A new briefing released this week by global ratings agency Fitch Ratings has warned that Italy's insurance companies cannot expect to pass their losses onto their policyholders in the unlikely event that the Italian government defaults on its upcoming debt obligations. The Euro-zone's sovereign debt crisis has continued unabated this week with Italy being the next market apparently on the verge…

Manulife Financial Corporation, Canada's largest insurance company, has signed a new two-year cooperation agreement with Bank of China in a bid to further strengthen their bancassurance distribution network and sell more insurance products in the world's second largest economy. The deal was announced at a signing ceremony in Bank of China's Beijing headquarters on Wednesday. The agreement will expand…

Prudential PLC, The largest UK-based insurer by market value, has posted a 10 percent rise in group insurance sales through the first nine months of the year, beating analyst estimates on the back of sustained double-digit premium growth in the key Southeast Asian insurance markets of Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Hong Kong. Prudential are now confident that the continued strong performance of…

Indian private hospital chain Fortis Healthcare Ltd have announced that they will fully acquire their Singapore-based sister firm Fortis Healthcare International for US$665 million, in what will be the biggest ever deal struck in India's healthcare services industry. The board of Fortis Healthcare, owned by the billionaire brothers Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, had approved the merger of their privately…

The number of Mainland Chinese citizens choosing to venture abroad for medical treatment has increased significantly in recent years in conjunction with the overall rising affluence and geo-mobility of the nation's emerging middle class population. However, while most outbound health tourists are driven by the skyrocketing healthcare costs occurring in their home countries; Chinese consumers have been…

Prudential Financial Inc, one of the world's largest life insurers, has posted a 23 percent rise in third quarter profit. Prudential has attributed much of its growth in the past year to the particularly robust performance of its Asian operations, and has been looking to further develop its business in the region to better protect itself against the market turmoil currently engulfing the United Sates…

ING Insurance Asia N.V., one of the largest active foreign insurers in Malaysia, has been granted an important exemption by the country's Securities Commission, which will enable the company to abstain from making a mandatory offer for the remaining equity stakes in its ING Public Takaful Ehsan Bhd and ING Funds Bhd operations as a result of corporate restructuring elsewhere. In a statement released…

A special report released this week by international insurance information and credit ratings agency AM Best has provided fresh analysis about recent developments occurring in China's powerhouse insurance industry. While the Chinese protection market will continue to provide tremendous business opportunities going forward, individual insurers active in the world's second largest economy will need to…

In recent weeks there has been a wave of news from within the international Health insurance industry revealing that Latin America is causing a host of issues for Health Insurance companies. The leading causes of concern are primarily fraudulent claims being submitted under plans, and massive overcharging by healthcare providers for individuals seeking treatment who are in possession of medical insurance…

A new report issued by The Central Bank of Bahrain (CBB) in October has detailed the considerable progress the small Gulf country's insurance sector has made in the past ten years. In the Insurance Decennial Report 2010, the CBB revealed that the gross premium volume generated in the Bahrain…