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During the year, 604,613 new individual life policies were sold, of which more than 97 per cent were non-linked policies. Office premiums for these new policies amounted to $4.7 billion, an increase of eight per cent over those of the previous year. About three quarters of these premiums came from non-linked business and one quarter from linked business which attracted a significant amount of single premiums. Whole life insurance remained the main product sold, which accounted for about half of total office premiums for new individual life policies.
In 1995, retirement schemes business managed by insurance companies registered phenomenal growth. Both total number of retirement scheme policies and contributions arising therefrom increased by 30 per cent to 14,414 and $6.4 billion respectively. Net liability grew by 25 per cent to $27.9 billion.
Other business like group life insurance, annuity and permanent health insurance also recorded growth in 1995.
As at October 31, 1996, there were 221 authorised insurers. Among them, there were 158 general insurers, 44 long term insurers and 19 composite insurers. As regards insurance intermediaries, there were 311 insurance brokers and 31,088 insurance agents.
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Salary indices for managerial and professional employees
The average salary rate for middle-level managerial and professional employees, as measured by the overall Nominal Salary Index (A), increased by 7.9% between June 1996 and June 1995.
The overall Nominal Salary Index (B), which measures changes in the average salary rate only for those middle-level managerial and professional employees who remained in the same occupation and in the same company in both 1995 and 1996, rose by 10.1% over the same period.
The above results are based on the findings of the 1996 Survey of Salaries and Employee Benefits Managerial and Professional Employees (Excluding Top Management) released today (Friday) by the Census and Statistics Department.