The market value of equity assets of life insurance companies declined 26.3 percent year-on-year (YoY) in FY20 to Rs 6.63 lakh crore. The quarter-on-quarter fall was steeper. Data from the Life Insurance Council showed the value fell 35.5 percent from the Rs 8.9 lakh crore figure at the end of Q3FY20. The equity assets value is at its lowest since FY16 when the figure stood at Rs 5.95 lakh crore. The FY20 performance was also impacted by the nationwide lockdown. Industry sources said this decline was purely due to the markets reacting to the COVID-19 pandemic in India and the globe. “While life insurance is a long-term investment, policyholder funds are also invested in the equity markets....
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Data accessibility feeds into the key drivers for modernization. Life insurers are exploring new business capabilities that leverage predictive analytics to replace fluid underwriting. Integrations are the most time-consuming part of the project. Developing a robust end-to-end test strategy and using automated testing tools ensures applications and integrations are working properly. One of the challenges life insurers face is balancing the need to launch new products quickly with the long-term goal of converting legacy products to the new platform. Understanding the in-force block and developing a data conversion strategy is imperative. "Modernizing a core policy admin system is a...
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Insurer Guardrisk offers to settle with up to 700 virus-hit firms The country's insurers, in line with the industry globally, have declined to pay out under business interruption policies that many firms thought would give them cover because they argue lockdowns were not included in the policies. JOHANNESBURG - South Africa's fourth largest non-life insurer Guardrisk has opted to settle with up to 700 small business clients who are fighting its decision to reject their claims related to the impact of a coronavirus lockdown, the firm told Reuters. The country's insurers, in line with the industry globally, have declined to pay out under business interruption policies that many firms...
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Key facts In June 2020, MetLife quietly adopted an investment policy that restricts new investments in some coal companies, according to its most recent sustainability report. The policy states that MetLife’s general account will make “no new investments in miners or utilities deriving 25% or more of their revenue from thermal coal.” This screen will be “implemented prior to year-end 2020.” This new coal policy makes MetLife the first major US life insurer to adopt a policy on coal investing. The life insurance company is joining a global movement of insurers shifting capital out of the dirty fuel. To date, nineteen global insurers have adopted policies...
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Last week the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa) released the statistics for long term insurance claims made during 2017. Life insurers paid out R469 billion to beneficiaries and policyholders during the year. This was contrasted against R1.13 billion worth of claims that were found to be irregular and therefore repudiated. The statistics did not show the number of claims that were paid out, but a total of 5 026 were declined. This included 2 111 death claims and 775 disability claims. The tables below show the reasons for insurers repudiating these claims: There are a number of interesting points to these statistics. The first is that, by these figures, life...
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Over the last four years, the Dutch Central Bank (De Nederlandsche Bank, DNB) has investigated the compliance of insurers (both life and non-life) with the Dutch sanctions rules and regulations. Recently DNB published its findings stating that during this period improvements were made, but that there is still a lack of awareness among insurers of the risks that they face in the sanctions domain. In this article, we will consider the results of DNB’s investigations. We will also address a number of topics that have been addressed in a recently published Q&A by DNB on compliance with the Dutch Sanctions Act (Sanctiewet 1977, the Sanctions Act) by non-life insurers. This article...
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Life insurers can boost customer numbers and loyalty with gamification and rewards Three evenly spaced dots forming an ellipsis: "...". Two crossed lines that form an 'X'. It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification. This story was delivered to Business Insider Intelligence Fintech Pro subscribers earlier this morning. Sixty-eight percent of respondents said they would be likely to engage with incentive programs to reward a healthy lifestyle and wellness habits, if offered by their insurer, according to a new The Harris Poll survey conducted on behalf of SE2 and Life.io. Business Insider Intelligence And while 43% of consumers don't own life insurance,...
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Life insurers declined more than 2,000 death claims in 2017 The public perception of life insurers is that they are far more eager to find reasons to not pay claims than to honour them. Last week the Association for Savings and Investment South Africa (Asisa) released the statistics for long-term insurance claims made during 2017. Life insurers paid out R469 billion to beneficiaries and policyholders during the year. This was contrasted against R1.13 billion worth of claims that were found to be irregular and therefore repudiated. The statistics did not show the number of claims that were paid out, but a total of 5 026 were declined. This included 2 111 death claims and 775 disability...
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Many life insurers are "stigmatising" people who are HIV-positive by refusing to offer them life cover or loading premiums to unaffordable levels, it was claimed this week. Compass, a firm of financial advisers that offers specialist advice to gay and HIV-positive communities, said its research had found that eight of the top 12 UK insurers said they did not accept applications from HIV-positive people. When it submitted a test case to the four insurers that said they did accept applications, two – Scottish Provident and Fortis – declined it altogether, said Chris Morgan, marketing manager of the Devon-based firm. Of the other two companies, Zurich loaded the premium so much the customer...
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Reduced cover for a few policies without medical tests, bundled protection and health plan, annual premium payments on EMI basis and even external benchmark-linked products. These are some of the innovations in the production structure being proposed by life insurance companies to the regulator even as coronavirus has impacted business. Industry officials told Moneycontrol this is still at a proposal stage and the regulator (IRDAI) will soon take a decision on this matter. The coronavirus-led lockdown that started on March 25 completely halted face-to-face interaction with customers. This was followed by a spate of job and pay cuts across companies in India leading to financial...
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