AXA Singapore is currently the eighth-largest life insurer in Singapore by annualized new premiums. It is also the fifth-largest property and casualty (P&C) insurer and has a share of the health insurance market.
The combined business would create the seventh-largest life insurer based on annualized new premiums and fourth-largest retail health insurer based on gross premiums. This comes to about 600,000 policies in force, covering life, health and P&C. If the deal goes through, the intention is to merge the operations of HSBC Life Singapore and AXA Singapore.
The merged entity will target high net worth individuals and their families in Singapore and across the region, as well as employees of smaller companies.
Once the acquisition is complete, AXA's policies in Singapore will be rebranded as HSBC policies. However, the terms and conditions will remain unchanged. There will also be a wider range of products, including investment products, available to AXA clients.
As at Dec 31 last year, AXA Singapore had net assets of US$474 million, annualized new premiums of US$85 million and gross written premiums of US$739 million. It reported a profit before tax of US$23 million for last year. The move comes at a time when demand for life insurance coverage has been on the rise amid the coronavirus pandemic.
A recent report released by the Life Insurance Association, Singapore's life insurance industry drew $2.68 billion in weighted new business premiums for the first six months of this year, surpassing the same period in 2019 and last year. New sales for the first half of this year surged 61 per cent from $1.66 billion in first half of last year. This was also higher than the $1.91 billion in new sales for the first half of 2019.
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