Life Insurers in S. Korea suffer 2.4% drop in net profits

The 24 life insurance firms in South Korea suffered a 2.6 percent net profit drop to 54.9 billion won in the first half from 2.07 trillion won last year due to increased guarantee reserve,

Of the 24 life insurers, nine were foreign firms.

The guarantee reserve spiked to 1.7 trillion won in the first half from 672.2 billion won from the same period last year.

According to the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), the combined net loss of their insurance operations rose 7 percent on-year to 12.6 trillion won in the first half, hit by a decline in stock markets.

The average return on assets declined to 0.45 percent for the first half from 0.49 percent for the same period last year.

Meanwhile, the combined net profit of non-life insurance firms went up 15.5 percent to 1.71 trillion won in the January-June period from a year ago.

The non-life insurers had a combined net loss of 2.09 trillion won in their insurance business, while earning 4.49 trillion won from their investment business.

They posted combined assets under management of 332.8 trillion won at the end of June, up 6.5 percent from last year.