Partners Life gains market share for 4th successive quarter

• Tweet

Partners Life continued to gain market share in the March quarter for the fourth successive quarter, although new business was down for most companies compared with both the December quarter and the March quarter last year.

Thursday, May 17th 2012, 6:00AM 3 Comments

by Jenny Ruth

While much of Partners Life's gains in previous quarters have been mostly at the expense of OnePath, the latter increased its market share in the latest quarter.

Partners Life wrote $6.29 million of new business in the four major individual risk categories in the quarter, lifting its market share from 13.43% to 15.98% in the December quarter and 4.15% in the June quarter last year, the first quarter in which it operated.

OnePath's $4.78 million of new business in the four products in the March quarter accounted for 12.14% of the total, up from its 11.83% share in the December quarter. However, it was well down from its 19.38% share in the March quarter last year.

And OnePath's new business was swamped by its $6.18 million of lapses and surrenders.

Small fry Cigna was a standout, the only company to increase its new business compared with the December quarter with $1.44 million in new business compared with $1.27 million. Its March new business was nearly double the $0.76 million it wrote in the March quarter last year. Its market share rose to 3.66% from 2.66% in the December quarter and 1.89% in the March quarter last year. Cigna's new business in the latest quarter was also comfortably ahead of its $0.72 million in lapses and surrenders.

The major losers of market share in the March quarter compared with the December quarter were AIA, down from 7.95% to 3.56% - it took 9.9% of new business in the March quarter last year, Sovereign, down from 26.09% to 24.41%, and AMP, down to 8.45% from 9.75% in both the December quarter and the March quarter last year, including the AXA business.

Sovereign's $9.6 million of new business in the latest quarter was swamped by its $11.15 million of lapses and surrenders, as was AMP's $3.32 million of new business compared with $8.12 million of lapses and surrenders, Asteron's $2.61 million of new business against its $3.82 million of lapses and surrenders and AIA's $1.4 million of new business against $2.48 million of lapses and surrenders.

By contrast, Westpac's $3.14 million of new business easily exceeded its $2.68 million of lapses and surrenders.

Comments from our readers

Commenting is closed