Last Year, Major GAs Expanded... Number of Agents Also Increased by 11%

Korea Insurance Agency Association '2023 Management Disclosure'

Corporate insurance agencies (GA) have expanded their scale last year by increasing the number of branches and contracts.

According to the '2023 Management Disclosure' released by the Korea Insurance Agency Association on the 18th, the number of large GAs increased by 7 (11.1%) from 63 in 2022 to 70 in 2023. The number of planners also rose by 11%, from 178,766 to 198,517. New contract numbers increased by 30.6% for life insurance, from 2.5 million to 3.27 million, and by 16.5% for non-life insurance, from 11.2 million to 13.04 million.

The new contract amount for non-life insurance by large GAs was 5.9153 trillion KRW, up 403.5 billion KRW (7.3%) from the previous year (5.5118 trillion KRW). Life insurance, however, sharply declined by 3.0416 trillion KRW (76%) to 958.4 billion KRW from 4 trillion KRW the previous year. However, these figures are not directly comparable because previously they were calculated based on insurance benefits, but from last year, they have been aggregated based on annualized premium equivalent (APE), which converts premiums paid at the time of new contract signing into annualized premiums.

Last year, life insurance commission income was 5.5282 trillion KRW, an increase of 1.9414 trillion KRW (54.1%) from 3.5868 trillion KRW the previous year. Non-life insurance commission income rose by 1.057 trillion KRW (22.4%) to 5.7689 trillion KRW from 4.7114 trillion KRW. The GA incomplete sales rate improved by 0.004 percentage points to 0.032% from 0.038% the previous year.

The incomplete sales rate for life insurance improved by 0.016 percentage points from 0.092% to 0.076%. The incomplete sales rate for non-life insurance remained unchanged at 0.017%. Regarding the 13th installment retention rate, life insurance improved by 1.5 percentage points from 85.63% to 87.13%, while non-life insurance declined by 2.18 percentage points from 88.09% to 85.91%.

The 25th installment retention rate for life insurance improved by 2.08 percentage points from 68.83% to 70.91%, whereas non-life insurance decreased by 0.93 percentage points from 73.95% to 73.02%. An association official stated, "Large GAs are achieving not only quantitative growth but also qualitative growth," adding, "This is the result of efforts by the financial authorities, the GA industry, and the association to comply with sound recruitment order through voluntary agreements, proactive compliance monitoring and internal control strengthening by large GAs, and implementation of insurance product comparison and explanation."