Insurers' critical-illness portfolios healthy, but risks lurk

They say greater awareness of need for health continues to drive demand, but claims for nine of them have more than doubled from 2018-2019

Genevieve Cua

Published Sun, Nov 15, 2020 · 09:50 PM

Insurance

Singapore

ALTHOUGH four out of nine life insurers' critical illness (CI) portfolios reflected an underwriting loss before net investment income in 2019, the outlook for the CI business is still positive as greater awareness of the need for health continues to drive demand.

After taking into account investment income, two insurers - Great Eastern life and Manulife - incurred an operating loss on long term CI business.

Insurers maintain that their CI portfolios are healthy. Still, the number of claims for nine insurers has more than doubled from 5,152 in 2018 to 11,535 in 2019.

This underscores the need for prudent management particularly as the new generation of plans covers CI in varying stages and allow mu…