Ham Yong-il, the deputy chair of the Financial Supervisory Service (FSS), speaks at a press conference in Seoul, May 3. Yonhap

Insurance companies in Korea saw their combined net profit shrink more than 11 percent from a year earlier in the first three months of the year, data showed Thursday.

The combined net profit of 22 life insurers and 31 non-life insurance companies in the country came to 4.84 trillion won ($3.55 billion) in the January-March period, down 605 billion won, or 11.1 percent, from the same period last year, according to the data from the Financial Supervisory Service.

The on-year decline was attributed to a drop in investment returns due to high interest rates that led to the depreciation in the value of the insurance companies' financial assets, according to the financial regulator.

Life insurance firms' premium income gained 1.7 percent on-year to 1.25 trillion won in the three months ended March 31, with that of non-life insurers surging 27.9 percent to 3.05 trillion won.

Their return on assets, however, dropped 53.2 percent and 17.5 percent on-year, respectively.

The insurance firms' return on assets stood at 1.58 percent at end-March, down 0.27 percentage point from a year earlier, with their return on equity dipping 2.03 percentage points to 11.95 percent over the cited period.

Their total assets came to 1,222.6 trillion won as of end-March, down 2 trillion won, or 0.2 percent, from a year earlier. (Yonhap)