CNOOC, HSBC say Hong Kong is ideal place for global companies to set up captive insurers Hong Kong is an ideal place for mainland and international companies to set up captive insurers to manage risks related to their Belt and Road Initiative projects, speakers on a panel said at the Belt and Road Summit on Wednesday. A captive insurer is set up by a parent company to provide all the firms in the group with insurance protection. This allows the group to better manage risks and retain profits that would otherwise go to an outside firm. In May, HSBC Holdings, Hong Kong’s biggest lender, set up its own captive insurer, Wayfoong (Asia), to reinsure employee benefit risks for HSBC’s 26,000 staffers in Hong Kong and other Asia-Pacific markets. “This initiative enabled HSBC to retain insurance within the group and ... better control the insurance costs and claims management,” said Winky Cheng, chairman and CEO of Wayfoong (Asia). She said HSBC decided to set up its captive insurer in Hong Kong because it was a gateway to the mainland and had access to world-class financial hubs and major global reinsurance companies. Cheng also said the approval process only took seven months, underscoring Hong Kong’s regulatory development of capital insurance. Hong Kong has offered tax incentives for captive insurers, according to Winnie Sun, a partner at Deloitte who also spoke on the panel. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) was the first state-owned enterprise to set up a captive insurance firm in Hong Kong in 2000. Chen Gong, chairman and CEO of CNOOC Insurance, said his parent company was pleased to have chosen Hong Kong as the home for its captive insurer. “Hong Kong is an international financial centre, so we want to use Hong Kong as a base to set up our captive insurers to connect with the world,” he said. “Hong Kong is the platform for mainland companies to go global and internationalise.” Most of the world’s largest companies had established captive insurers, said Clement Lau, executive director of policy and legislation at the city’s Insurance Authority. He hoped more mainland and international firms would consider following suit in Hong Kong. Lau said the authority would like to promote captive insurance as part of the government’s ambition to turn the city into a risk management hub for international firms. Hong Kong has 160 licensed insurance companies, including six of the world’s top 10 players. The Insurance Authority said that life insurance sales in Hong Kong rose 43 per cent in the first quarter to a record high of HK$93.4 billion (US$12 billion) on demand for protection and estate planning from high-net-worth customers and visitors from mainland China. Wayfoong and CNOOC Insurance were among the six captive insurance companies in Hong Kong. The other four are CGN Captive Insurance, SAIC Motor Insurance, Shanghai Electric Insurance and Sinopec Insurance, according to the Insurance Authority. https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3325064/cnooc-hsbc-say-hong-kong-ideal-place-global-companies-set-captive-insurers (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post