News Digest 20100124-20100130

Insurance News Etiqa Takaful Bhd appoints Shahril Azuar Jimin as its new CEO. http://bit.ly/cxXiRn

Shahril Is New CEO Of Etiqa Takaful :: Bernama.com

Insurance News The government proposed in GTP for insurers to reduce insurance premiums for cars, motorcycles and houses installed with security features. But surely the motor tariff will have to go in the first place. Right? http://bit.ly/8XTcx5

Five initiatives shortlisted to check crime
The Home Ministry has shortlisted five initiatives to achieve the target of reducing the overall crime index by at least 5% by the end of this year, according to the GTP Roadmap.

Insurance News HSBC Amanah Takaful will launch 7 products this year, focusing on medical and retirement. http://bit.ly/cnBWIG Meanwhile, an insurance survey by HSBC shows that 49% of Malaysians plan to save more in the next 6 months. 58% of the survey respondents are likely to buy products that offer capital protection. http://bit.ly/9L05nT

HSBC Amanah Takaful to launch 7 products in 2010
HSBC Amanah Takaful (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, the Islamic insurance arm of HSBC Bank Malaysia Bhd, plans to launch up to seven products this year. Chief executive officer Zainuddin Ishak said the company is now focused on traditional long-term plans such as retirement and medical health. ...

Insurance News Zurich Financial now says it wants to have controlling stake in its joint venture in Malaysia but would do it in such a way that all parties are comfortable. Zurich Financial currently holds 40% stake in the JV. http://bit.ly/cF3fXV

Zurich Financial eyes controlling stake in Malaysian venture
DAVOS: Swiss insurer Zurich Financial Services Ltd is exploring ways to take a controlling stake in its Malaysian joint venture and grow its business in Indonesia, its Asia-Pacific head said yesterday. ...

Insurance News Great Eastern denies that it is in talks to sell a stake in Malaysian unit. http://bit.ly/a9hgGR

Great Eastern not in talks to sell stake in Malaysian unit
GREAT Eastern Holdings Ltd (GEH) said it is not in talks to sell a stake in its Malaysian insurance arm, Great Eastern Life Assurance (Malaysia) Bhd (GELM). "We wish to state that we are currently not ...

Insurance News Allianz General is paying profit commission of RM6.26 mil to its qualifying agents (25% of its agency force) before Chinese New Year. http://bit.ly/81tH9B

Allianz pays commissions to agents early
Allianz General Insurance Co (M) Bhd (AGIC) kept its promise for the fourth consecutive year by making an early profit commission payment.In a statement today, AGIC's chief executive officer Ng Hang Ming ...

Insurance News Tokio Marine is targeting a lower growth rate of 10% in 2010 compared with the 20% it achieved in 2009. However, it still expects to outpace the industry's expected growth rate of 6-7%. Prefers non-motor lines of business e.g. fire, marine, cargo and PA. Not ruling out acquisition. http://bit.ly/81WhB0

Tokio Marine expects 10% premium growth this year
KUALA LUMPUR: Tokio Marine Insurans (Malaysia) Bhd (TMIM) expects a premium growth of between five to 10 per cent this year, its chief executive officer Dr Michael Heng Kiah Ngan, said Tuesday.

Insurance News Will Great Eastern divests it stake in Malaysia? How much is the divestment, if any? Is Khazanah the suitor or any other parties? Is divestment a pre-condition of being granted the takaful licence? Would IPO be an option if a direct shareholder cannot be found? This article may shed some light. http://bit.ly/8iwedl

Khazanah said among suitors for Great Eastern
A group of potential suitors, including state-owned investment agency Khazanah Nasional Bhd, is said to have lined up for a stake in Singapore's Great Eastern Life Assurance (Malaysia) Bhd to help realise the insurer's takaful ambition. ...

Insurance News Takaful Malaysia won the Global Diamond Award while its Group MD Hassan Kamil won the "Smart Entrepreneur" Award. http://bit.ly/6YbYwS

Takaful Malaysia, group MD win major awards

Insurance News While many may think that China and India markets are hot, Prudential is scaling back its growth ambitions in both countries. Instead investment would be pushed into fast-growing economies in southeast Asia, including Malaysia, Vietnam and Indonesia. The reason for such decision seems to be the slow relaxation of restrictions on foreign ownership of financial firms in China and India. http://bit.ly/7CJkyf

Prudential to Scale Back on India, China - NYTimes.com
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's biggest insurer Prudential has begun a shake-up of its Asian business that will see it scale back its ambitions for growth in India and China, The Sunday Times said.

