| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 經營管理碩士學程(EMBA) === 96 === Life insurance industry conducts business that requires approval from its regulatory authority. The industry provides an array of functions, such as managing risks, maintaining social stability, pooling and supplying funds, etc. In recent years, life insurance industry has faced with serious challenges due to its decreasing operating profit margin caused by low interest rates, volatility of foreign exchange rates, and deteriorating economic environment around the globe.
The bankruptcy among insurance companies is nothing new over the world. There were as many as 648 companies going bankrupt during 1978 to 1994. The causes of the aforementioned bankruptcy were many. For example, Japan companies became insolvent mostly due to investment losses; those in the U.S. were caused by insufficient reserves. Huge insurance claims for unpredictable natural or man-made disasters, such as 9/11 terrorist attack, hurricane Katrina, and the subprime mortgage crisis in the U.S., have attracted most companies’ attention worldwide to “enterprise risk management (ERM)”. Hence, Standard & Poor’s started in 2006 to apply the ERM analysis to its credit rating for the insurance industry, and this measure propels insurance companies into the implementation of ERM. Nonetheless, Taiwanese insurance companies are just at the inception of ERM.
Insurance industry must comply with stringent regulations while confronting keen competition. An insurance company must take a lead in competition, provide quality services to its customers, abide by regulations, and implement internal controls and ERM in an integrated fashion. In doing so, an insurance company can develop its own blue ocean strategy and maintain sustainable growth and profit.
This research probes into the risks and challenges faced by Taiwan insurance industry in dealing with various risks and challenges, including the serious sanctions by the Financial Supervisory Commission. We present a case study of local life insurance company with respect to its process of integrating internal control systems, compliance to Sarbanes-Oxley Act and implementation of ERM. A number of deficiencies, bottlenecks and obstacles were identified and analyzed, followed by related suggestions. Our results provide insights and helpful suggestions to the integration of internal controls, Sarbanes-Oxley compliance, and ERM for Taiwan insurance industry.
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