The default rate on loans extended by South Korean insurers inched up as of end-April from a month earlier, mainly due to a slight rise in overdue household and corporate loans, the financial regulator said Monday.

The average ratio of overdue loans came to 0.80 percent of total lending by local life and non-life insurers, up 0.04 percentage points from the end of March, the Financial Supervisory Service said in a report.

The April figure, however, marks a 0.29 percentage point dip from a year earlier when the default rate reached 1.09 percent.

Of the total, the default rate of household loans reached 0.52 percent, a gain of 0.02 percentage points from the previous month, while the reading for corporate loans rose 0.09 percentage points to 1.44 percent.

The FSS said the rise can be attributed to increased defaults of both household and corporate loans. It said corporate loan default numbers for small and medium businesses and real estate project financing loans, in particular, rose 0.14 percentage points and 0.45 percentage points, respectively.

Local insurers, meanwhile, lent a combined 104.2 trillion won ($89.9 billion) to companies and households as of the end of April, the FSS said.

The figure represents a 520 billion won, or a 0.50 percent gain, from the month before, with household loans making up 72.4 trillion won and corporate loans accounting for 31.8 trillion won.

Despite the increase vis-a-vis the month before, the gain slowed from the second half of 2011. From July through December of last year, loans increased by an average of 1.21 trillion won per month, according to the watchdog. (Yonhap News)