Insurance businesses remained the most controversial in the financial services industry, with the Financial Ombudsman Institution receiving 1,710 complaints about insurance policies or insurers in the second quarter, up 5 percent from the first quarter and accounting for 76 percent of all disputes, agency data showed.
The agency received 402 complaints about banks, or 18 percent of the 2,249 complaints received, and 129 about securities firms, or 5.7 percent, the data showed.
Life insurers and their products accounted for 1,134 of the complaints, or 66 percent of the complaints against the insurance sector, the data showed.
Taipei Times file photo
Most disputes with life insurers were over compensation, the agency said in a report on Aug. 31.
Other common disputes with life insurers were over the types of treatment required, the surgeries covered by policies and pre-existing conditions, as well as delayed payments by insurers, said the Financial Ombudsman Institution, which investigates consumer disputes against financial services firms and facilitates settlements.
Of the 528 complaints against property insurance firms, the two most common were compensation amounts and the identification of disability ratings, the report said.
The agency received the most complaints about products sold by Hontai Life Insurance Co (宏泰人壽), followed by First Life Insurance Co (第一金人壽) and the Taiwan branch of Cardif Assurance Vie (法國巴黎人壽), it said.
The most property insurance complaints were received about the Taiwan branch of Cardif Assurance Risques Divers (法國巴黎產物保險), followed by AIG Taiwan (美國國際產物保險) and Hotai Insurance Co (和泰產險), it added.
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
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],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained