Nearly 90 percent of people in Taiwan believe they do not have enough non-life insurance policy coverage, yet 60 percent of non-life policyholders do not keep tabs on their protection, a survey found.
“The demand for non-life insurance policies is greatly underestimated in Taiwan,” Jennifer Wang (王儷玲), dean of risk management department at National Chengchi University, told a media briefing organized by MSIG Mingtai Insurance Co (明台產險) yesterday.
Non-life policy penetration in Taiwan is 0.87 percent, for a density of NT$4,677 per head.
This lags far behind the 15.55 percent penetration rate for life polices, or NT$83,294 each, Wang said, citing statistics provided by the Financial Supervisory Commission.
The survey also showed that some 57 percent of 1,020 polled respondents said they did not seek consultations on non-life policies after assessing the risk to their properties such as houses, cars and motorbikes on their own.
Another 73 percent said they only take up compulsory liability policies such as mandatory automobile liability insurance, the survey found.
Wang said more than 70 percent of the survey’s respondents would welcome tailor-made face-to-face professional consultations to examine the “breadth” of their protection and how reasonable their policy premiums were.
Under such a backdrop, Mingtai yesterday launched its risk consultation services and hotline, hoping to promote the awareness of liability risk among potential policyholders.
The insurer’s 1,400 in-house staff including 700 agents and 1,700 contracted agents will respond to calls for risk assessments and insurance planning as requested by prospective policyholders, company president Steven Chang (張立義) said at the sideline of yesterday’s media briefing.
He said that in the past three years the insurer has invested more than NT$100 million (US$3.1 million) in staff training to better its services and enhance its expertise.
Mingtai believes the local market presents ample business opportunities as the nation’s non-life insurance coverage remains low, Chang said.
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