AIA Group Ltd and Manulife Financial Corp are among bidders for Siam Commercial Bank’s life insurance operations in what could be the biggest-ever acquisition of a Southeast Asian insurer, people with knowledge of the matter said. Thai billionaire Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi is partnering with Singapore’s Great Eastern Holdings Ltd on a non-binding offer,...
India’s state-owned general insurance giants Oriental Insurance, National Insurance, and United India Insurance, who together have 34 percent of the total market share and underwriting total direct premium of over INR33,000 crore (USD49.6 billion), are likely to be merged to create a stronger entity to fetch better valuations at the...
Australian insurer Suncorp Group Ltd has said it will consider the sale of its AUD2 billion (USD1.5 billion) life insurance division, becoming the latest firm to look at reducing its exposure to the troubled market. The Brisbane-based company announced a review of “strategic alternatives” for the life insurance unit as...
The General Insurance Association of Malaysia (PIAM), the regulator representing all insurers in the country, has released figures for 2016. Growth in the insurance industry has tapered to just 1.1 percent in 2016, which is the lowest seen in many years. That’s half the 2.2 percent growth rate in 2015....
China’s insurance regulator is cooling down the sector by tightening the issuance of business licences and cracking down on short-term products players have relied on in the last few years. After a shadow-financing-backed stock bull run collapsed and wiped out trillions of dollars of market value in just a few...
The insurance industry is just a step away from developing tailor-made insurance premiums from health data received from wearable devices, according to a report in the Japan Times. Life insurers are developing products that offer bigger discounts to healthy policyholders with less risk. In some products, insurers set premium levels...
South Korea’s Ministry of Health and Welfare announced recently a plan to overhaul the national health insurance scheme to reduce the fees for the low-income earners and hike those for the wealthy. The proposal’s main beneficiaries will be about six million households — mostly self-employed — who will see their monthly...
In the wake of the 7.8 magnitude Kaikoura quake in 2016, Insurance Council chief executive Tim Grafton said international reinsurers he has spoken to were “mildly interested but not deeply disturbed” by the Kaikoura damage. “There was no balking at providing our insurance cover, but that’s not to say we haven’t had signals...
A paper presentation at a conference on the outlook for Agribusiness stated that digital technologies and insurance innovation could aid risk management in Australian agriculture. “Australia is one of the riskiest agricultural countries in the world in terms of agricultural production,” said Jay Horton, an agribusiness consultant with Strategis Partners....
AXA has announced the consolidation of its general and life insurance businesses under a single entity called AXA Insurance. AXA Insurance Singapore transferred its business to AXA Life Insurance Singapore recently, the company said in a statement, with the single entity being granted a composite insurance licence. The merger was...
