enriching-lives-a-history-of-insurance-in-hong-mee — Page 1

Enriching Lives
A History of Insurance in Hong Kong, 1841�V2010
Feng Bangyan and Nyaw Mee Kau
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Translated by Violet Law


This book is a revised translation of�m�p�ͧQ�s�G����O�I�v�A1841�V2008�npublished in Chinese by the Joint Publishing (HK) Co. Ltd in 2009. Copyright of this English version is vested with Hong Kong University Press and the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers through arrangement with Joint Publishing (HK) Co. Ltd.
Hong Kong University Press
14/F Hing Wai Centre 7 Tin Wan Praya Road Aberdeen Hong Kong www.hkupress.org
c Hong Kong University Press 2010
ISBN 978-988-8028-70-2
All rights reserved. No portion of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Designed by Cynthia NG Ying Fai Printed and bound by Kings Time Printing Press Ltd., Hong Kong, China



Table of Contents
Foreword by Chan Kin Por, member, Hong Kong Legislative Council (Functional vii
Constituency �X Insurance)
Foreword by Allan K. N. Yu, chairman (2010�V11), Hong Kong Federation of Insurers viii
Preface by Peter C. H. Tam, chief executive, Hong Kong Federation of Insurers ix
Acknowledgements xi
Introduction 1
Chapter 1 Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union 5
Chapter 2 The Establishment and Development of the Chinese-Owned Insurance Sector 41
Chapter 3 Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation 59
Chapter 4 The Rise of Hong Kong as an Insurance Centre and the Industry��s Diversification 99
Chapter 5 The Formation and Evolution of Industry Supervision 129
Chapter 6 Changes and Innovations in the Market 151
Chapter 7 The Development of Life Insurance and Bancassurance in the 179
Post-Handover Decade
Conclusion Future Products of Hong Kong��s Insurance Industry 213
Notes 225
Index 231


Foreword
by Chan Kin Por, member, Hong Kong Legislative Council (Functional Constituency �X Insurance)
Having grown from a cottage industry covering commercial seafaring ventures to a full-blown diversified and globalized financial centre, Hong Kong��s insurance industry has withstood the test of many vicissitudes over the past century.
However, for reasons unbeknownst to most, no completed recorded history existed of this amazing journey. If nothing were done about this vaccuum, valuable historical materials would be obliterated by the passage of time.
This is where the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers has stepped up to the plate.
Enriching Lives: A History of Insurance in Hong Kong, 1841�V2010 was born of the urgency to document the evolution and influence of the sector. This rigorous work is an important contribution to the industry.
On behalf of the insurance sector constituency, I thank the authors for their endeavour. I hope the sector will continue to thrive by improving customer service and professional standards.

Foreword
by Allan K. N. Yu, chairman (2010�V11), Hong Kong Federation of Insurers
It was my greatest pleasure to have witnessed the fruition of the book project during my tenure as HKFI��s chairman.
The writing of Enriching Lives: A History of Insurance in Hong Kong, 1841�V2010 was made possible by the scores of industry veterans who generously contributed their time and thoughts. Their recollection of little known vignettes casts the industry in a humanistic light.
In a sense, the book serves as a compilation of oral history. It is a happy marriage of history and human interest.

