SEOUL, March 7 (Korea Bizwire) – The issuance of asset-backed securities (ABS) in South Korea tumbled nearly 27 percent in 2016 from a year earlier as the local property market remained sluggish, data showed Tuesday. The amount of ABS issues totaled 60.7 trillion won (US$52.6 billion) last year, down 26.8 percent from the previous year, [...]
SEOUL, March 2 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s top-three life insurers – Samsung, Hanwha and Kyobo – have decided to pay all overdue suicide claims, giving in to regulators’ punitive steps, industry officials said Thursday. Samsung will pay a total of 174 billion won (US$152 million) in respect of its policyholders who committed suicide on [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea’s financial regulator on Thursday ordered three insurance firms to halt some of their operations as a punitive measure over their overdue suicide insurance benefits. The three insurers — Samsung Life Insurance, Hanwha Life Insurance and Kyobo Life Insurance — have been criticized for failing to pay out [...]
SEOUL, Feb. 8 (Korea Bizwire) – Ticket Monster, South Korea’s leading social commerce company, announced Tuesday the launch of a comparative website dubbed T-Mon Finance Mall (translated), which allows customers to compare some 5,800 on and offline financial products from 220 companies. The products available include credit cards, insurance, loans, bank accounts, installment savings, and [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 30 (Korea Bizwire) – The sales of non-life insurance products via the Internet soared last year, as local insurance firms rushed to roll out cheap and online-only products to woo customers, data showed Monday. According to the General Insurance Association of Korea, local non-life insurance companies raised a total of 1.4 trillion won [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 23 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea is pushing to revise its national health insurance program to halve the fees for low income earners in an effort to make health care more affordable, officials said Monday. The Ministry of Health and Welfare released a revision to the national health insurance system, subject to parliamentary [...]
SEOUL, Jan. 2 (Korea Bizwire) – Starting Monday, consumers will have more options available when they search for car insurance on Boheom Damoa (e-insmarket.or.kr), a comparison website for various insurance products (including car, health, travel, etc.). According to the Financial Services Commission, the website, which in the past only allowed insurance premium comparisons for domestic [...]
SEOUL, Dec. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – Major insurance companies in South Korea are increasing their capital to prepare for new accounting rules set to take effect next year and more U.S. rate hikes, industry sources said Monday. Local insurance companies are estimated to expand their capital by a combined 1.41 trillion won (US$1.17 billion) this [...]
SEOUL, Oct. 20 (Korea Bizwire) – South Korea will revise a law and administrative regulations on the local banking industry to make it easier for banks here to tap into insurance and investment-related businesses, and open new offices abroad, the financial regulator said Thursday. The move is meant to give local banks more autonomy in [...]
SEOUL, Sept. 26 (Korea Bizwire) – Amid rapid automotive innovation that has promoted enhanced driving safety, car insurance may gradually become nonessential. According to a KIDI report released Monday, if 50 percent of domestic vehicles are equipped with level 1 function-specific automation (NHTSA), including autonomous emergency and autonomous reverse braking technologies, annual insurance payouts will [...]