The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.

By Katrina Hamlin

HONG KONG, Sept 3 (Reuters Breakingviews) - Insurers are rarely the life of a party. Yet Hong Kong stalwarts AIA 1299.HK, Prudential PRU.L, 2378.HK and FWD 1828.HK may become just that. They logged double-digit growth in new business in the city in the first half of 2025. Pent-up post-Covid purchases are morphing into what looks like durable demand as Chinese mainlanders hunt for better returns across the border.

The $98 billion giant AIA reported its value of new business, a measure of newly sold policies' profitability, at $1.1 billion in January to June, a 24% year-on-year increase. Prudential's rose 16% to $540 million, and Richard Li's recently listed FWD's almost doubled to $267 million over the same period. While that figure for AIA pipped its performance in the first half of 2019, Prudential is still playing catch up.

Although it's more than five years since the pandemic hit the industry, which depends heavily on selling savings-like products to visiting mainland clients in person, some aspects of the recovery continue. These visitors to Hong Kong numbered 17.8 million in the first six months of the year. Annualised, that still falls short of the more than 50 million who came in 2018.

But the overall addressable market looks like it is expanding. Schemes offering visas to talented professionals have drawn more than 100,000 newcomers from China since the beginning of 2024, immigration data shows. These new Hong Kong residents bolster local sales.

The products themselves are also more enticing than in the past. China's one-year loan prime rate is low at 3%, and the crisis in its property market continues, prompting savers to look elsewhere to stash cash. Hong Kong's insurers are allowed to offer returns of up to 6.5% on certain long-term plans. The average policy size for AIA's mainland clients rose to $20,000 this year, around double the level before the pandemic.

The Hong Kong shares of Prudential and AIA are up 66% and 29% respectively since the beginning of the year, besting the Hang Seng index's .HSI 27% but they remain below where they were at the end of 2019. FWD, which listed on the city's stock exchange in August, has risen around twice as fast as the benchmark since its debut reflecting the discounted valuation for the offering.

The insurers are making a long drawn out comeback but things are finally starting to heat up.

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CONTEXT NEWS

Insurer FWD saw its value of new business in Hong Kong increase 91% year-on-year to $267 million, according to half-year results released on August 29.

Prudential reported its new business profit in Hong Kong rose 16% year-on-year to $540 million over the same period, results published on August 27 show.

AIA's value of new business in Hong Kong grew 24% to $1.1 billion in the first half of 2025, compared with a year earlier, the company said in its earnings released on August 21.

(Editing by Una Galani; Production by Aditya Srivastav)

((For previous columns by the author, Reuters customers can click on HAMLIN/katrina.hamlin@thomsonreuters.com; Reuters Messaging: katrina.hamlin.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))