Taiwan Life Insurance Co (台灣人壽), the country's eighth-largest life insurer, acquired debt-ridden property insurer Kuo Hua Insurance Co (國華產險) in an auction yesterday. It said it plans to set up a new property insurance firm soon.
The deal marks the first time in more than three decades that an insurer was forced to pull out of the market, after the cash-strapped Kuo Kuang Life Insurance (國光人壽) was ordered to cease operations in April 1970.
Taiwan Life Insurance yesterday outbid Taiwan Fire & Marine Insurance Co Ltd (台灣產物保險) by requiring a lower compensation of NT$1.056 billion (US$32.66 million) from the government's Insurance Stabilization Fund (保險安定基金), according to a press release issued by the semi-official Taiwan Insurance Institute (保險事業發展中心).
The Insurance Law (
The Taiwan Insurance Institute was commissioned by Financial Supervisory Commission last November to rehabilitate and clean up Kuo Hua's assets.
Kuo Hua, the nation's smallest property insurer by capitalization, was ordered to stop writing new policies last year because it couldn't meet its financial obligations, the commission said.
"By acquiring Kuo Hua Insurance to expand its business operations, Taiwan Life can better integrate resources and offer a more complete line of insurance products to our customers," said Steve Lin (
Lin said the company will apply with the commission's Insurance Bureau within 15 days to set up a new non-life insurer with an initial capital of NT$500 million. It expects to expand the investments to NT$2 billion in 10 years.
According to the bidding contract, Taiwan Life will retain more than 180 employees, 50 percent of Kuo Hua's original workforce, in the new property firm.
Lin promised that the company will do its best to assist the rest of the staff switch jobs.
Taiwan Life will only take over Kuo Hua's policies, while the bankrupt insurer's eight branches nationwide will be left for the Taiwan Insurance Institute to deal with, Lin said.
Kuo Hua was established in 1962 with paid-in capital of NT$1.4 billion. The insurer's business is concentrated in auto insurance, including both voluntary and compulsory lines.
The Taiwan Insurance Institute has been helping clean up Kuo Hua's financial information and assisting its policyholders with compensations.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained