Superannuation business continues to dominate the life insurance market, with APRA’s latest statistics showing super accounted for 90.6% of policy payments during the March quarter of this year.

The regulator says life premiums for the quarter stood at $9.5 billion, down 35.9% from the December 2007 quarter and down by 2.1 % on the March 2007 quarter.

At the same time, policy payments made in the March quarter reached $9.3 billion – a 32.6% fall from the December 2007 quarter.

For the year to March 31, premiums totalled $54.6 billion, up 35.2% on the previous year.

Policy payments for the year to March 31 were $52.6 billion, 36.2 % more than the previous year.

Ordinary business premiums accounted for $1.1 billion for the quarter, 3.3% lower than the December 2007 quarter and 10.1% lower than the March 2007 quarter. Total ordinary business premiums for the year to March 31 were $4.9 billion.

Based on APRA’s preliminary figures, total life office statutory fund assets backing Australian policyholder liabilities at the end of March were $231.6 billion – down by 5.3% since March 31 last year.

The reduction in total assets is mainly due to lower asset values associated with falls in equity prices and rises in interest rates.