Sovereign continues to dominate life market

Latest market share figures from the ISI show how life companies are doing in the term life and income protection markets.

Thursday, November 30th 2006, 6:30AM
Statistics released by the Investment Savings and Insurance Association (ISI) indicated that total premiums paid to life insurance companies grew by 7.9%, to $1.287 billion, for the year ended 30 September 2006.

“Premiums on the most popular products (term life insurance and income protection policies) grew by 10.9% over the year to $1.06 billion,” ISI chief executive Vance Arkinstall says.

“Much of this strong growth results from cover for increased mortgages, the need for increased cover to protect the family, and rapidly growing awareness of the need to insure against being unable to work,” Arkinstall says.

“Typically, New Zealanders prefer to use life insurance for risk cover, ie death, disability and protection against inability to work. The trend for the past decade has been for unit trusts and superannuation to be the savings vehicles of choice due to transparency, flexibility and wide fund choice and investment performance,” Arkinstall says.

During the year ending September 30, the industry paid out more than $760 mill in death benefits, maturities and other benefits.

Individual company results in the quarter reveal the following market share statistics (Top 10 companies):

Term Insurance

Premiums Total in Force %

New Premium for Quarter %

Sovereign

27.9

27.8

AMP

13.1

10.8

AXA

11.4

7.4

Asteron

9.0

7.3

AIA

7.6

8.5

Westpac

6.5

8.0

BNZ

5.1

5.0

National Bank

4.8

5.5

Fidelity Life

4.4

7.5

Tower

4.0

3.1

The companies with increased market share for term insurance in the September quarter were AIA, Westpac, National Bank and Fidelity Life.

Income Protection

Premiums Total in Force %

New Premium for Quarter %

Sovereign

35.0

33.5

Fidelity Life

9.2

15.4

AIA

10.6

11.2

AXA NZ

12.9

9.9

Asteron

10.0

7.6

ING Life

3.0

6.5

AMP

6.7

6.0

Westpac

4.3

5.2

BNZ

1.6

2.4

National Bank

0.7

1.2

During the quarter Fidelity, AIA, ING, Westpac, BNZ and National Bank, all increased their market share.
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