Insurance premiums climbed 13% to $255.2 billion

Check out insurance industry's winners and losers.

According to a report, Hong Kong insurance industry total gross premiums rose 13% year-on-year in 2012, to $255.2 billion.

The total amount of long-term in-force revenue premiums grew 13% to $215.9 billion.

Individual life and annuity (non-linked) business revenue premiums rose 16.1% to $146.4 billion, while individual life and annuity (linked) business revenue premiums rose 2.8% to $49.9 billion. Retirement scheme business contributions grew 21.4% to $16.7 billion.

New office premiums of long-term business, excluding Retirement Scheme business, rose 10.4% to $77.8 billion. In terms of new office premiums, Individual Life and Annuity (Non-Linked) business grew 22.1% to $60.3 billion while that of Individual Life and Annuity (Linked) business dropped 17.7% to $17.1 billion.

New office premiums of policies issued to Mainland visitors amounted to $9.9 billion, representing 12.8% of the total new office premiums for individual business in the year.

Compare with 2011, the general insurance business gross and net premiums in 2012 grew 13.2% to $39.3 billion and 13.5% to $27 billion. Overall underwriting profit fell to $2.2 billion.

On direct business, gross and net premiums rose 13.1% to $29 billion and 13.6% to $21.4 billion, mainly driven by general liability business, which had gross and net premiums of $8.2 billion and $6.1 billion.

Direct business underwriting profit fell to $1.6 billion in 2012. Pecuniary loss business underwriting profit fell to $408 million, and general liability business underwriting performance turned to a loss of $132 million.

On reinsurance inward business, gross and net premiums increased to $10.3 billion and $5.7 billion in 2012 , while the underwriting profit dropped to $590 million mainly due to adverse claims experience.