Change of Office Bearers
M r Stuart Harrison has been elected Deputy Chairman of HKFI following the retirement of Mr Stuart Fraser. And the latter’s position in the Governing Committee has been taken up by Ms Charity Au.
At the same time, Mr K H Wong has resigned from the General Insurance Council (GIC) after serving the Council for close to two decades.
A sincere vote of thanks to both Mr Fraser and Mr Wong for their valuable services over the past years. We wish them all the best.
Given that the current term will be ending in two months’ time, both GIC and Life Insurance Council (LIC) have decided not to run a by-election.
New IARB Chairman
I am pleased to announce that Mr Robert Y H Pang, SC, has been appointed by the Federation as the new Chairman of the Insurance Agents Registration Board (IARB) for a
term of two years commencing 20 February 2017. Mr Pang has been a member of the IARB since July 2010. He has been in full practice at the Hong Kong Bar since 1989 and was appointed Senior Counsel in 2012. He is now the ViceChairman of the Hong Kong Bar Association. I am sure that under Mr Pang’s leadership, the IARB will carry on its distinguished work of perfecting industry’s best practices and protecting the interests of consumers.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank Mr Ambrose Cheung, BBS, MH, JP, the immediate past Chairman of the IARB, for his tremendous contributions to the insurance industry for the past 12 years. Please join me in wishing him good health and all the best in future endeavours.
The Task Force on Health Care Reform met the Food and Health Bureau’s (FHB) on 16 February 2017 to discuss the outstanding issues and implementation details of the VHIS.
Our discussion focused on how to strike a proper balance between commercial viability and reasonable regulation. We expressed concerns over the potentially complicated product approval process and excessively prescriptive rules and guidelines and how these could adversely affect the take-up rate from both insurers and consumers.
The FHB is now appointing consultants for three studies on standardisation of policy, drafting of guidelines for insurers and benchmarking pricing and benefit levels. The HKFI will continue to provide input to these studies and seek views from member insurers as appropriate.
Independent Insurance Authority (IIA)
T he IIA has released the first draft of the guidelines on the collection of levy which sets out the rates, cap, billing, remittance, reporting and penalties with illustrative examples. A Members’ consultation was conducted in the past two weeks and substantive comments, questions and concerns were received. The Secretariat is now consolidating these comments and will follow up closely with the IIA and Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau. We aim to resolve the outstanding issues in time for smooth implementation of the proposed system by 1 January 2018.
On 28 February 2017 we had an informal exchange with the IIA Governing Board and found our discussion most constructive. We covered a raft of issues relating to the setting up of the IIA, transitional arrangements and
ascertained the stance of the IIA in certain areas, e.g. the centralised insurance claims database, the Holistic Consumer Protection Mechanism, FinTech / InsurTech, e-CPD, ethics management training, Risk Based Capital, etc.
The two FinTech Task Forces under the GIC and LIC have been busy studying a number of initiatives.
On cyber security, we have worked out the scope and administration of the service provided by the Applied Science and Technology Research Institute (ASTRI). A townhall meeting is scheduled for 20 March 2017 to provide more details of the cyber security platform which ASTRI is developing for the industry and the related funding model (Circular Ref: Mv015/17).
Projects teams from the life side have already met for the first time, identified goals and set out key tasks on digital onboarding, authentication, regulatory framework and customer engagement. We will keep you posted on future developments.
Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes (Fees) Regulation
The Mandatory Provident Fund Schemes Authority (MPFA) launched a consultation in October 2016 to introduce a MPF intermediary annual fee. With the concerted efforts from the LIC, the Hon K P Chan, Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers, Professional Insurance Brokers Association and the Insurance Industry Regulatory & Development Concern Group, the MPFA agreed with the industry’s suggestion for reducing the proposed annual fee level from $6,000 and $700 to $1,430 and $180 for Principal Intermediary and Subsidiary Intermediary respectively. The Government and the MPFA will proceed with the necessary legislative amendments. Subject to Legislative Council’s approval, the proposal will be implemented with effect from 1 January 2018.
Hong Kong Money Month 2017
Best Practice Guide on Checking of Agents’ Debts
The LIC has widely consulted the industry including Life Insurance Members (LIMs) and agency bodies on Agency Debt Procedure since August 2015. After months of discussion and fine-tuning, the relevant Procedure is revised and incorporated into the Best Practice Guide for Insurers on Contracting Procedures with Insurance Agents and Guide to Agents in pursuance of establishment of contracts between life insurance companies and insurance agent applicants. The subject Guide aims to ensure agent applicants for long term insurance business are fit and proper in terms of financial soundness when they change their Appointing Insurers, and it will take effect from 1 July 2017.
Membership News
Change of Authorised Representative
As the Asian Hub of International Union of Marine Insurance (IUMI), the HKFI helped organise the first ever webinar for IUMI Asia on 21 February 2017. Dr Rene Angelo Macahig, Consulting Scientist and R esearcher at Andrew Moore & Associates Ltd., spoke on the topic of “Carriage of Group A cargo – Mineral ores prone to liquefaction”. Over 120 participants joined the webinar and very positive feedbacks were received. The Marine Insurance Association will organise more similar educational events in the months to come!
To support the Investor Education Centre in launching the first Hong Kong Money Month, we participated in its kick off ceremony cum education fair at Plaza Hollywood on 18 February 2017. Through our display boards and educational leaflets, we hoped to raise public awareness on the importance of insurance to financial planning and how insurance helps fill the protection gaps in people’s daily lives. The campaign will run till 17 March 2017. For details, please visit www.moneymonth.hk.
● Asia Insurance Company Limited (General & Life Member) - Ms Winnie Wong
Ronnie Ng● Compania Espanola de Seguros y Reaseguros de Credito y Caucion S.A. (General Member) - Mr. Eric-Jan Den Boogert
● FTLife Insurance Company Limited (Life Member) - Mr Lennard Yong
● Sun Life Hong Kong Limited (Life Member) - Mr Fabien Jeudy
HKFI Membership
As at 27 Feb 2017, the HKFI has 89 General Insurance Members and 48 Life Insurance Members.
HKFI Chairman