The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday placed Chaoyang Life Insurance Co (朝陽人壽) under government receivership to prevent further deterioration of the company’s financial condition.
“The company has repeatedly failed to carry out its proposed financial improvement measures and its negative net worth continued to worsen on an annual basis. It was NT$2.2 billion [US$65.23 million] in the red as of last month,” Insurance Bureau Director-General Jenny Lee (李滿治) said at a news conference.
Insurers with risk-based capital (RBC) ratios of less than 50 percent might be taken into government control to ensure the interests of customers and employees, she said.
The company is to present a NT$5.05 billion capital increase program before its board of directors tomorrow.
The RBC requirement establishes a minimum liquid reserve that protects a financial institution, its customers and the economy by ensuring that the firm has sufficient capital to sustain possible operating losses.
The commission emphasized that the company would continue its day-to-day operations and all ongoing insurance policies and contract terms would be unaffected by the government takeover.
The company has about 123,000 active policies, 98,000 policyholders, and 600 employees.
It is the third of the nation’s insurers to be put under government receivership in the 18 months after the takeover of Global Life Insurance Co (國寶人壽) and Singfor Life Insurance Co (幸福人壽) in August 2014.
The semi-official Insurance Stabilization Fund was yesterday evening appointed the official receiver, aided by the Taiwan Insurance Institute and the Central Deposit Insurance Corp.
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New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last