New regulatory criteria announced by Saudi Arabia's Insurance Authority for motor insurance pricing should strengthen underwriting discipline, reduce excessive price competition and support the long-term sustainability of the motor insurance segment, Moody's Ratings (Moody's) says.
Kazakhstan plans to widen conditions for the development of Islamic insurance (takaful) and the expansion of the range of Shariah-compliant insurance products, including allowing the forming of takaful windows.
India's insurance regulator has proposed limits on distribution costs and commissions as part of a broad overhaul aimed at reducing the cost of insurance and strengthening safeguards for policyholders.
FWD Life Insurance Company (Bermuda) Limited has been ordered to pay a HK$19.5m penalty by Hong Kong's insurance regulator over shortcomings in the insurer's controls on third-party payments. The Insurance Authority (IA) imposed the penalty following an on-site inspection under the Anti-Money Laundering and Counter-Terrorist Financing Ordinance (Cap. 615).
Agricultural insurance, as a specialised tool for managing agricultural risks, is undergoing significant changes under China's revised Agriculture Law. The current law essentially addresses the question of whether agricultural insurance exists. The revised law goes further, addressing how well it works, whether it is fair, and whether it is sustainable.
The supervisory rating system is fragmented, opaque and reliant on relative rankings, disadvantaging small and foreign insurers and undermining China's efforts to build a diversified market and a level playing field, says the Insurance Working Group (IWG) of the European Chamber in China.
Unclear access criteria and hurdles in obtaining macro and segment-specific market data from official sources impede insurance intermediaries' and service providers' engagement in market research, risk assessment and strategy development, the Insurance Working Group (IWG) of the European Chambers says.
China's financial regulatory system has yet to explicitly recognise regional headquarters of insurance groups or clearly define their functions. Rather, it has been primarily focussed on licensed legal-entity financial institutions and their branches. It has yet to explicitly recognise regional headquarters (RHQs) or clearly define their functions.
Participating insurance products are set to have industry-wide model clauses for the first time, as the Insurance Association of China (IAC) has drafted three sets of model clauses for this product line.
On 16 September, the Insurance Association of China (IAC) released draft model policy provisions for long-term medical insurance, short-term medical insurance, and city-specific customised commercial medical insurance (Huiminbao). This marks the first time that the three major categories of commercial medical insurance have been incorporated into a unified contractual model framework.