The premium income of insurers in Vietnam for the first half of 2017 rose by 21% year-on-year, reaching US$1.8 billion, according to the country’s Ministry of Finance.

Meanwhile, insurers’ total assets grew by 19% year-on-year to US$11.7 billion, with life insurers accounting for 73.4% of that figure, the Insurance Supervisory Authority (ISA) revealed on Wednesday.

ISA data showed that the country’s insurance sector has reported an annual growth rate of more than 20% in recent years. But despite the rapid pace of growth, insurance penetration is still low.

ISA head Pham Ngoc Khanh said that only 7%, or around 6.5 million people out of Vietnam’s total population of 93 million, had life insurance. This means that there is still huge potential for growth in the Southeast Asian country.

In the first six months of the year, domestic and foreign insurers invested around US$9.6 billion in the economy, an 18% increase from the previous year’s figure.


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