The combined first-year premiums (FYP) generated by local life insurers last month grew 28 percent to NT$80.91 billion (US$2.87 billion) from NT$63.15 billion a year earlier, fueled by sales of investment-linked insurance products, data compiled by the Life Insurance Association showed last week.
The annual growth ended 13 months of declines, the data showed.
The main growth driver was investment-linked annuities, whose FYPs advanced 1.98 times from NT$9.9 billion a year earlier to NT$29.54 billion, as consumers’ appetite for the products increased on expectations of good returns, the data showed.
Photo courtesy of Nan Shan Life Insurance Co
“Local and US stock markets continued to hit record highs, which boosted consumers’ willingness to put money into investment-linked products,” the association said in a report on Friday.
Unlike traditional life insurance policies, which pay upon the death of the insured, annuities generally focus on investment in stocks or bonds, and offer regular payments to policyholders.
The ratio of annuities’ FYPs to overall FYPs last month climbed to 36.5 percent, up from 12 percent a year earlier, the data showed.
Traditional life insurance policies generated FYPs of NT$46.56 billion, accounting for 57.5 percent of the total and down from 81 percent a year earlier, the data showed.
Traditional life insurance policies’ combined FYPs fell year-on-year for the 15th consecutive month, but the pace slowed last month to a decline of 4 percent, compared with a drop of 40 percent in February, the data showed.
The slowdown came after some insurers early last month raised their declared interest rates, which determine policyholders’ monthly bonuses, following a rise in US Treasury yields, the report said.
Meanwhile, FYPs of accident insurance policies rose 3.4 percent annually to NT$1.01 billion and those of health insurance products increased 2.9 percent to NT$3.78 billion, the data showed.
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
TRANSFORMATION: Taiwan is now home to the largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, thanks to the nation’s economic policies President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday attended an event marking the opening of Google’s second hardware research and development (R&D) office in Taiwan, which was held at New Taipei City’s Banciao District (板橋). This signals Taiwan’s transformation into the world’s largest Google hardware research and development center outside of the US, validating the nation’s economic policy in the past eight years, she said. The “five plus two” innovative industries policy, “six core strategic industries” initiative and infrastructure projects have grown the national industry and established resilient supply chains that withstood the COVID-19 pandemic, Tsai said. Taiwan has improved investment conditions of the domestic economy
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],”
MAJOR BENEFICIARY: The company benefits from TSMC’s advanced packaging scarcity, given robust demand for Nvidia AI chips, analysts said ASE Technology Holding Co (ASE, 日月光投控), the world’s biggest chip packaging and testing service provider, yesterday said it is raising its equipment capital expenditure budget by 10 percent this year to expand leading-edge and advanced packing and testing capacity amid strong artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing chip demand. This is on top of the 40 to 50 percent annual increase in its capital spending budget to more than the US$1.7 billion to announced in February. About half of the equipment capital expenditure would be spent on leading-edge and advanced packaging and testing technology, the company said. ASE is considered by analysts