The average Taiwanese holds 3.3 insurance policies, the highest in the world, followed by Chinese with three policies, Vietnamese and Indians with 2.7 policies, South Koreans with 2.3 policies and Japanese with 1.8 policies, a survey released yesterday by BNP Paribas Cardif showed.
Despite holding the most insurance products per person in the world, only 67 percent of Taiwanese said they feel well-protected in the event of unforeseen accidents, lower than the Asian average of 72 percent, including 90 percent for Vietnamese and Indians, and 72 percent for Chinese, the survey showed.
While about 72 percent of global respondents worry the most about losing their job and income, Taiwanese respondents are mainly concerned about chronic diseases, followed by major accidents and catastrophic illness, it showed.
BNP Paribas Cardif polled 26,000 people in 26 markets on three continents to assess their need for personal insurance coverage and analyze their behaviors.
“Their fear of chronic diseases may be related to the fact that Taiwan is becoming an aged society, with more people over 65 years old,” BNP Paribas Cardif told a media briefing in Taipei.
That might also explain why most Taiwanese respondents said they want to have better protection to alleviate costly medical expenses caused by hospitalization, major diseases and permanent disability.
Most Taiwanese respondents were satisfied with the nation’s public health insurance program, personal safety and education system, while they were most unhappy with their jobs, financial planning for retirement and business environment for start-ups, the survey found.
“We already know that local consumers love purchasing insurance products, but it is surprising to know that they do not feel protected enough,” BNP Paribas Cardif chief executive officer for Asia See See Ooi (黃金喜葹) said.
“It looks natural to me. The more insurance policies people buy, the more clearly they get to know the potential risks in their lives. In other words, people holding more policies tend to have higher risk awareness,” National Chengchi University department of risk management and insurance professor Peng Jin-lung (彭金隆) told the news conference.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained