CEOs of domestic insurers predicted that Korea's economy next year will be similar to this year or improve slightly.
The Korea Insurance Research Institute said on the 30th that in a survey of 36 insurance company CEOs about the economic outlook for 2026, 36.1% answered it would "improve slightly" from this year, while 33.3% said it would be "similar." However, there were also not a few negative views, with 27.8% expecting a slight deterioration and 2.8% a sharp deterioration.
As external risk factors that could slow economic growth, deepening trade fragmentation accounted for 36.6%, and political uncertainty in major countries accounted for 19.7%. As internal risk factors, expansion of household liability (10.8%) and expansion of the government fiscal deficit (4.7%) were cited.
Insurance company CEOs predicted the industry's profitability will improve. In 2026, only 14.3% expected insurers' net income to decline, and just 5.7% said the balance of the contractual service margin (CSM), a profitability metric, would decrease. However, 48.6% said this year's net income will decline, indicating considerable concern about deteriorating profitability.
Insurance company CEOs appeared to feel burdened by the current level of regulation. To strengthen the competitiveness of Korea's insurance industry, the most common response, at 33.3%, was that "reviewing the adequacy of financial regulation and improving efficiency" should be a key policy task. Another 27.3% said support is needed to discover new growth engines.
CEOs of life insurers said they plan to focus on selling protection-type policies over the next 1–2 years, because protection-type policies are advantageous for increasing CSM, the core of profitability. In particular, a high proportion selected health insurance (44%) and whole life insurance (30%) as flagship products. Among non-life insurers, 44% said they would make long-term personal insurance their flagship product.