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IT IS NOT just banks that are finding life difficult. Life assurers are coming under the cosh too. In the UK and US, doubts about capital adequacy have led to a sell-off in leading insurers’ shares: the sector in the UK has fallen by 40% this year. (see Insurers take cover to avoid capital crunch)
At least capital adequacy should not be a problem for the world’s biggest life assurer, China Life, which is 68% government owned. But the company has not escaped the global economic and financial crisis: at the end of last month it announced that its 2008 net profit fell by 45% to Rmb21.3 billion ($3.1 billion). The result was better than expected, however. In the third quarter of 2008 it...
