Page 13 - Insurance Times November 2021

International

News

M&A in Singapore life in- bined entity to 3.6% and improve surers retain their market share in
HSBC’s ranking from the 11th largest 2021. Decreasing profitability due to
surance industry to further
life insurer in 2020 to 7th largest in- market consolidation may prompt the
consolidate position of surer in 2021.” smaller insurers to increase premium

top 10 insurers in 2021 An analysis of GlobalData’s Insurance rate in the short term.”
Intelligence Center reveals that the
Singapore life insurance industry is
ranking of top five life insurers in Digitalization to support
highly concentrated with the top 10
Singapore remained unchanged since
insurers accounting for 95% market online life bancassurance
2016 with the Great Eastern Life and
share in 2020. Boost in demand for life
insurance products, and mergers and Prudential Assurance being the top two sales in Asia-Pacific
insurers in 2020.
acquisitions (M&A) will further consoli- An accelerated pace of digitalization in
date the country’s life insurance indus- Great Eastern Life is the largest player the financial sector across the Asia-
try in 2021, finds GlobalData, a lead- with 25.5% market share in 2020. It Pacific (APAC) region due to the COVID-
ing data and analytics company. was the only insurer among the top 19 pandemic is expected to support
five life insurers to register growth in the growth of online life
Swarup Kumar Sahoo, Senior Insurance
Analyst at GlobalData, comments: market share which increased from bancassurance, according to
21.2% in 2019 to 25.5% in 2020. Its GlobalData, a leading data and
“The top 10 insurers have increased
gross written premiums (GWP) grew analytics company.
their combined market share from
by 42% in 2020 after facing a decline
88% in 2017 to 95% in 2020. Merger GlobalData’s latest report, ‘Global
of Singapore Life with Aviva in Novem- of 7% and 9% in 2018 and 2019, re- Bancassurance Market to 2025 –
spectively.
ber 2020 and the announced acquisi- Analysing Key Performance Indicators,
tion of AXA Singapore by HSBC will re- Prudential Assurance is the second Key Trends, Drivers and Challenges,
sult in additional stability of the mar- largest insurer with 16.9% market and Competitive Landscape’, reveals
ket in 2021. This will leave 11 insurers share in 2020. The company’s market that in APAC, prolonged period of low
competing for the remaining market share declined from 18.6% in 2019 to interest rates aggravated by lackluster
share.” 16.9% in 2020. However, in terms of credit growth due to the pandemic
GWP, the company registered a higher highlighted the need for banks to diver-
Mr. Sahoo continues: “The merger of
growth of 8% in 2020, as compared to sify their revenue options.
Singapore Life with Aviva will increase
7% growth in 2019.
the market share of the combined en- As a result, banks and insurers are le-
tity to 9.0% in 2021. Similarly, the ac- Mr. Sahoo concludes: “Large customer veraging technologies such as artificial
quisition of AXA Insurance by HSBC will base, diversity in products and econo- intelligence, robotic process automa-
increase the market share of the com- mies of scale will help the leading in- tion, open finance and blockchain to

The Insurance Times, November 2021 13