Deterioration of Long-Term Delinquencies in Insurers' Mortgage Loans... Over Half Over '90 Days'

It has been found that more than half of the overdue mortgage loans in the insurance sector are in long-term delinquency of 90 days or more.

While the delinquency rate itself is not high, the proportion of long-term delinquencies has increased, and there are wide discrepancies in delinquency status among individual insurance companies, prompting calls for regulatory oversight.

According to the status of household loan soundness in the insurance sector for the past five years submitted by the Financial Supervisory Service to Representative Park Sung-hoon of the People Power Party, a member of the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee, on October 6, the balance of mortgage loans in the insurance sector stood at 52 trillion won as of the end of June, with a delinquency rate of 0.4%.

The delinquency rate has consistently remained at the 0.3 to 0.4 percent level from the end of 2022 to the present.

The amount of overdue loans stood at 192.1 billion won as of the end of June.

After increasing from 129 billion won at the end of 2022 to 210.5 billion won at the end of 2024, the amount decreased back to the 100 billion won range this year.

The problem is that the nature of the delinquencies is worsening.

Out of the total overdue amount of 30 days or more (192.1 billion won), overdue loans of 90 days or more accounted for 107.1 billion won, or 55.8%, which is a 6.4 percentage point (p) increase compared to the end of 2022 (49.3%).

During this period, overdue loans of 90 days or more surged by 68.1% from 63.7 billion won to 107.1 billion won.

Discrepancies among insurance companies were also significant.

While the overall industry delinquency rate stood at 0.4% at the end of June, ABL Life Insurance's mortgage loan delinquency rate reached 2.76%.

DB Insurance (2.67%), KDB Life Insurance (2.33%), and Heungkuk Life Insurance (2.25%) also recorded rates in the 2 percent range.

In particular, DB Insurance's mortgage loan delinquency rate rose steeply from 0.33% at the end of 2022 to 2.67% this year.

During the same period, its overdue amount also spiked from 3.4 billion won to 8.2 billion won.

Kyobo Life Insurance's delinquency rate also rose from 0.22% to 0.62%, with its overdue amount increasing from 4.9 billion won to 11.6 billion won.

Representative Park Sung-hoon emphasized, "On the surface, the delinquency rate in the insurance sector appears to be fine, but the insolvency of delinquent borrowers is becoming prolonged rather than being resolved in a short period," adding, "The authorities need to closely examine the proportion of long-term delinquencies and the soundness disparities among insurance companies."
 
(Photo: Yonhap News)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.