OVER £4,600,000

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 173, 24 July 1941, Page 12

OVER £4,600,000

FOR LIFE INSURANCE

PREMIUMS FOR ONE YEAR

(0.C.) WELLINGTON, this day. Life insurance is a big business in New Zealand. The latest available figures, published in the Official Year Book, show that Now Zealanders pay out a sum of more than £4.(i00.000 a year in premiums on ordinary life insurance, and that the 392.500 policy-holders who contribute tli is amount have their lives insured for an aggregate amount of i' 148.740,000. On the basis of individual averages the sum assured is £370. and the average premium per policy is £11 4/7.

In the five years from 1935 to 193!>. the number of policies has increased by nearly 100,000. the aggregate sum assured by more than £45.000,000, and the amount paid out in premiums each year by just over £1.000.000.

Each of the three years 1935-1937 was characterised by a remarkable increase in the amount issued when compared with the year immediately preceding, culminating in the record amount of £19,377,000 for new business in 1937. A large part of the new business issued during these three years was evidently due to the necessity, during the years of financial stringency, of deferring the acquisition of adequate life-assurance cover until a more favourable time. The greater amount of the postponed demand seems to have been satisfied in 1930 and 193/. comments the Year Book, and the smaller levels of newissues in 1938 and 1939 are therefore not surprising. The amount of discontinuances which in 1932 actually exceeded the amount of new business written gradually fell each year from 1932 to 1935. Thereafter the discontinuances commenced to rise in sympathy with the increased amount of new business. The net result of the transactions for the year 1939 was an increase of £8,420.000 on the sum assured in force at the end of the preceding year, compared with the corresponding rises of £8.722,000 and £12,900,000 for 1938 and 1937 respectively.

The average sum assured for each new policy taken out in 1939 was £404. compared with £383 in 19:58 and £404 for the average of the predepression period 1926 to 1930. In 1930 this figure had reached £423, but a sharp decline of £49 in 1931 was followed by further decreases in 1932 and 1933. the figure for the latter year being £341. Since then a steady upward movement has been recorded.

A statement of the aggregate revenue and expenditure for all the companies operating in the Dominion, so far as ordinary business is concerned, further illustrates the progress of business during the last five years. In 1935 the total revenue was £5,386,000. and the total expenditure £3,365.000, leaving an excess of revenue of £2.021,000; the totals for 1939 were: Revenue £6,829,000. expenditure £4,094,000, excess of revenue £2,735,000.