Major life insurers this month continued to cut their declared interest rates for interest-sensitive products, as companies face falling investment returns amid a low-interest rate environment.
Life insurers release the rates on a monthly basis, which are based primarily on their investment returns.
Cathay Life Insurance Co (國泰人壽), the nation’s largest life insurer with a market share of 19.45 percent, reduced its declared interest rates for one New Taiwan dollar-denominated policy and three Australian dollar-denominated policies by 10 basis points each.
After the revision, rates for its NT dollar policy slid to between 1.45 percent and 1.65 percent, while those for its Australian dollar policies fell to a range of 2.3 percent to 3.05 percent, company data showed.
Fubon Life Insurance Co (富邦人壽), the second-largest life insurer with a market share of 17.2 percent, maintained the rates for its NT dollar products at 1.05 percent to 2.25 percent, but cuts its rate for a Chinese yuan-denominated product by 10 basis point to 2.9 percent, it said.
Transglobe Life Insurance Co (全球人壽), with a market share of 2.91 percent, trimmed its declared interest rate for NT dollar policies by 8 basis points to 1.92 percent.
Transglobe was the fourth life insurer to reduce rates for NT dollar policies to below 2 percent, after Cathay Life, Nan Shan Life Insurance Co (南山人壽) and Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽).
Nan Shan, which cut its rates for NT dollar products to 1.95 percent in July, yesterday left its rates unchanged for this month.
Shin Kong Life Insurance Co (新光人壽) yesterday trimmed the rates for some of its NT dollar policies by between 7 and 25 basis points in light of rising foreign-exchange hedging expenses, pushing its rates down to between 0.81 percent and 2 percent.
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