Hong Kong life insurance sales in the first nine months of 2024 set a record mainly driven by local customers. According to Insurance Authority (IA) Hong Kong new life insurance sales in the January -September 2024 period were HKD169.7bn ($21.8bn), the highest since the authority was set up in 2016.
Life insurance sales soared 15.7% to a record in Hong Kong last year as compared to the same period in 2023. IA data reveals that there was also increased demand from non-local customers such as from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, and mainland China.
According to the IA, mainland customers snapped up Hong Kong’s coverage as hedges against the yuan’s depreciating value against the US dollar, helping to spur the city’s sales to the highest level since the IA’s establishment in 2016.
IA executive director of long-term business Marty Lui said, “People from around the world, including Indonesia, the Philippines and Singapore, are buying life policies in Hong Kong. An increasing number of Middle East visitors are buying policies in Hong Kong.”
He said the authority will collect more data on the buying habits and policy types of these visitors to help formulate measures to promote sales, as well as for protecting their interests.
“If data shows more Middle East visitors buying, we will need to issue educational material in Arabic to raise awareness among customers and protect them,” said Mr Lui. He said the IA will propose measures to prevent insurers from overstating the potential dividend payouts from their policies and review the commission shared with sales agents.
Sales to mainland visitors dipped by 0.4% to HKD46.6bn during the nine-month period, compared with a year earlier. Mainland insurance buyers made up 27.6% of the total life and medical sales during the period.
HSBC Life CEO Hong Kong and Macau Daisy Tsang said, “Over the past nine months, customers from 50 different markets bought policies from us, underscoring their trust in our international brand, credit rating and quality products.”
Mainland visitors who buy Hong Kong insurance papers will be reclassified as “travellers” this year to distinguish them from buyers who are also recent immigrants from the mainland, Lui said. The reporting frequency will be changed to half-yearly reports from the current quarterly submission, he said.