OREANDA-NEWS. Fitch Ratings has released its 'Chilean Life Insurance Dashboard 2015' special report, which summarizes the Chilean life insurance industry's performance for fiscal year-end 2015.

The report highlights the strong gross written premium (GWP)growth for the year end, boosted in particular by the savings & life and annuities business lines. The growth and results of the annuities business line were positive affected by a conjunctural reduction in its reserves discount rate, which has also had a positive effect on the industry do to the weight that this product has in the total.
The financial incomes continue to represent a determinant proportion on the industry's results and even as this was favorable in total, results deteriorated due to the higher volatility of variable income securities compared with the total investment portfolio.

Fitch expects the industry's performance trend to be mitigated during 2016 by the incorporation of adjustments to mortality tables for the second half of the year. This will force a higher reserve constitution in an amount near USD530 million, according to regulatory estimations. Fitch will observe the effects this will have on the Chilean insurance industry's operational results as well as on leverage indices, which have gone up in the last few years.