Insurance News LIAM, ACE Synergy and Prudential spoke on 2010 outlook and challenges. http://bit.ly/8H8IxQ

Malaysian insurers in for better times
PETALING JAYA: Despite facing some hurdles, the local insurance industry has a promising outlook with new life business weighted premium forecast to grow 12.5% to RM3.6bil this year.

Industry outlook by LIAM

LIAM expects new business to grow at 17% and 12.5% for year 2009 and 2010 respectively. 2010 should see introduction of micro insurance and annuity products to take advantage of tax relieves announced in the Budget.

With the completion of FSMP in 2010, further liberalisation would be seen in areas such as:

• allowing insurers to distribute other personal financial service products
• removal of caps on operating expenses
• granting of new licences for innovative players

The liberalisation measures announced in 2009 are expected to result in:

• more bancassurance partnership
• opening of more branches
• higher foreign equity holding
• application of the 2 new takaful licences

Source: Business Times 1 & 2

Senior Accounts Executive

LIAM is seeking suitably qualified candidates to fill the Senior Accounts Executive vacancy. If you have a Degree in Accounting/Finance/Economics and with minimum 3 years working experience in related field, please apply directly to LIAM quoting the Reference No.: TAS200911.

For details please refer to the pdf file.

Note: Candidate who successfully fills this vacancy is NOT entitled to any of our Placement Rewards.

Life Insurance Day 2009

The Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) celebrated the Life Insurance Day 2009 today with the official launch of LIAM-NAMLIFA Blood Donation Drive.

The Launching Ceremony was officiated by the Director General of Ministry of Health, the DG represented the Minister of Health YB Dato' Sri Liow Tiong Lai.

In his speech, LIAM's President said that the nationwide blood donation set a target of attracting 1,600 blood donors at 16 centres nationwide. The blood donation drive started on 26 October and will last until 1 November.

Source: TAS Blogger, LIAM

LIAM's President delivering his speech

Director General of Health Ministry

The Official Launch of the Nationwide Blood Donation

Budget 2010: Responses

LIAM:

• Micro insurance: insurance not only for high-income earners; will work with authorities to launch the scheme
• RM1,000 tax relief on annuity: by 2020, 10% of population age >60 years; investment income earned in annuity fund should be tax free.
• Insurance penetration rate will improve, currently 41%

Source: LIAM

PIAM:

• Restructuring of motor insurance cover for 3rd party liabilities is necessary
• Lead to ultimate deregulation and liberalisation of motor and fire tariff

Source: Business Times

EPF:

• 1Malaysia Retirement Scheme will benefit 2 mil self-employed and non-wage earners
• Only 18% of 5.72 mil active members have enough savings to finance their retirements
• 40% of active members chose to contribute at 8% instead of 11%

Source: Bernama

LIAM's wish list for Budget

LIAM has listed down the following that it would like to see in the coming Budget:

• Incentives to promote financial planning
• Separate tax relief of RM6,000 for life insurance premium (rather than combined with EPF contributions)
• Tax relief for child education and medical policies to increase from RM3,000 to RM6,000
• Establishment of private pension schemes

Source: Business Times

LIAM: A(H1N1) is covered

LIAM has confirmed that all its 16 direct life member companies will be paying claims arising from hospitalisation due to A(H1N1) as well as death due to the flu.

A majority of the medical policies in the market carries exclusion on communicable diseases requiring quarantine by law. LIAM's members have decided to waive such exclusion. However the influenza will be monitored and the policyholders will be duly informed if the decision above is reversed.

Earlier Great Eastern, OAC and Etiqa announced that their medical policies cover A(H1N1).

Source: LIAM, The Star, The Edge 1 & 2, NST

LIAM's press statement on liberalisation

LIAM issued a press statement on the liberalisation of the financial sector with the following points:

• Right move to strengthen the insurance industry, enable it to compete with organisations of world standard
• More choices for consumers
• Increase the insurance penetration rate
• Issuance of 2 new takaful licences will improve takaful penetration rate, enhancing the position as MIFC
• Showcase to the world how conventional and takaful can co-exist
• Rules for conventional and takaful needs to be standardised for fair competition
• Attractive for strong MNCs to start operations or set up regional headquarters here

Source: LIAM, Business Times

LIAM's appreciation dinner

LIAM held an appreciation dinner for its ex-President Ng Lian Lu on 27 April 2009. The dinner function was attended by current and previous Presidents of LIAM, LIAM's secretariat, CEOs of life insurance companies or their representatives and selected guests.

