December 22, 2024
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Looking East

Looking East

New amendment bill in Indian insurance sector discouraged

Indians are up in arms as the new Amendment Bill 2008 is being proposed. The Bill, which is yet to be approved, seeks to liberalise the insurance sector by increasing the foreign direct investment cap from 26 per cent to 49 per cent.  The proposed legislation could be a game changer and could...

German online broker to launch in Australia

German brokerage Friendsurance, which is based on social networking, is set to launch in Australia. The innovative brokerage plans to launch an offering this year, according to Perry Abbott, executive director of Friendsurance and Vantage Fund, which has a stake in the peer-to-peer intermediary. The brokerage Friendsurance uses Facebook to...

Euler Hermes sets up political and trade risk insurance team

Euler Hermes is expanding its services in Asia Pacific with the addition of a specialised single risk and political risk insurance team based in Singapore.   “We’ve extended the reach of our transactional cover policies to Asia Pacific to help large clients in the region take advantage of attractive opportunities in both...

Compulsory liability cover for doctors

The Beijing Municipal Health Bureau plans to compel all the capital's public medical organisations to take out medical malpractice insurance, in which coverage will extend to doctors and other professionals against liability arising from patient care, according to news sources. According to a report by the Beijing Insurance Regulatory Committee...

New India Assurance expands to Guyana

New India Assurance Company Ltd is planning to expand to Guyana from its T&T subsidiary’s head office in Port-of-Spain. The company’s global chairman Gopalan Srinivasan said: “Globally, we are trying to expand into Canada, Qatar in the Middle East and Myanmar, or Burma, which is opening up now. In this part...

ACE to acquire stake in Thailand insurer

ACE Limited announced that the company and its local partner have reached a conditional agreement to purchase a 60.9 percent stake in The Siam Commercial Samaggi Insurance PCL, a general insurance company in Thailand, from Siam Commercial Bank. Bangkok-based Siam Commercial Samaggi Insurance is a major writer of auto, small...

NKSJ Holdings acquires Canopius

Japanese insurer NKSJ Holdings has acquired Canopius for EUR594 million as it moves to expand its global footprint with its purchase of the London market player. NKSJ Holdings has agreed through its subsidiary Sompo Insurance to acquire 100 percent of the shares of Canopius, pricing the acquisition at 1.5 times...

ING Life Korea sold to MBK Partners

ING announced that it has completed the divestment of ING Life Korea to MBK Partners, a Korean private equity firm, for a total purchase price of approximately EUR1.27 billion. Under the terms of the agreement and as previously announced, ING (through ING Insurance), will hold as of the completion of...

Bangladesh govt drawing up national insurance policy

The Bangladeshi government is drawing up the country's first-ever national insurance policy, with the aim of expanding insurance coverage through reforms. The insurance regulator, Insurance Development and Regulatory Authority (IDRA), says that the draft will be finalised soon. The national policy will have short, medium and long term objectives. If...

USD3 bln needed for post-Haiyan rebuilding

The Philippines will need about USD3 billion to rebuild the various parts of the country destroyed by typhoon Haiyan, according to President Benigno Aquino. The official death toll stands at 6,033 to date, with the authorities still looking for 1,779 people listed as missing. About a million houses were destroyed,...

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