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Insurance trampled in bull run

By Zhan Lisheng (China Daily )
Updated: 2007-05-31 09:39

While the stock market has been heating up, the life insurance sector has been cooling down in Guangdong. The reason: people are drawing money out of insurance policies and putting it in the stock market.

According to statistics released by theChina Insurance Regulatory Commission's Guangdong bureau, the province saw life insurance surrender value of 1.58 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, a surge of 52.06 percentyear-on-year.

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The figure doesn't include Shenzhen as its figures are not reported to the provincial association.

Participating insurance, unit-linked insurance and universal life insurance dominated the products surrendered in the first three months of this year, with participating insurance products topping the list.

"Life insurance withdrawal seems to be rising by the month and the insurance surrender value is likely to witness a new high in the second quarter," said Wu Junhua, an analyst with the provincial insurance industry association.

He said a life insurance joint venture's Guangdong branch recorded 367.68 million yuan in participating insurance surrender in March, compared with 237.95 million yuan in February and 166.86 million yuan in January.

Wu said the fact that open-ended fund products have been overshadowing bank insurance products also shows the downward trend in the life insurance market in the province.

He said insurance surrenders have become equally common in other regions, with Shanghai posting a surrender value of 1.8 billion yuan in the first quarter. Wu advised those planning to surrender their insurance policies for buying stocks to consider using theinsurance policymortgage loan service.