New Insurance Choices Appear in ChinaInsurance firms in China have introduced a series of new dividend-paying insurance options this year.The new options enable policy-holders to share insurers' profits by offering dividends. Experts referred to the shift from traditional insurance methods as part of China's effort to prepare the life insurance sector for the country's anticipated entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Wu Xiaoping, vice-chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, said that China's life insurance sector is expecting fierce competition from overseas insurance companies once the country enters the WTO. The most pressing task facing the domestic life insurance sector now is to sharpen its international competitiveness by improving management and providing better services, Wu told an international forum on the management and development of China's life insurance here. China's insurance sector has maintained an annual average growth rate of nearly 40 percent since the country resumed insurance business in the early 1980s. Last year, the sector reported a premium income of 139.3 billion yuan (about US$17 billion), 62.6 percent of which came from life insurance. However, Wu said, the Chinese insurance market has witnessed a slowdown in growth since last year. "The insurance sector is at the critical stage of a shift from traditional insurance coverage, which was similar to savings deposits," Wu said, stressing that the shift requires a change in business concept and an overall improvement in management. According to Wu, insurance methods that enable policy-holders to share insurers' profits by offering dividends are now dominating the insurance market in developed countries such as the United States. |
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