firms, insurance income expanded as guarantee reserves shrank and savings-type insurance sales increased compared with a year ago, it said.
Last year, insurance firms' premium income stood at 221.9 trillion won, up 4.3 percent from a year ago, the FSS said. (Yonhap)