Taiwan: Life insurance premiums continue to contract in 2021 – Asia Insurance Review
Taiwan’s overall life insurance premium volume continued to decline last year, according to statistics from the Life Insurance Association.
The reason for this is that in addition to continuing to be affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and related prevention measures, life insurance business was affected by low interest rates.
The statistics show that the total premium income of the life insurance industry reached NT$2,648.5bn (95.3bn), a year-on-year decrease of 12.5%. While first-year premiums declined at a slower pace of 6.7% to NT$731.5bn, renewal premiums plunged by 14.5% to NT$1,92bn compared to 2020.
The statistics also showed that traditional life insurance business performed less well than investment-related life insurance products.
A summary of the life insurance sector’s premium income last year is as follows:
Type
2021
Premium
NT$m
2020
Premiums
NT$m
2021/2020
Change %
2020/2019
Change %
First-year
Traditional
470,586
576,590
-18.4
-32.9
Investment related
260,940
207,122
26.0
-13.7
Subtotal
731,525
783,712
-6.7
-28.7
Renewal
Traditional
1,838,234
2,162,242
-15.0
+2.7
Investment related
78,724
79,411
-0.9
-1.2
Subtotal
1,916,958
2,241.653
-14.5
+2.5
Total
Traditional
2,308,820
2,738,832
-15.7
-7.6
Investment related
339,664
286,533
18.5
-10.5
Total
2,648,484
3,285,461
-12.5
-7.9
Source: Life Insurance Association, Taiwan
The first-year premium income from investment-related life insurance products contributed 35.7% of total first-year premiums in 2021, compared to 26.4% in 2020.
The improved performance of investment-related life insurance products last year is attributed to a stronger New Taiwan dollar against the US dollar and the bullish capital market in the first half of the year.
Profits
Separately, statistics released by the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC), the life insurance sector in Taiwan reported an 88.5% surge in pre-tax profits to NT$388.5bn in 2021 compared to 2020.
