The life insurance industry of Indonesia showed significant growth in the first quarter of the year, with total premium revenue increasing by 62 percent, local press said Monday.

Premium revenue rose to 8.65 trillion rupiah (approximately 959 million U.S. dollars) from 5.35 trillion rupiah in the same period last year, reported English daily The Jakarta Post, quoting report from the industry association.

Eddy Berutu, the executive director of the Indonesian Life Insurance Association (AAJI), has said last Friday the increase was due mainly to a 97-percent growth in premium revenue from new customers.

"People's awareness about the importance of insurance is increasing and the country's economic situation is improving. Therefore, people can now set aside more of their money to pay for insurance premiums," he said.

Of the total payments made on policy premiums, individual policyholders contributed 83 percent while collective policy holders contributed the remaining 17 percent.

With its good first quarter start, the life insurance industry is expected to experience faster growth in 2007, Eddy said. He estimates the number of policyholders will increase by 25 percent to 30 percent this year.

During the first quarter of this year alone, the number of policyholders increased by 8 percent to 34.54 million from 31.93 million at the end of 2006.

Forty life insurance companies in the AAJI reported to have 6. 65 million individual and 27.89 million collective policyholders as of the end of March, meaning that only approximately 14 percent of Indonesia's 240 million people are insured.

Source: Xinhua