Ping An Insurance (Group) Co. Ltd., listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has recently announced that its board of directors has approved the plan to merge Ping An Bank Co. with the Shenzhen Development Bank Co.

CIGNA Corp., the Philadelphia-based healthcare service provider, has announced at the Morgan Stanley Global Healthcare Conference in New York that it expects to meet its forecast consolidated adjusted income from operations as per estimates for the whole of 2010, currently set at between US$1.13 billion (EUR 869.2 million) to US$1.21 billion (EUR 931 million).

American International Assurance Co. Ltd. (AIA) is set to form a long-term and strategic bancassurance partnership with the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) with the aim of becoming a more prominent player in the Chinese insurance market.

In 2007, Bupa took a major strategic decision to sell its network of private hospitals in its long established core market in the United Kingdom (UK). This generated a capital fund of £1.44 billion (US$2.2 billion) at a time when the UK - along with other major trading nations - were starting to feel the effects of the financial tsunami. The sale provided the company with liquidity to penetrate the…

China's insurance regulator, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), has laid out new rules allowing Chinese insurance companies to diversify their investment channels to include Private Equity and Real Estate. The new rules afford Chinese insurers the chance to invest up to 10 percent of assets in real estate, as well as investing a further 5 percent of assets into private equity investments…

An unintended side effect of some provisions in the Obama administration's new healthcare plan has the potential to prevent public and private universities in the US from offering certain types of health insurance to their students, including international students.

In the latest development of the Hong Kong healthcare reform saga, the government of the Special Administrative Region has announced an insurance subsidy scheme, intended to sweeten the voluntary health insurance coverage proposal. The voluntary insurance coverage scheme is soon to commence under Hong Kong's Food and Health…

Australia-based QBE has recently announced the acquisition of Seattle Specialty Insurance Services Inc., through its US-based subsidiary Sterling National Corporation. With headquarters in Everett, Washington since 1992, Seattle Specialty Insurance Services has been providing insurance services to financial institutions, and will operate as a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sterling National.

UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) may be in the process of selecting advisers for the sale of their insurance unit. Previously, the company had been considering a public listing rather than a trade sale. This unit of the RBS Group has to be disposed of as part of the rescue package extended by the European Union when the bank ran into trouble during the global financial meltdown.

Allianz Group's dedicated corporate insurance arm, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS), is set to open up a new branch office in Madrid, Spain. Allianz Global Corporate & Security will be taking over the local portfolio of large-size corporate insurance customers from the local Allianz unit, Allianz Compañía de Seguros y Reaseguros, SA (Allianz Seguros). The new AGCS branch will work…