Press Release
TII hosted East Asia Pacific Insurance Forum 2024 – Unfolding Groundbreaking Vision of Protection
The Taiwan Insurance Institute (TII) hosted the “East Asia Pacific Insurance Forum 2024” on August 20, 2024 in Taipei. With Protection gaps becoming an important issue, posed by challenges such as medical advancement, the wave of aging and increasing severity of NatCAT, the Forum this year is themed “Unfolding Groundbreaking Vision of Protection”, focusing on two major topics “Protection for health, medical, aging and retirement” and “New strategies in response to NatCAT and parametric (re)insurance”, with solutions being addressed through keynote speech and panel discussion. A total of 225 participants attended, including broad spectrum of senior executives from the insurance industry.
TII has organized “East Asia Pacific Insurance Forum” since 2018, missioned to establish a platform for exchanges and interactions between insurance organizations, associations in Asia-Pacific as well as insurance industry in Taiwan. This year, in terms of TII’s MoU partners, aside from GIIJ of Japan and KIDI of Korea continuing to share insights, NAIC Chair of the Midwest Zone, U.S.A. also came to Taiwan to address in person, to explore the above issues from international perspective and demonstrate the good rapport with the international insurance industry.
Ms. Jean Chiu, Vice Chairperson of the Financial Supervisory Commission was invited to address the Forum, pointing out that Taiwan has recovered from the most challenging year in 2022, to show its resilience, while facing three challenges: (1) smoothly phasing in new solvency regime in 2026, (2) increased costs for international reinsurance due to extreme weather and catastrophe losses and (3) transition to a super-aged society by 2025. As such, she mentioned that the FSC has implemented and promoted initiatives involving both public and private sectors to reduce protection gaps and enhance social safety net. She reminded the industry of the key issue to tackle the challenges posed by an aging population and climate change, while transforming these challenges into opportunities, thus aiming to fulfill its social value of providing insurance protection. She further pointed out that it will rely on collective efforts from the insurance industry and international collaboration. It is expected that insurance practitioners not only to uphold the core principle of "protection", but also improve their professionalism to offer products and services that meet evolving customer needs, fulfilling the “people-centric” value of insurance.
To be in concert with the above issues and provide solutions, the Forum started with the keynote speech delivered by Ms. Anita G. Fox, the Director of Michigan Department of Insurance and Financial Services (DIFS)/ NAIC Chair of the Midwest Zone and Chair of Health Insurance and Managed Care Committee, to outlook the health insurance development in the U.S. Mr. Hiroyuki Gotoh, President of the General Insurance Institute of Japan (GIIJ) shared the efforts to mitigate NatCAT protection gap in Japan. Mr. Dae-Gyu Kim, Head of the Long Term Insurance Department in Korea Insurance Development Institute (KIDI), sharing new insights to the insurance amid population aging.
In the afternoon session, global reinsurance experts were invited to share their expertise. Mr. Yifan Fu, Head of Analytics, Greater China, Aon Reinsurance Solutions, elaborated the development and application of (re)insurance, and Dr. Raymond Ning, Chief Underwriter and Medical Officer, Munich Reinsurance Company Hong Kong Branch, analyzed the global health insurance product strategy, providing the insurance industry with new thoughts and direction to address the protection gap from reinsurance perspective.
The Forum concluded with a panel discussion, with domestic and international experts invited to explore the future prospect of health/medical insurance. Panelists, in addition to Director Anita G. Fox and Dr. Raymond Ning, Dr. Wei-Chi Hsu from Shing-Kong WHS Memorial Hospital also joined the panel. It is hoped to deepen participants’ communication and vision by taking perspectives from international experts.
The Forum invited international and local well-known speakers to share their insights, active discussions and fruitful thoughts were inspired during the Forum, enabling insurance practitioners with the possibilities of future development from multiple perspectives, strengthening international cooperation and exchanges among the insurance industry, further turning into a new chapter for the insurance industry in Taiwan.
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East Asia Pacific Insurance Forum 2024- Group Photo
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East Asia Pacific Insurance Forum 2024- Opening Remarks by Vice Chair Chiu