Leading life insurance companies South Korea 2021, by gross premiums written

In 2021, Samsung Life Insurance was the leading insurance company in South Korea with gross written premiums amounting to about 26.6 trillion South Korean won. Kyobo Life Insurance and Hanwha Life Insurance followed with gross written premiums worth around 15.8 and 14.7 trillion South Korean won respectively. Samsung held the largest market share not only in life insurance, but also in non-life insurance that year.

South Korea’s insurance industry

The finance and insurance industries are taking an increasingly large share of the South Korean economy, with the sector's real gross domestic product (GDP) nearly doubling over the past decade. While there were about 23 life insurers and 30 non-life insurers operating in South Korea in 2021, the country had a relatively high insurance penetration rate of about 11.6 percent, which was among the highest in the world. At the same time, the insurers' collective net income has also been rising in recent years.

Digital transformation

The insurance industry, which is considered one of the most conservative sectors of the domestic financial industry, is currently undergoing a digital transformation, which is often referred to as insurtech. Insurtech refers to the use of Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), and other technologies, with the aim of providing customers with more efficient and innovative insurance services. Although South Korea’s digital transformation of insurance is still in its infancy by international standards, insurance providers such as AIA, Heungkuk, Dongbu, Samsung, and other various insurance companies have already started applying such technologies to their products.