Taiwan remains a “blue ocean” with vast business opportunity for foreign life insurance companies to navigate, CARDIF Assurance Vie’s Taiwan branch said recently, after several peers sought to pull out of what they saw as a limited market.
The French insurer, whose parent BNP Paribas Group owns BNP Paribas Assurance TCB Life Insurance Co (合作金庫人壽) with the state-run Taiwan Cooperative Bank (合作金庫銀行), sees ample growth potential in bancassurance — the partnership with banks to sell insurance products through the lenders’ sales channel.
Bancassurnce has increasingly replaced sales agents in selling life insurance products.
It accounted for 65 percent of first-year premiums last year.
“We aim to deepen the bancassurance model in Taiwan by setting up a new culture, not just focus on the products alone,” country manager Ben Ng (黃旗興) said.
CARDIF Taiwan believes there is a huge uncontested market in this nation in terms of credit insurance that insurers and banks can explore jointly, Ng said.
Two weeks ago, New York-based MetLife Inc agreed to sell its Taiwanese unit to Chinatrust Financial Holding Co (中信金控) for US$180 million, citing growth constraints stemming from the lack of its own distribution channel.
MetLife’s exit, which still needs regulatory approval, came two months after American International Group Inc inked a deal to divest itself of its local unit, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽).
In October last year, MassMutual International Holdings MSC Inc, another US insurance firm, decided to sell its stake in MassMutual Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽保險) to its Taiwanese partner for US$68.02 million.
One month earlier, British insurer Aviva PLC sought to end the joint venture with the state-run First Financial Holding Co (第一金控), but the Financial Supervisory Commission rejected the request.
CARDIF Taiwan has a positive view on Taiwan.
The insurer said only 7 percent of bank loans are insured, suggesting there was ample business opportunity for credit insurance products, said Jack Chang (張志杰), senior vice president at CARDIF Taiwan.
The insurer tops rivals in sales of mortgage life insurance policies and aims to raise its penetration rate from the current 15 percent to 40 percent within three years.
CARDIF Taiwan expects the forthcoming luxury tax to benefit the sales of unit-linked products, as “some idle funds will flow from real estate market to unit-linked insurance products,” Chang said
Unit-linked products may receive a further boost this year because a total of NT$800 billion (US$27.5 billion) worth of structured notes and interest-sensitive annuity insurance policies are due to mature, Chang said.
Peng Jin-lung (彭金隆), risk management and insurance professor at National Chengchi University, said bancassurance in Taiwan may see qualitative transformation after evolving into the mainstream sales channel in recent years.
“A healthy advancement entails long, serious commitment on both parts of insurers and their banking partners,” Peng said by telephone. “They must not assign too much importance to commissions, but focus on the needs of customers and develop products with sustainable benefits.”
SMART MANUFACTURING: The company aims to have its production close to the market end, but attracting investment is still a challenge, the firm’s president said Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said its long-term global production plan would stay unchanged amid geopolitical and tariff policy uncertainties, citing its diversified global deployment. With operations in Taiwan, Thailand, China, India, Europe and the US, Delta follows a “produce at the market end” strategy and bases its production on customer demand, with major site plans unchanged, Delta president Simon Chang (張訓海) said on the sidelines of a company event yesterday. Thailand would remain Delta’s second headquarters, as stated in its first-quarter earnings conference, with its plant there adopting a full smart manufacturing system, Chang said. Thailand is the firm’s second-largest overseas
‘REMARKABLE SHOWING’: The economy likely grew 5 percent in the first half of the year, although it would likely taper off significantly, TIER economist Gordon Sun said The Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (TIER) yesterday raised Taiwan’s GDP growth forecast for this year to 3.02 percent, citing robust export-driven expansion in the first half that is likely to give way to a notable slowdown later in the year as the front-loading of global shipments fades. The revised projection marks an upward adjustment of 0.11 percentage points from April’s estimate, driven by a surge in exports and corporate inventory buildup ahead of possible US tariff hikes, TIER economist Gordon Sun (孫明德) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy likely grew more than 5 percent in the first six months
SUPPLY RESILIENCE: The extra expense would be worth it, as the US firm is diversifying chip sourcing to avert disruptions similar to the one during the pandemic, the CEO said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) on Wednesday said that the chips her company gets from supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) would cost more when they are produced in TSMC’s Arizona facilities. Compared with similar parts from factories in Taiwan, the US chips would be “more than 5 percent, but less than 20 percent” in terms of higher costs, she said at an artificial intelligence (AI) event in Washington. AMD expects its first chips from TSMC’s Arizona facilities by the end of the year, Su said. The extra expense is worth it, because the company is
The seizure of one of the largest known mercury shipments in history, moving from mines in Mexico to illegal Amazon gold mining zones, exposes the wide use of the toxic metal in the rainforest, according to authorities. Peru’s customs agency, SUNAT, found 4 tonnes of illegal mercury in Lima’s port district of Callao, according to a report by the non-profit Environmental Investigations Agency (EIA). “This SUNAT intervention has prevented this chemical from having a serious impact on people’s health and the environment, as can be seen in several areas of the country devastated by the illegal use of mercury and illicit activities,”
RSS