Kazakhstanis Transfer Hundreds of Billions from UAPF for Lifetime Pensions

In the first half of this year, the volume of pension savings transfers from the UAPF to insurance companies increased by 92.9% compared to the same period last year, reaching 292.8 billion tenge. Pension annuity contracts became a key driver of insurance premium growth, accounting for 63% of the total volume, reports infohub.kz.

According to a market review of life insurance companies (LICs) for the first half of the year, prepared by the Association of Financiers of Kazakhstan (AFK), the main growth factor in the sector was the pension annuity segment.

A pension annuity is an agreement between a UAPF depositor and a life insurance company. The client transfers their pension savings or a part thereof within the minimum amount to the insurer, and the company undertakes to make regular payments for life.

In the first half of the year, transfers of pension savings to insurance companies increased by 92.9% year-on-year, reaching 292.8 billion tenge. The share of pension contracts in the premium structure of life insurance companies increased from 40% to 63%.

Overall, the growth of insurance premiums for LICs accelerated to 30% year-on-year, compared to 25.9% in 2025. The main driver was annuity insurance. Total premiums of life insurance companies for the half-year amounted to 621.5 billion tenge, and their assets grew by 20% to 2.7 trillion tenge.

Insurance payouts accelerated by 67.9%, or 44.2 billion tenge. At the same time, 75% of the total increase in payouts came from annuity insurance amid the gradual maturation of the accumulated long-term portfolio. As a result, the ratio of payouts to premiums increased from 13.6% to 17.6%, but it still remains low. Meanwhile, the profit of LICs decreased by 15.3% to 74.5 billion tenge.

The AFK notes that for insurance companies, such dependence on annuity products increases the importance of further diversifying the product line and developing classic endowment insurance.

Earlier it was reported that Kazakhstan's insurance sector ended June with a loss of 3.7 billion tenge. In May, insurance companies earned 55.8 billion tenge. The main reason for the negative result was an increase in the reserve for incurred but not reported losses under pension annuity contracts.

Kursiv wrote that after raising the sufficiency thresholds, Kazakhstani people's interest in pension annuities sharply increased. Many call this a new way of withdrawals from the UAPF.