General
Assessing crop-insurance risk in India remains a challenge
Life & health
Health insurers must keep innovating to contain costs in Asia
Banking on partnerships
Think Tank - The Geneva Association: Addressing obstacles to life insurance demand
View from India - COVID-19: The way ahead for the Indian insurance industry
Learning from the best
For HNW individuals, life insurance is good medicine in these times
Natural Catastrophes: Keeping an eye on the elephant in the room
Rational and prudent reinsurance renewals
Much-needed breathing space
Singapore: Postponement is a positive development
Hong Kong: Deferment provides impetus for insurers to improve operations
Australia: Room to breathe and a chance to improve
India: More time will ensure proper implementation
South Korea: Insurers must use IFRS17 deferment wisely
Malaysia: Delay allows for more breathing space
Sri Lanka: Delay will help industry deal with operational issues
Hong Kong
Strengthening supervision - protecting policyholders
Market remains resilient in the face of crisis
InsurTech 2.0
Uplifting the insurance industry through evolving times
A time of trouble
Resilient in a year of adversity
Real world results from digital efforts
Online health insurance now and tomorrow
View from India - Musings of an actuary
Re-evaluate skillsets and prepare for the challenges
Fortifying defences against cyber attacks
Creating a post-COVID virtual insurer
Insurers face challenge on validity of BI claims during COVID-19
Switching strategies to ride out the storm
Adjusting to a post-pandemic normal
Pandemic transforms travel insurance
One plus one equals three
Infographics
Asian
Australia: Three major insurers defer premium payments for six months
China: New regulations provide impetus for insurance asset managers
India: IRDAI rejects general insurers' call for easing of solvency margins
Malaysia: Insurance market expected to rebound next year from COVID-19 impact
South Korea: Insurance industry's net profit drops to lowest in 10 years
Taiwan: Blockchain pilot project simplifies insurance process for customers
Risk
Coronavirus pandemic could leave Belt and Road Initiative in limbo
Health experts call virus pandemic a window into future climate threats
Product Bites
People on the move
National pandemic risk pool
CHINA
COUNTRY PROFILE - Hong Kong
Insurance Authority chief executive officer Clement Cheung offers some insights about the year gone by and the year ahead.
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REINSURANCE
The global outbreak of COVID-19 and slightly less capacity deployed by insurance-linked securities saw reinsurers being measured in their approach to renewals.
INSURANCE - General
India’s dominant crop-insurance programme presents insurers and reinsurers with unique challenges of risk assessment.
INSURANCE - Life & health
In a number of mature economies, life insurance penetration, defined as the share of premiums in GDP, has been declining since the beginning of this century, a trend that has accelerated in the wake of the global financial crisis.
NOTEBOOK
On 1 April 2019, Marsh and McLennan Companies completed its acquisition of JLT, a move that had been in the works since September 2018 and cost $5.6bn. We look at the acquisition and merger a year into the integration.
With the shutdown around the world and working from home arrangements, we bring you a bumper read this month. With COVID-19, no one knows ‘when this too shall pass’ although there are already some 90 vaccines being rushed at different...
How can premium increases be kept to acceptable levels if medical costs inflation runs above general inflation rates, often into the double digits for individual countries?
Since 2013, over 50 bancassurance deals have been signed across Asia –with about $6bn from 15 of these partnerships.
The International Accounting Standards Board in March announced a further delay to the effective date for IFRS17 implementation to 1 January 2023.
Actuaries OnTap CEO and founder Alex King shared his thoughts on what the announced delay in IFRS17 was likely to mean for the Singapore market.
Welcoming the delay in the effective date of IFRS17, Hong Kong’s professional actuarial body sees the deferment facilitating an orderly introduction in the regional financial hub.
With nearly 100 players competing in Hong Kong’s non-life segment, it is a notoriously competitive market, sometimes at the expense of pricing discipline.
Going digital is nothing new for insurance market players. Never before, however, has it become more pressing, particularly amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
We talked to several online players to understand their views on the current and future development of the online health insurance sector.
The Indian insurance industry has not (fully) embraced technology and InsurTechs are still at a nascent stage.
INGKA China’s Robert Zhang gives us his perspective on risk management issues that companies must deal with, both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cyber risks have amplified and there are several considerations that organisations should think about in an age of remote working.
We are looking at a new normal where people must interact virtually and where unemployment rates are high. Insurers need to prepare for this.
Policyholders in some markets are taking their insurers to court for denying business interruption claims.
Asia Insurance Review’s first ever virtual briefing on survival skills in the era of pandemics had leading industry experts share their insights on dealing with the business threats and opportunities posed by the pandemic.
Insights from the industry
Three of Australia’s largest insurers - Suncorp, QBE and Allianz – have given small and medium enterprises (SMEs) the option to defer their premium payments for up to six months during the COVID-19 crisis.
The proportion of third-party funds from outside the insurance industry handled by insurance asset management companies has been growing and is expected to expand further. This will be driven by new regulations on insurance asset management that...
The IRDAI has rejected a request from general insurance companies for a blanket relaxation of solvency margins in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it said specific cases would be considered on merit.
“Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in ones that crash down on our heads from a blue sky.” – Albert Camus, The Plague, 1948