Australian life insurers enjoyed a total net profit of $1.985 billion last year in a willing market.

The first edition of the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) new half-yearly report on life insurers reveals an aggregate $38.78 billion in net premium in the year to December.

Net policy payments amounted to $35.41 billion while industry revenue totalled $24.45 billion. Total expenses were $21 billion.

Life insurers held total assets of $230.55 billion at year end while net assets totalled $16.43 billion. The industry’s solvency coverage was 1.91 times the minimum required to meet the solvency reserve while insurers achieved a return on net assets of 11.9%.

The report follows the introduction of updated reporting requirements for life insurers from January 1 2008. The half-yearly snapshot joins a quarterly edition as the second life statistics report produced by APRA.

The prudential regulator is using audited annual accounts to provide data on financial performance, financial position and regulatory capital, as well as information on the performance of individual life insurers.

On the measure of net assets, a breakdown of entity level financial position shows AMP Life in front on $2.74 billion, followed by ING Life ($1.97 billion), MLC Lifetime Company ($1.5 billion) and Colonial Mutual Life Assurance Society ($1.39 billion).