Last year, the operating profit from automobile insurance reached 553.9 billion KRW, marking a profit for three consecutive years since 2021.
On the 14th, the Financial Supervisory Service announced the '2023 Automobile Insurance Business Performance' of 12 domestic non-life insurance companies. Last year's automobile insurance sales amounted to 21.0484 trillion KRW, an increase of 281 billion KRW (1.4%) compared to the previous year (20.7674 trillion KRW).
The operating profit in the automobile insurance sector was recorded at 553.9 billion KRW, up 75.9 billion KRW (15.9%) compared to 2022. The number of insured vehicles increased by 610,000 to 25.41 million, leading to higher premium income. Meanwhile, the accident rate remained steady at 15% compared to the previous year. Compared to 2022, when extreme heavy rains occurred, flood damage sharply decreased (from 88.6 billion KRW to 15.1 billion KRW), improving the loss ratio.
Looking at operating profits by company, the four major insurers?DB Insurance (269.2 billion KRW), Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance (202.9 billion KRW), Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance (194.4 billion KRW), and KB Insurance (71.9 billion KRW)?posted a combined profit of 738.4 billion KRW. On the other hand, small and medium-sized insurers such as Meritz (-25.7 billion KRW), Hanwha (-18.5 billion KRW), Heungkuk (-11.4 billion KRW), Lotte (-8.7 billion KRW), and MG (-8.4 billion KRW) recorded a combined loss of 72.7 billion KRW.
The automobile insurance loss ratio, calculated by dividing last year's incurred losses by annual premium income, improved by 0.5 percentage points to 80.7% from 81.2% the previous year.
The market share of the four major insurers (Samsung, Hyundai, KB, DB) increased by 0.4 percentage points to 85.3% last year. The market share of small and medium-sized insurers (Meritz, Hanwha, Lotte, MG, Heungkuk) decreased from 8.9% to 8.4%. The market share of non-face-to-face channel specialists such as AXA, Hana, and Carrot slightly increased from 6.2% to 6.3%.
A Financial Supervisory Service official stated, "We will promote improvements to automobile insurance experience recognition standards to support the low-income economy and introduce a discount/surcharge system based on the number of accidents for substitute driver insurance." He added, "We will continue to improve systems to prevent insurance payout leakage to maintain a stable loss ratio."
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