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Loan default forces insurers to shift into reverse gear
Beijing, Aug 05: Chinese insurance companies are withdrawing en masse from the auto loan insurance business after widespread debt defaults and fraud led to mounting pay-outs, a report said today.
Beijing, Aug 05: Chinese insurance companies are withdrawing en masse from the auto loan insurance business after widespread debt defaults and fraud led to mounting pay-outs, a report said today.
All major property insurers have reportedly stopped
selling policies that cover the risks of auto buyers failing
to repay their auto loans to the bank, either in some major
cities or nation-wide, 'China Daily' reported.
"We have stopped sales (nation-wide)," said a spokesman from PICC Property and Casualty Co, China's largest auto insurer. "It's a move taken in keeping with the market conditions," he said.
Insiders say the insurance companies were giving up a market that they jumped into some seven years ago believing it had enormous growth potential because compensation payments have risen to unbearable levels. Pay-outs exceeded premiums by as much as 35.6 per cent during the first quarter of this year in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province.
"A major reason is that insurance companies don't have a sound risk control mechanism, especially for moral hazards," said Tuo Guozhu, a professor with the Beijing-based capital University of Economics and Business.
Insurance fraud has been rampant over the past few years, he said, with some cases involving automobiles worth as much as 100 million yuan (12 million U.S. dollars).
Further, many individual auto buyers, in an era when new models of cars are brought to the market frequently, are refusing to repay bank loans but simply chose to give up their old cars, which depreciate rapidly in use, to the bank.
The insurers' decision has worried auto sellers, whose 30-50 per cent of sales are financed by bank loans.
"We have stopped sales (nation-wide)," said a spokesman from PICC Property and Casualty Co, China's largest auto insurer. "It's a move taken in keeping with the market conditions," he said.
Insiders say the insurance companies were giving up a market that they jumped into some seven years ago believing it had enormous growth potential because compensation payments have risen to unbearable levels. Pay-outs exceeded premiums by as much as 35.6 per cent during the first quarter of this year in Guangzhou, capital of south China's Guangdong province.
"A major reason is that insurance companies don't have a sound risk control mechanism, especially for moral hazards," said Tuo Guozhu, a professor with the Beijing-based capital University of Economics and Business.
Insurance fraud has been rampant over the past few years, he said, with some cases involving automobiles worth as much as 100 million yuan (12 million U.S. dollars).
Further, many individual auto buyers, in an era when new models of cars are brought to the market frequently, are refusing to repay bank loans but simply chose to give up their old cars, which depreciate rapidly in use, to the bank.
The insurers' decision has worried auto sellers, whose 30-50 per cent of sales are financed by bank loans.
Bureau Report