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Chinese insurers may be able to open offices soon

Regulators have in principle agreed to let Chinese insurance companies open offices in Taiwan and may later allow access to Chinese banks and securities firms, the Mainland Affairs Council said.

"There's no doubt we are walking toward further opening to China," council Vice Chairman Chiu Tai-san (邱太三) said in a telephone interview.

"Allowing China's insurers to set up representative offices here might be easier, while openings in banking and securities could be the next steps as they are more complicated," Chiu said.

The council is waiting for the Financial Supervisory Commis-sion's Insurance Bureau to submit proposals, Chiu said. The bureau said it is ready to proceed when the government decides on overall policy toward China.

"Technically we have no problem," Mark Wei (魏寶生), director general of the bureau, said in a telephone interview. "It's all up to our mainland China policy."

Taiwan's insurers collected NT$1.24 trillion (US$36.8 billion) in premiums last year with life insurers selling 91 percent of the policies, according to information on the Web sites of the Life Insurance Association and the Insurance Institute.

The life insurance market expanded 18 percent in the first nine months of this year.

In China, 80 insurers sold 388 billion yuan (US$46.9 billion) of policies last year, 78 percent by life insurers, according to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission. The life insurance market in China grew 7.5 percent in the eight months to Aug. 31 compared with the same period last year.

The commission has given approvals to five Taiwanese life insurers and nine non-life insurers to set up representative offices in China, Wei said.

Beijing has approved applications by four of those life insurers and five of the non-life insurers, he said. The commission also gave permission to three Taiwanese insurers to set up subsidiaries in China, which has yet to approve them, Wei said.

``Taiwanese insurers get no special treatment and they are very late [entering China] compared with international players,'' said Krista Yue, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co in Taiwan.
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