BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽), a joint venture by the French BNP banking group and the state-run Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), aims to boost mortgage insurance premium amounts five-fold for this year from a year ago, company executives said yesterday.
The life insurer, which will celebrate its first birthday tomorrow, reported NT$47.5 billion (US$1.63 billion) in first year premium during the January-to-March period, making it the fourth largest by bancassurance sales, chief executive Polly Wang (王伯莉) told a media briefing.
Mortgage insurance premium totaled NT$16.3 billion as of end last month, accounting for only 2.8 percent of the bank’s overall mortgage lending, indicating ample room for growth, Wang said.
“We aim to lift the ratio to 5 percent this year to NT$50 billion, expanding five times from the level last year,” Wang said.
The one-year-old insurer has made sales of mortgage insurance products its top business as Taiwan Cooperative Bank, with more than 300 branches, is the second-largest home loan operator after Land Bank of Taiwan (土地銀行).
The state-run lender controls a 51 percent stake in the joint venture, while the French partner owns the remaining 49 percent. The pair will join forces to create a securities firm, either next month or in June, as the bank moves toward evolving into a financial holding company.
First-year premiums reached NT$40.4 billion between April and December of last year, earning the new insurer fourth place among its peers, thanks to the lender’s strong sales channel, Wang said.
Mortgage insurance penetration was 14 percent at the end of last month, meaning 86 percent of home loans at the bank are not insured yet, Wang said.
“We aim to raise the penetration rate to 30 percent this year,” she said.
BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance also expects sales of unit-linked insurance products to grow five-fold to NT$15 billion this year, from NT$3 billion last year, Wang said, adding improving risk appetite amid the global economic recovery makes the goal practical.
Ingrid Kuo (郭韋辰), account manager at the insurer, said the newly passed luxury tax on short-term home transactions would not dampen mortgage insurance because property investors are not the company’s target clientele.
Powerful earthquakes at home and abroad have made mortgage insurance more attractive to Taiwanese, she said.
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