Aggregate premium payments collected by the nation’s insurers are set to reach a record high this year as investors turn conservative amid slowing global economic growth and rising uncertainties, the Taiwan Insurance Institute (TII, 保發中心) said yesterday.
Total premiums collected by local life insurers in the first 10 months of this year rose 6.2 percent year-on-year to NT$2.54 trillion (US$79.6 billion) and are forecast to reach about NT$3 trillion, exceeding the NT$2.9 billion collected last year, TII vice president John Kuo (郭榮堅) said on the sidelines of a forum discussing the structural issues faced by the nation’s financial sector in Taipei.
General life insurers saw their premiums rise 7.6 percent year-on-year to NT$121.3 billion, Kuo said.
“Premium expansion is expected to slow for life insurers next year as the local market matures and becomes more saturated,” Kuo said, forecasting that premium growth would be between zero and 5 percent next year, and between 3 and 6 percent for general insurers.
He said that the high basis set this year would also dim next year’s growth prospects.
Earnings by life insurers have declined 19.18 percent year-on-year to NT$91 billion compared with NT$112.6 billion last year, while earnings by general insurers dipped 7.34 percent year-on-year from NT$10.9 billion to NT$10.9 billion, Kuo said, adding that profitability has remained stable.
At the same event, Taiwan Stock Exchange chairman Shih Jun-ji (施俊吉) said that the capital gains tax implemented in 2012 has dealt a severe blow to the local bourse, stifling turnover.
Shih said that since 2012, the number of active traders who trade more than NT$500 million per quarter has declined 1,100 to fewer than 500, as average daily turnover on the local bourse dropped below NT$100 billion.
While the Financial Supervisory Commission has said that the tumbling daily average turnover on the local bourse is in line with major global markets, local investors have shown little interest in returning to the market as fallout from the 2008 financial crisis subsides, Shin said.
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