The Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC) yesterday passed a draft regulation that will initiate sales of micro-insurance to the nation’s 3 million financially disadvantaged citizens.
“It’s becoming an international trend to facilitate a social safety net by providing low-income groups with insurance protection,” Wu Chung-chuan (吳崇權), deputy director-general of the commission’s Insurance Bureau, told a media briefing yesterday.
Sixteen of the nation’s 30 life insurers have agreed to support the government’s bid and offer micro-insurance policies, he said, citing the bureau’s survey.
Micro-insurance refers to insurance policies characterized by low premiums or low coverage limits and designed to service low-income people and businesses not served by typical social or commercial insurance schemes.
In the draft regulation, single individuals who earn less than NT$250,000 (US$7,588) a year or double-income families with annual earnings of less than NT$500,000 will be eligible to purchase one-year life and accident insurance policies with a maximum benefit of NT$300,000 per policy.
Aboriginal groups, local or foreign fishermen with local IDs, or members served by local social welfare groups will also be included in the scheme, the commission said.
Under the draft regulation, a 40-year-old man would pay NT$675 per year to be covered with a death benefit of NT$300,000, and another NT$165 per year for an accident benefit of NT$300,000.
The premiums are, on average, 45 percent to 60 percent cheaper than those of commercial insurance schemes, Wu said, adding that his bureau would finalize the regulation next week, after which insurers would be able to apply for approval to sell the policies.
The new policies may hit the market in September, since the applications usually take less than 90 days to process, he said.
FALLING BEHIND: Samsung shares have declined more than 20 percent this year, as the world’s largest chipmaker struggles in key markets and plays catch-up to rival SK Hynix Samsung Electronics Co is laying off workers in Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand as part of a plan to reduce its global headcount by thousands of jobs, sources familiar with the situation said. The layoffs could affect about 10 percent of its workforces in those markets, although the numbers for each subsidiary might vary, said one of the sources, who asked not to be named because the matter is private. Job cuts are planned for other overseas subsidiaries and could reach 10 percent in certain markets, the source said. The South Korean company has about 147,000 in staff overseas, more than half
Taipei is today suspending its US$2.5 trillion stock market as Super Typhoon Krathon approaches Taiwan with strong winds and heavy rain. The nation is not conducting securities, currency or fixed-income trading, statements from its stock and currency exchanges said. Yesterday, schools and offices were closed in several cities and counties in southern and eastern Taiwan, including in the key industrial port city of Kaohsiung. Taiwan, which started canceling flights, ship sailings and some train services earlier this week, has wind and rain advisories in place for much of the island. It regularly experiences typhoons, and in July shut offices and schools as
An Indian factory producing iPhone components resumed work yesterday after a fire that halted production — the third blaze to disrupt Apple Inc’s local supply chain since the start of last year. Local industrial behemoth Tata Group’s plant in Tamil Nadu, which was shut down by the unexplained fire on Saturday, is a key linchpin of Apple’s nascent supply chain in the country. A spokesperson for subsidiary Tata Electronics Pvt yesterday said that the company would restart work in “many areas of the facility today.” “We’ve been working diligently since Saturday to support our team and to identify the cause of the fire,”
TECH PARTNERSHIP: The deal with Arizona-based Amkor would provide TSMC with advanced packing and test capacities, a requirement to serve US customers Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is collaborating with Amkor Technology Inc to provide local advanced packaging and test capacities in Arizona to address customer requirements for geographical flexibility in chip manufacturing. As part of the agreement, TSMC, the world’s biggest contract chipmaker, would contract turnkey advanced packaging and test services from Amkor at their planned facility in Peoria, Arizona, a joint statement released yesterday said. TSMC would leverage these services to support its customers, particularly those using TSMC’s advanced wafer fabrication facilities in Phoenix, Arizona, it said. The companies would jointly define the specific packaging technologies, such as TSMC’s Integrated
RSS