HONG KONG - The Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) released the Hong Kong insurance business statistics for 2009 on Monday, indicating that the overall underwriting profit grew by 46.6 percent year-on-year to HK$2.2 billion ($283.59 million).
The general insurance business gross premiums increased by 5.7 percent to HK$28.6 billion, while net premiums rose 7.1 percent to HK$20.5 billion compared with the previous year.
According to OCI, driven by growth in accident and health business, and construction-related employees' compensation business, gross and net premiums of direct business rose 5.3 percent to HK$22.7 billion and 6.3 percent to HK$17 billion respectively.
The overall business growth was nonetheless offset by the drop in ships business and goods-in-transit business. The former recorded a fall in gross and net premiums to HK$ 963 million and HK$624 million respectively, while for the latter the gross and net premiums contracted to HK$849 million and HK$538 million respectively.
The underwriting profit of direct business grew significantly from HK$519 million to HK$1.4 billion in 2009 as a result of favorable claims experience.
