Hanwha Life Insurance Reports H1 Net Profit of 175.8 Billion KRW, Up 88.2% YoY

[Asia Economy Reporter Oh Hyung-gil] Hanwha Life announced on the 13th that its net profit for the first half of the year increased by 88.2% compared to the same period last year, reaching 175.8 billion KRW.

Sales amounted to 9.0935 trillion KRW, up 10.7% from last year, and operating profit turned positive at 143.5 billion KRW.

Hanwha Life explained that despite the interest rate cuts and the sharp volatility in the stock market caused by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic since the beginning of the year, it maintained a solid level of operations.

Premium income recorded 7.1378 trillion KRW, an increase of 14.5% compared to the same period last year. This is analyzed to be due to the expansion of the corporate insurance market, including retirement pensions, which boosted premium income.

General account premium income grew 6.8% year-on-year to 5.046 trillion KRW, driven by the expansion of protection-type insurance sales. The protection-type ratio maintained a solid level of 59%, supported by strong sales of competitive protection products such as Special Integrated Whole Life Insurance and Special Cancer Insurance.

In particular, the protection-type sales ratio in the Financial Planner (FP) channel and the General Agency (GA) channel recorded 93% and 81%, respectively.

Furthermore, non-operating profit improved due to increased loss on insurance contracts and increased new contract sales from the expansion of protection-type insurance sales, as well as improved persistency rates. Variable annuity guarantee reserve reversals due to stock index rebounds and bond replacement trades in both short and long term also increased investment income.

The Risk-Based Capital (RBC) ratio reached 261%, an increase of 39.7 percentage points compared to the same period last year, due to increased valuation gains on available-for-sale securities caused by the decline in market interest rates.

A Hanwha Life official stated, "We expect an unfavorable business environment for life insurers to continue due to increased internal and external volatility caused by COVID-19, as well as low birth rates and low interest rates. We plan to actively respond to fluctuations in investment income by generating core insurance profits through sales focused on protection-type products with competitive offerings, managing duration to reduce interest rate sensitivity, and discovering stable alternative investments."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.