February 2014 Issue No. 209
Independence of Insurance Authority (IIA)
Over the past months, we have been in close dialogue with the Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau (FSTB) and raised concerns on a raft of issues of great significance to our industry, including CEO as Responsible Officer, representation on the IIA Board, Industry Advisory Committees, pecuniary penalties and appellate mechanism. On 12 February 2014, we wrote to the FSTB again on the subject of insurance agents acting in the best interests of policyholders. We recapped the industry's stance and our rationales behind and are now awaiting Government's reply. On 13 February 2014, the Working Group on IIA convened by the FSTB held its second meeting on the transitional arrangement. With the planned establishment of the IIA in less than two years, we want to see the early resolution of all outstanding items to ensure a seamless migration to the new regulatory framework.
Health Care Reform
The Task Force on Health Care Reform met again in early February to tackle the outstanding issues. They include the lack of consumer choice, sustainability of the High Risk Pool and portability of proposed Health Protection Scheme (HPS), etc. At the Legislative Council's Subcommittee on HPS held on 18 February 2014, Council members appeared to share our doubts and concerns over the viability and practicality of the proposed HPS. The issue of claim dispute resolution mechanism was also brought up at the meeting. Through the Honourable K P Chan, we reiterated the merits of adopting the Insurance Claims Complaints Bureau model for consumers, which offers cost-effective services free-of-charge. The present adjudication process with professional and independent input from the honorary secretaries has proved efficient and credible.
Developing RMB Reinsurance Business in Hong Kong
At the suggestion of the insurance industry, the New Business Committee under the Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) is now exploring the feasibility of establishing Hong Kong as an off-shore RMB reinsurance centre. This will be a new area of potential growth and help reinvigorate the Hong Kong reinsurance market. To take this forward, a core group convened by Mr Philip Nye, Convenor of the Reinsurers' Forum, has been set up with experts from both life and general insurers/reinsurers. At our recent luncheon with FSDC Chairman Mrs Laura Cha and Under Secretary of the FSTB Mr James Lau, we have also expressed our firm support of this initiative. We will work in close collaboration with the FSDC to explore practical steps to move this forward.
Privacy Management Programme (PMP)
I am pleased to report that 25 insurance companies representing 27 HKFI Member Companies signed the pledge in support of the PMP at a ceremony conducted by the Privacy Commissioner on 18 February 2014. This marks an important milestone in our industry’s support for data privacy and we would encourage more members to pitch in in the future. For an updated list of HKFI Members Companies supporting the PMP, please visit this link: http://www.hkfi.org.hk/#!/event/287.
Population Policy
In our submission to Government, we made some general observations about the essence of population policy and raised some questions for the Administration to ponder. Furthermore, we provided specific comments from the insurance perspective on talent development, how to facilitate early return to work for injured workers and how best to meet the needs of the silver-hair market. For details of our position paper, please refer to http://www.hkfi.org.hk/#!/event/289.