Australia and NZ’s life insurance markets are doing fine, but that hasn’t stopped Standard and Poor’s (S&P) revising the life insurance outlook for the wider Asia-Pacific region to negative.

S&P believes depressed asset values and lower business volumes risk putting life insurers’ growth and earnings targets under pressure for at least the next two years.

While the outlooks for life insurance in Australia, NZ and China have been fixed at stable, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand’s have all been revised to negative.

“Although the Australian and NZ life insurance markets have also experienced reduced premium inflows, investment market volatility and margin pressure, we view the industry outlooks of both countries as stable, supported by a robust environmental framework and the strength and flexibility of participants,” S&P said.

The NZ life market doesn’t share the same market and regulatory depths as Australia’s, but S&P says it benefits from high Australian ownership and strong regulatory oversight.

It says further downward rating actions on Asia-Pacific life insurers is possible later this year.