Hong Kong’s Insurance Authority has released its provisional statistics for 2018, reporting HK$531.7bn (£51bn, $67.7bn, €59.6bn) in total gross premiums across long-term and general business.
That indicates an overall increase of 8.6% compared with 2017.
Total revenue premiums for long-term business were HK$478.2bn, up by 8.3% from the previous year.
That is broken down between individual life annuity (non-linked) business (HK$396.5bn – up 4%); individual life and annuity (linked) business (HK$34.8bn – up 9.9%); and contributions from retirement schemes (HK$41.7bn – up 74.2%).
Linked insurance plans differ from non-linked because they offer policyholders the ability to direct part of their premiums into equity-based funds.
New office premiums (excluding the retirement scheme business) of long-term business hit HK$162.2bn, up 3.7% from the previous year.
However, new office premiums for policies issued to mainland visitors amounted to HK$47.6bn, a 6.4% drop compared with 2017.