Hanwha Life Insurance, Hanshin Rating Credit Rating Upgraded to 'AAA'

Upgraded from AA (Positive) to AAA (Stable)

Hanwha Life announced on the 13th that it has received the highest rating of 'AAA' (Stable) in the insurance payment capability evaluation by Korea Credit Rating (KCR).

Korea Credit Rating upgraded Hanwha Life's insurance payment capability credit rating from the previous 'AA' (Positive) to 'AAA' (Stable) the day before. Following the upgrade of the rating outlook in June last year, the credit rating was elevated to the highest domestic level within about nine months.

Hanwha Life 63 Building. Provided by Hanwha Life

KCR cited the main factors for Hanwha Life's rating upgrade as ▲strengthening market dominance through expanded competitiveness in sales channels within the corporate agency (GA) market ▲securing stable profit generation in the insurance sector due to the inflow of high-quality new contracts ▲and stable capital ratio management despite regulatory tightening.

KCR stated, “Hanwha Life maintains the largest scale in the GA industry by ensuring channel stability centered on Hanwha Life Financial Services and expanding market dominance through additional acquisitions of top-tier GAs. Through this, new contracts focused on protection-type insurance continue to flow in, achieving over 2 trillion KRW in new contract insurance contract margin (CSM) last year, demonstrating stable profit generation.”

They added, “Although the industry's solvency ratio (K-ICS) declined last year due to regulatory strengthening, Hanwha Life proactively applied conservative assumptions, so the impact was minimal. Considering the annual CSM scale and capital management strategies such as reinsurance utilization plans, it is expected that K-ICS can be maintained stably.”

The upgrade of Hanwha Life's rating is also expected to have a positive impact on the demand forecast for the new hybrid capital securities scheduled to be issued this month. A Hanwha Life official said, “Despite the difficult domestic and international economic environment, we have been recognized for the industry's highest level of financial soundness and profitability. We hope that this rating upgrade will further strengthen the trust of policyholders and domestic and foreign investors.”

Meanwhile, Hanwha Life received rating outlook upgrades from all domestic and international credit rating agencies last year, including the three major domestic rating agencies (Korea Credit Rating, Korea Ratings, NICE Investors Service), as well as S&P (March), Moody's (June), and Fitch (September).

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