Singapore and the UK dominated flows of new business from intermediaries licensed to conduct general insurance business to unauthorised foreign insurers (UFIs) in the first half of 2012.
That is according to the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority's (APRA's) intermediary general insurance statistics that track intermediaries' use of UFIs.
Of the 850 intermediaries that placed business directly with underwriters, 67 intermediaries (8 per cent) placed business with UFIs, with Singapore and the UK accounting for $367 million (71 per cent of total flows).
Intermediaries invoiced $7.9 billion in premium over the six months, of which 7 per cent was placed with UFIs.
UFIs received $520 million – up from $487 million during the same period last year, with the increase driven by business for fire and industrial special risks (ISR) class and business for high value-insured (HVI) policyholders and custom exemption policyholders.
Fire and ISR class premiums accounted for $330 million (63 per cent of the total) – up from $252 million (52 per cent of the total) for the same period in 2011.
The HVI exemption was used in 54 per cent of all business ($281 million), increasing $20 million from the June 2011 period, while the custom exemption was used for 42 per cent ($217 million) of business with UFIs. One per cent of business ($4 million) came from the foreign exemption.
But decreases in the custom exemption from 4,439 in the half-yearly June 2011 results to 4,280 in June 2012 and in the HVI exemption from 749 to 618 drove a decline in new or renewed policies.
New or renewed policies decreased from 4,439 for the six months to June 2011 to 4,280 in the six months to June 2012.
