With another typhoon approaching Taiwan, insurers are peddling new insurance policies to cover the growing consumer demand for typhoon and flood coverage for homes and vehicles.
"Numerous inquiries for flood insurance have been coming since last month's Typhoon Nari, especially in areas such as Hsichi," said Chang Rai-yi (張瑞益), a manager at Taian Insurance Co's (泰安產物保險) fire insurance department.
And with property insurance claims since the end of September totaling more than NT$8.9 billion, the increase in interest is only to expected to grow.
According to Taian, the cost of insuring a typical apartment against flooding is NT$6,000 to NT$8,000 a year to cover the cost of a home fire insurance policy.
Flood insurance is included in a variety of different insurance policies.
For example, a 35-ping apartment valued at NT$3.5 million would cost the homeowner NT$2,000 a year to buy a fire insurance policy. If additional typhoon and flood coverage was required, the cost of that policy would increase by another NT$6,000 a year. The company has also introduced a custom insurance policy with residential typhoon and flood coverage only for NT$6,600 a year.
Meanwhile with over 100,000 automobiles damaged by the flooding last month, property insurers are touting typhoon and flood insurance for vehicles as a "good investment."
"The cost of insuring a NT$1 million car is NT$9,000 per year for typhoon and flood insurance, said Chen Chiu-ming (
That may be cheaper than the risks in some parts of Taipei County.
"Insuring vehicles may be cheaper than the repairs which can cost NT$100,000 or more per vehicle," Chen said.
Fubon Insurance Co is currently designing a new policy specifically for coverage of automobile damaged by flood.
"We are proposing a new kind of auto insurance policy that only cover flood damage, it would cost much cheaper than traditional typhoon and flood insurance," Chen said.
For example, if a car is worth NT$1 million, the owner can choose to buy coverage worth NT$200,000 for possible flood damage. Since the coverage is reduced, the cost of the policy is certain to be lower than a traditional policy.
However, the new policy has not been approved by the Ministry of Finance yet and will not be available before the end of this year.
"We have sent out the application to the ministry, and we expect the earliest time we can provide the new policy would be the end of this year," Chen said.
"Part of the reason that we designed the new policy is that not many new buyers are opting for traditional flood coverage, and [its high] cost should be reason. That's why we want to design a new kind of policy to meet the requirements of local consumers," he said.
Cairo’s new monorail slices across the city skyline, running above the familiar chaos of blaring horns and aging buses’ exhaust fumes that mark rush hour below. The US$4.5 billion monorail, opened this month, is among Egypt’s most prominent new transport projects, part of a debt-funded infrastructure drive criticized for sapping state finances while bringing limited benefits to most of the country’s 109 million people. “It feels like you’re in a different country,” said Ramy Sayed, a restaurant manager, aboard a driverless Innovia 300 train. “No noise, no traffic, we’re not used to this.” The eastern line runs 56km from the bustling middle-class
Taiwanese firms have increased investment in the Philippines in recent years as Manila’s ties with Washington deepen and global supply chains continue to shift away from China, an expert at the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. The Philippines had not been among Taiwanese investors’ top choices in Southeast Asia, CIER Taiwan ASEAN Studies Center director Kristy Hsu (徐遵慈) said at a seminar in Taipei. However, Taiwan’s investment in the country has grown significantly since the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching US $257 million last year, a high in recent years, she said. Although Taiwan’s total investment in the Philippines still lags
Intel Corp regards Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) as a longstanding partner, as the US chipmaker would continue outsourcing production of advanced chips to TSMC, Intel chief executive officer Lip-Bu Tan (陳立武) said yesterday. “I don’t look at people as competitors. I look at the collaboration... Nvidia is also, you know, a good friend,” Tan told a news conference following his keynote speech at the Computex trade show in Taipei. “It’s a very trusted partnership for us... We are a big, top customer for them, and we’re going to continue doing that,” he said, referring to TSMC, the world’s largest foundry
Artificial intelligence (AI) agents would supplant smartphones as the center of people’s digital lives, fundamentally reshaping personal devices and driving a major computing upgrade cycle, Qualcomm Inc CEO Cristiano Amon said yesterday. In his keynote speech for this year’s Computex trade show in Taipei, Amon said that the rise of "agentic AI" — AI systems capable of reasoning, planning and carrying out tasks autonomously — would transform how people interact with technology across phones, PCs, vehicles and wearable devices. Describing the technology as the next major evolution in computing, Amon said that "2026 is the year of agents.” For decades, smartphones have sat
RSS