Local life insurers’ first-year premiums (FYP) totaled NT$40.88 billion (US$1.47 billion) last month, dropping by more than half from NT$83.6 billion a year earlier and hitting their lowest in six months, data from the Life Insurance Association showed yesterday.
On a monthly basis, they were down 25 percent from NT$54.76 billion, the data showed.
Traditional life insurance policies still dominated the market, but their FYPs plummeted 61 percent annually to NT$26.66 billion last month, making up 65 percent of total FYPs, the data showed.
Photo courtesy of Nan Shan Life Insurance Co
Sales of all types of traditional life insurance policies dropped, although accident insurance and health insurance posted more moderate falls of 12 percent to NT$802 million and 14 percent to NT$3.21 billion respectively, the data showed.
FYPs of investment-linked policies dipped 6 percent to NT$14.22 billion in the month, marking the first annual decrease this year.
The association attributed the decline last month to the COVID-19 outbreak in Taiwan, as insurance agents could not visit clients in person, while online sales proved to be less effective, it said.
Sales of insurance policies for people under quarantine or who experience adverse reactions to COVID-19 vaccines are growing, but most of those policies are offered by property insurers, it said.
Expecting that life insurers would launch policies with lower premiums in response to a new mortality table taking effect this month, prospective buyers likely turned more conservative and preferred to wait for new products, it said.
In the new mortality table, the average mortality rate fell 30 percent compared with the previous table, which should lead to cuts in the premiums of insurance policies, especially protection-type products, the Financial Supervisory Commission said.
In the first six months of the year, total FYPs dropped 10.8 percent annually to NT$364 billion, with sales of traditional life insurance products falling 31 percent to NT$223 billion, while sales of investment-linked policies rose 66 percent to NT$140 billion, data showed.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
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
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
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],”