Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) last month posted a net loss of NT$5 million (US$164,355) due to exchange-rate volatility, investment losses and a ban on any new investment-linked policies.
The loss ranked Nan Shan, which last year was the most profitable life insurer in Taiwan, as second-worst for earnings among domestic insurers last month, only better than Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽), which posted a net loss of NT$253 million.
Exchange-rate volatility last month caused its hedging costs to rise as the New Taiwan dollar appreciated sharply against the US dollar, Nan Shan said in a statement.
The insurer said that last month, it disposed of some bonds and stocks that were not lucrative, which produced investment losses.
The insurer’s first-year premiums (FYP) last month plunged 59 percent from a year earlier to NT$6.92 billion, after the Financial Supervisory Commission banned it from selling new investment-linked policies from the middle of September due to its failure to resolve problems with its new information technology system.
The policies used to account for about 45 percent of all first-year premiums, data released by Nan Shan and the commission showed.
The insurer’s cumulative first-year premiums fell 8 percent annually to NT$150.56 billion for the first 10 months of the year, Nan Shan data showed.
The insurer’s inability to sell investment-linked policies has put a serious dent in its business, Nan Shan labor union president Yan Ching-lung (嚴慶龍) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
Nan Shan’s pool of foreign currencies shrank without the premiums generated from investment-linked policies — which are mostly denominated in US dollars — and the insurer had fewer funds that could be used for overseas investments, Yan said.
Nan Shan could resume selling the policies after its system is fixed and it passes an inspection by an independent third party, the commission said.
Despite the net losses for last month, the insurer reported a cumulative net profit of NT$38.72 billion for the first 10 months, up 42 percent year-on-year.
That was followed by Cathay Life Insurance Co’s (國泰人壽) net profit of NT$32.63 billion over the same period, Fubon Life Insurance Co’s (富邦人壽) NT$27.43 billion, Shin Kong Life’s NT$13.28 billion, Taiwan Life Insurance Co’s (台灣人壽) NT$14.37 billion and China Life Insurance Co’s (中國人壽) NT$13.87 billion, data showed.
This week’s undoing of the TerraUSD algorithmic stablecoin and its sister token, Luna, has ramifications for all of crypto. First, there is the immediate impact: The rapid collapse of a once-popular pair of cryptocurrencies sent a ripple effect across the industry, contributing to plummeting coin prices that wiped hundreds of billions of market value from the digital-asset market and stoked worries over the potential fragility of digital-asset ventures. Then there are the knock-on effects. In addition to delivering punishing losses to individual users and investment firms, the spectacular failure of a market darling like Terra threatens to have a cooling effect
material SHORTAGE: Even as workers are about to return, Quanta lacks operating supplies, while Pegatron reported its lowest revenues in 11 quarters, the companies said Taiwan’s major Apple Inc supplier cut its outlook for the second quarter, joining a growing list of manufacturers warning about the fallout from lockdowns aimed at containing China’s worst COVID-19 outbreak in two years. Quanta Computer Inc (廣達電腦), which assembles MacBooks, expects a 20 percent quarterly fall in notebook shipments and a squeeze on margins this quarter due to the lockdown, a company representative said on Friday during an earnings call. The impact from supply chain disruptions could last until the end of the year, she said. The company’s Shanghai factory has been operating under tight restrictions since the middle of last month,
The US and the EU were yesterday to announce a joint effort aimed at identifying semiconductor supply disruptions as well as countering Russian disinformation, officials said. Top US officials are visiting the French scientific hub of Saclay for a meetup of the Trade and Technology Council, created last year as China increasingly exerts its technology clout. US officials acknowledged that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has broadened the council’s scope, but said the Western bloc still has its eye on competition from China. The two sides will announce an “early warning system” for semiconductors supply disruptions, hoping to avoid excessive competition between Western powers
Hotai Motor Co (和泰汽車), which distributes Toyota and Lexus vehicles in Taiwan, yesterday introduced Toyota Motor Corp’s first all-electric sports utility vehicle (SUV), the bZ4X, joining rivals in vying for a share of the nation’s fast-growing electric vehicle market. Starting today, the bZ4X, with a price tag of NT$1.599 million (US$53,780), would be available for online purchase only and customers need to download a special app to place orders, Hotai said. Hotai has received 300 of the electric SUVs, it said, adding that it is not enough to meet robust market demand. A total of 229 electric vehicles were sold in the
RSS