Lian Lu served as LIAM's President from 2006-2009, stepping down after serving a maximum of 3-year term. He remains a Management Committee member.

During dinner, entertainment was provided by a singer accompanied by a keyboard player. Dinner attendees were also "invited" to make special "guess star" appearance, this included the Executive Secretary of LIAM, Nancy Tan (pic).



Source: TAS

New Management Committee for LIAM

LIAM held its AGM yesterday and a new Management Committee was elected.

Md Adnan Md Zain, the CEO of MCIS Zurich, was elected as the new President of LIAM, taking over from Ng Lian Lu who has served a maximum term of 3 years.

Ooi Say Teng, CEO of Uni.Asia, was elected Vice President. The other Management Committee members elected were:

Khor Hock Seng -- AIA
Ng Lian Lu -- AMLife
Vincent Kwo Shih Kang -- Axa Affin Life
Mohd Din Merican -- Etiqa
Koh Yaw Hui -- Great Eastern
Nirmala Menon -- ING
Muhamad Umar Swift -- MAA

Source: LIAM

LIAM denies insurer ranking

LIAM has denied that it issued any public information on the ranking of life insurance companies in Malaysia. It also clarified that the advertisements placed by a life insurance company recently was inaccurate and not endorsed by LIAM.

Other statistics on life insurance industry:

• NB individual traditional: RM2.5 bil (2008) vs RM2.1 bil (2007), growth 19.1%
• NB investment-linked: RM2.48 bil (2008) vs RM3.68 bil (2007), -ve growth 32.6%
• NB Group: RM2.14 bil (2008) vs RM1.82 bil (2007), growth 17.9%

Source: LIAM

Views on EPF Pension

Various parties have provided their views on EPF pension:

Federation of Malaysian Unit Trust Managers

Believes it can play an important role in helping the people plan early for their retirement.

LIAM

Looks forward to discuss further with relevant parties to design a suitable retirement scheme for the private sector employees.

MTUC

Should have a minimum monthly pension (e.g. RM700) to take care of low-income contributors.

CAP

Against private companies running the scheme, EPF should run it, and it should be a voluntary scheme.

NUBE

Rejects the scheme.

Source: The Star 1 & 2

LIAM Calls for Tax Incentives in Budget

Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) has called for the following additional tax incentives, to be announced in Budget 2009 today:

• Separate the tax relief of RM6,000 that is currently given to approved fund contributions and insurance premiums, so that each will be entilted to RM6,000. This mirrors the call by MIT.
• Increase the existing RM3,000 tax relief on education and medical insurance to RM6,000.
• Remove the 8% tax on investment earnings that is currently imposed on life insurance funds.
• Provide tax incentives for establishment of private pension schemes.

Meanwhile CIMB Aviva Takaful calls for life insurance and takaful contributions to be tax-exempt up to RM10,000 and education and medical insurance premiums to enjoy RM5,000 tax relief.

Source: Business Times

Insurance for Disabled

Disabled people in Malaysia apparently have difficulties getting insurance cover. One wheelchair-bound person related his story that agents were eager to sign him up for insurance when they spoke to him over the phone but changed their mind when they saw him.

At the 3rd Bakti-Mind Conference, LIAM was represented when the above was discussed at the roundtable. Another round of talks is scheduled for November and all eyes will be on LIAM to provide some solution.

Source: The Star

Financial Planning key to improve Penetration Rate

The current insurance penetration rate of 40.1% can be further improved if the industry focuses on financial planning. Manulife's CEO opines that the distribution of products should be more on needs-based approach rather than product-pushing approach.

LIAM's President concurs and thinks that the industry needs to create branding and educational campaigns to show the value of life insurance and financial planning.

Source: The Star

Inflation Impact

What impact would inflation have on insurance industry? LIAM, ACE Synergy and Manulife provided their opinions on this.

The general consensus seems to be the impact would not be significant in most aspects.

Read the article yourself to find out more.

Source: The Star

LIAM Clarified on EPF CI Scheme

Life Insurance Association of Malaysia (LIAM) clarified that it was still in talks with EPF and various parties including MTUC on the proposed EPF CI scheme.

LIAM added that the insurance plan would take into consideration the affordability level of the masses and would aim to provide maximum benefits and coverage to the public.

The scheme would also be offered to any EPF member and their depandants on an optional or voluntary basis.

Source: Business Times