Vietnam’s insurance market has grown substantially in recent years, parallel to the country’s rapid economic development. Prior to the 1990s, this segment consisted of only non-life businesses with a monopoly by the state-owned insurance group Bao Viet. It was only in 1995 that life insurance was first available. Due to Vietnam’s aging population and increasing disposable income, people have become more interested in healthcare and insurance products. As a result, both the life insurance sector and its non-life insurance counterpart have seen rapidly rising insurance premium values in recent years.
Leading insurance companies in Vietnam
From a monopolistic market with only one player in the 1990s, Vietnam has become a competitive arena for more than 80 insurance firms in 2022, including life and non-life insurers, insurance brokers, and professional reinsurers. In that year, the total premium value of non-life insurance businesses amounted to nearly 70 trillion Vietnamese dong, a three-fold increase from the value recorded at the beginning of the last decade, with health insurance and automobile insurance being the leading categories in this segment. Surpassing Bao Viet, PVI held the largest share of the non-life insurance market in 2022. Other Vietnamese insurance brands such as PTI, Bao Minh, and MIC have also gained significant footholds in this segment.
Although introduced later than its non-life counterpart, life insurance in Vietnam has performed impressive growth in premium values during the past decade, outperforming non-life insurance in 2022. Bao Viet, the Canadian multinational insurance group Manulife, and the U.K. giant Prudential have been taking turns to be the leading life insurers in Vietnam, accounting for over half of the market share together. This sector consists of more foreign players, with fierce competition in the market.
Toward universal healthcare coverage
Over the past decade, Vietnam has made substantial progress toward the goal of achieving universal healthcare. As of 2021, around 90 percent of the Vietnamese population has participated in health insurance. Social health insurance has been considered the most important method of public financing for the health care system in the country. People within the so-called vulnerable groups, namely the poor, ethnic minorities, children under six years old, and the elderly, are subsidized for health insurance by the government. This initiative has shown the country’s commitment to ensuring that all citizens have access to necessary health services without costing too much. On the other hand, the market for private health insurance has been blooming in the country, offering a more extensive range of options for healthcare treatments, including private facilities.
