Aggregate premium incomes collected by the nation’s life insurance companies in the first half of this year totaled NT$1.02 trillion (US$32.85 billion), down 7.7 percent from the same period last year, data released yesterday by the Life Insurance Association of the ROC showed.
That figure includes first-year premiums (FYPs), which fell 16.4 percent annually to NT$263.23 billion in the first six months, while renewal premiums — the subsequent premiums paid to keep the policy active — increased 4.2 percent to NT$753.97 billion over the same period, the association said in a report.
By product, traditional insurance policies generated premiums of NT$918.43 billion in the first half of this year, decreasing 7 percent year-on-year, with their FYPs falling 14.6 percent to NT$206.14 billion and renewal premiums dropping 4.5 percent to NT$712.29 billion over the period, the report said.
Photo courtesy of Nan Shan Life Insurance Co
Investment-linked insurance policies contributed premiums of NT$98.78 billion in the January-to-June period, falling 13.7 percent year-on-year, with FYPs down 22.5 percent to NT$57.1 billion.
However, renewal premiums rose 2.1 percent to NT$41.68 billion, it said.
The association blamed the decline in premiums of traditional insurance products on the effects of interest rate hikes by central banks, as local life insurers became conservative under the monetary tightening environment and moved slower to raise the declared interest rates for their products.
Although higher declared rates mean higher bonuses for policyholders, they leave insurers vulnerable to foreign-exchange risks, as most of their investments target overseas assets.
As a result, policyholders were either waiting or allocating their funds for other purposes, which was slowing sales of traditional insurance products, the association added.
As for the fall in premiums of investment-type insurance policies, the association pointed to the uncertainty in the global economy, which affects insurance policyholders’ attitude toward investment.
Sweeping policy changes under US Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr are having a chilling effect on vaccine makers as anti-vaccine rhetoric has turned into concrete changes in inoculation schedules and recommendations, investors and executives said. The administration of US President Donald Trump has in the past year upended vaccine recommendations, with the country last month ending its longstanding guidance that all children receive inoculations against flu, hepatitis A and other diseases. The unprecedented changes have led to diminished vaccine usage, hurt the investment case for some biotechs, and created a drag that would likely dent revenues and
Global semiconductor stocks advanced yesterday, as comments by Nvidia Corp chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) at Davos, Switzerland, helped reinforce investor enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI). Samsung Electronics Co gained as much as 5 percent to an all-time high, helping drive South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI above 5,000 for the first time. That came after the Philadelphia Semiconductor Index rose more than 3 percent to a fresh record on Wednesday, with a boost from Nvidia. The gains came amid broad risk-on trade after US President Donald Trump withdrew his threat of tariffs on some European nations over backing for Greenland. Huang further
Macronix International Co (旺宏), the world’s biggest NOR flash memory supplier, yesterday said it would spend NT$22 billion (US$699.1 million) on capacity expansion this year to increase its production of mid-to-low-density memory chips as the world’s major memorychip suppliers are phasing out the market. The company said its planned capital expenditures are about 11 times higher than the NT$1.8 billion it spent on new facilities and equipment last year. A majority of this year’s outlay would be allocated to step up capacity of multi-level cell (MLC) NAND flash memory chips, which are used in embedded multimedia cards (eMMC), a managed
CULPRITS: Factors that affected the slip included falling global crude oil prices, wait-and-see consumer attitudes due to US tariffs and a different Lunar New Year holiday schedule Taiwan’s retail sales ended a nine-year growth streak last year, slipping 0.2 percent from a year earlier as uncertainty over US tariff policies affected demand for durable goods, data released on Friday by the Ministry of Economic Affairs showed. Last year’s retail sales totaled NT$4.84 trillion (US$153.27 billion), down about NT$9.5 billion, or 0.2 percent, from 2024. Despite the decline, the figure was still the second-highest annual sales total on record. Ministry statistics department deputy head Chen Yu-fang (陳玉芳) said sales of cars, motorcycles and related products, which accounted for 17.4 percent of total retail rales last year, fell NT$68.1 billion, or
RSS