`Creative' insurance covers pets

When it comes to property and life insurance, most people in Taiwan are familiar with auto, fire and earthquake insurance, as well as policies that cover losses from typhoon damages, caused by wind and floods, among others.

But what about pets? If dogs are "man's best friend," should insurance on dogs and other pets be considered a type of property insurance?

To the Central Insurance Co (中央產險) the answer is "Yes." The non-life insurer started providing the nation's first independent pet insurance policies late last year, covering funeral fees for animals that perish from accidental death, and compensation for third parties who are victimized by the insured pets.

Insured `properties'

Not only that, in step with its foreign counterparts, the company also began to offer celebrity insurance early this year.

Taiwanese supermodel Lin Chia-chi (林嘉綺) had her money-making breasts covered against injury, which is comparable to Hollywood actress Jennifer Lopez's bottom becoming one of the most famous insured "properties."

To expand its customer base, Central Insurance has further eyed the "folk customs" insurance market, given that most Taiwanese people hold traditional holidays in high regard.

For instance, the insurer cooperated with more than 50 temples during the Lunar New Year holidays in February to promote the "pacifying gods and goddesses" insurance program, or an taisui (安太歲) in Chinese.

Then in the seventh lunar month -- the deeply inauspicious "ghost month" which fell in August this year -- the company devised one-month personal injury insurance products to compensate those who were wounded on mass transit systems, in elevators, by fires or in earthquake accidents during that period.

But the company's coverage doesn't stop there. On its creative list of coverages, Central Insurance also offers rainfall, unemployment and gas insurance policies, to name just a few.

"We're not a big company. To compete against larger rivals, we must achieve a market segmentation by offering really different products to gain the public's attention," said Fred Pai (白文仁), chairman of Central Insurance, during a recent interview.

Privatized entity

Established in 1962 and directly owned by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the insurer became an entirely privatized entity in 2002 before offloading shares to investors in stages.

In May 2003, it became a member of Polaris Financial Group (寶來集團), which is the insurer's biggest shareholder, with around a 30-percent stake.

A month later, Pai took the helm of the poorly performing company, arranged by his elder brother Wayne Pai (白文正), the chairman of Polaris Financial, who then shouldered the difficult task of restructuring the insurer and moving it into the black.

For the time being, the company has accomplished the first stage of its restructuring -- adjusting its business structures to balance developments in the various non-life insurance segments, especially raising its car insurance proportion to account for 50 percent of the company's premium revenues.

Also, aimed at strengthening its workforce, it pulled in younger sales representatives and retired the less efficient employees, Fred Pai said.

The company now employs 900 workers nationwide, up from 600.

The second-stage it will implement now is "jacking up revenues and performance" in hopes of reaping profits in the underwriting segment next year, Pai said.