Taiwan's Life Insurers Increase Investment by NT$40 B. on Domestic Bourse in February

Taipei, April 13, 2011 (CENS)--Taiwan's life-insurance firms increased investments in domestic bourse by approximately NT$40 billion combined in February when the stock market shed around 6%.

Domestic life-insurance industry in a whole had stock position of approximately NT$680 billion at the end of February. Thanks to the slide of stock prices, the industry saw NT$18 billion in net worth evaporated with unfulfilled gains from securities cut by NT$27 billion in February alone.

Despite the decline of domestic bourse, some life insurers, including Cathay Life Insurance Co., China Life Insurance Co., Bank Taiwan Life Insurance Co., Nan Shan Life Insurance Co., Shin Kong Life Insurance Co., MassMutual Mercuries Life Insurance Co., and the Life Insurance Department of Chunghwa Post Co., all stepped up investments in domestic stock market.

Thanks to the short-term depreciation of local currency against the U.S. greenback, Taiwan's 30 life insurance companies could offset on-account losses from foreign exchange position, leading to a handsome profits of NT$6.9 billion combined, with 18 of which posting net profits, in the first two months of this year.

As regard to the operations in the first two months, Fubon Life Assurance Co. was the most profitable by posting NT$5.06 billion in net income, followed by China Life with NT$1.8 billion, and Shin Kong Life with NT$1.08 billion.

Cathay Life increased investments in domestic bourse the most with an increase of NT$20 billion in February, Nan Shan and Shin Kong each raised investments by between NT$4 billion and NT$5 billion, others like the Life Insurance Department of Chunghwa Post Co., global Life Insurance Co., Kuo Hua Life Insurance Co., MassMutual Mercuries and China Life each hiked investments by between NT$1 billion and NT$3 billion in the same month.

The Life Insurance Association of the Republic of China says domestic life insurance companies have adopted flexible operations in making investments in domestic bourse since the beginning of this year as they are trying hard to disperse risks from investments.