Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance Co. has remained unrivaled in South Korea’s auto insurance market in the first four months of this year despite intensifying competition, while Dongbu Insurance Co. has emerged as a strong contestant, climbing to the second rank by elbowing out Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance Co. that used to be the industry’s No.2 for a long time.

According to the country’s non-life insurance industry on Sunday, Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance commanded 29.7 percent of the nation’s auto insurance market for January-April, maintaining its dominance in the market in terms of market share despite worries that its peers’ series of launches of online auto insurance products could eat away at the insurer that was the first to make online purchases available in the country. Rather, it turned out that the insurance firm gained 2.4 percentage points in its market share from the same period of last year.

Since early this year, local auto insurance companies have been competitively rolling out new online products with aggressive promotional campaigns to knock the online auto insurance market leader Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance off the throne.

Dongbu Insurance successfully raised its market share by 1.2 percentage points on year to 18.4 percent, ranking second in the market, and KB Insurance Co. saw its market share edge up 0.3 percentage point.

However, Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance lost ground to Dongbu Insurance after shedding 2.5 percentage points over the same period, while Meritz Fire & Marine Insurance Co. lost 0.6 percentage point.

An unnamed official at Hyundai Marine & Fire Insurance attributed the company’s loss to its higher loss ratio in the auto sector compared with its rivals, which has led it to focus more to trim the loss ratio than to expand its market share. Following its efforts, the company lowered the loss ratio in the auto insurance segment to 82.2 percent in the first three months of this year from 87.8 percent from a year ago, according to IBK Securities Co. But the figure is considered still high compared to the market leader Samsung Fire & Marine Insurance, which recorded a loss ratio of 79.1 percent during the same period this year.

By Park Joon-hyung

[ⓒ Pulse by Maeil Business News Korea & mk.co.kr, All rights reserved]