Preface
by Peter C. H. Tam, chief executive, Hong Kong Federation of Insurers
This book owes its conception to an idea, plus a bit of kismet.
When I joined the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers in 2004, one of my mandates was to improve the image of the insurance industry, so that more seasoned professionals and young university graduates alike would be inspired to enter the field and the public would put more trust in the practitioners.
I realized very early on all this couldn��t possibly be accomplished with hollow slogans or cheap commercials. A more efficacious means is to give the industry flesh and blood by telling the story of how the insurance industry has contributed to Hong Kong��s society, economy and the public��s well-being.
With that idea in mind, I set about planning for a book project that would trace and explicate the industry��s more-than-a-century-long development in depth and in breadth.
Much as I felt encouraged by the enthusiastic backing of the HKFI��s governing committee, I was keenly aware this could prove to be an arduous undertaking. To pull it off, it would require, among other things, the right people in the right place.
I didn��t know where to start when I visited the University of Hong Kong library system for preliminary research. Only when I browsed the Hong Kong Collection at the Hung On-To Memorial Library on the first floor of the University��s Main Library did the eureka moment come. I chanced upon a book called Chinese Banking in Hong Kong and the Asia Pacific Region by Professor Mee Kau Nyaw, former vice president of Lingnan University and chair professor of management at The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Right away I wrote Professor Nyaw to present my idea for a book on a complete, coherent history of Hong Kong��s insurance industry. Not only did Professor Nyaw respond quickly
and favourably, he also introduced me to his soon-to-be collaborator Professor Feng Bangyan, then dean of the College of Economics of Jinan University in Guangzhou.
The rest, as they say, is history.
The birth of this book, in original Chinese and English translation, became a milestone in its own right on the industry��s long winding road of development. It also is a sign of unity of our sector, where all practitioners answered the clarion call for a recorded history.
Enriching Lives is the product of Professors Feng and Nyaw��s painstaking research, as well as the insights and wisdom of countless industry leaders and veterans.
For all that, I extend my deepest eternal gratitude.


Acknowledgements
This book was made possible by the contributions of many people. Numerous industry veterans generously gave us their efforts and time. We specifically extend our gratitude to Bernard Charnwut Chan, Chan Kin Por, Johnny Chen, M. K. Cheng, K. P. Cheng, Clement Cheung, Vincent Cheung, H. C. Wong, W. S. Ching, Andrew Chow, K. S. Choi, C. F. Choy, Jackie Chun, K. C. Hong, Y. Ko, Agnes Koon, Kenneth Kwok, Richard Kwok, Sidney Ku, Allan Lam, Alwin Lam, Y. T. Yeung, Anthony Lau, Steven Lau, O. F. Leung, Alvin Li, Mike Lee, Johnson Lee, Geoffrey Lung, Teresa Ma, Y. C. Pi, Michael Somerville, Joe Sun, Edmund Tse, C. C. Wat, James Wong, K. H. Wong, William Woo, George Yan, Andrew Yang, and Allan Yu.
We would also like to thank local institutions within the insurance sector and beyond it for their unstinting support of this project. These are the Actuarial Society of Hong Kong, the Chinese Insurance Association of Hong Kong, the Chinese Underwriters Club, the Employees�� Compensation Insurance Residual Scheme Bureau, the Hong Kong Insurers�� Club, the Hong Kong Chamber of Insurance Intermediaries, the Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers, the Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Corporation, the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, the Hong Kong General Insurance Agents Association, the Hong Kong Insurance Practitioners General Union, the Hong Kong Society of Certified Insurance Practitioners, the Hong Kong University Library, the Institute of Financial Planners of Hong Kong, the Insurance Claims Complaints Bureau, the Insurance Institute of Hong Kong, the Life Underwriters Association of Hong Kong, the LOMA Society of Hong Kong, the Motor Insurers�� Bureau of Hong Kong, the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance of Hong Kong SAR, the Professional Insurance Brokers Association, and The General Agents and Managers Association of Hong Kong.
The contributions of leading insurers, many of which have played a critical role in the historical development of the insurance sector in Hong Kong, have also been instrumental. The American International Assurance Co. Ltd., American International Assurance Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., the AXA China Region Insurance Co. (Bermuda) Ltd., the BOC Group Life Assurance Co. Ltd., the China International Holdings Co. Ltd. (now Taiping Insurance Holdings Co. Ltd.), the China International Reinsurance Co. Ltd. (now Taiping Reinsurance Co. Ltd.), the Dah Sing Life Assurance Co. Ltd., the Hang Seng Insurance Co. Ltd., HSBC Insurance (Asia) Ltd., Manulife (International) Ltd., MSIG Insurance (Hong Kong) Ltd, the Hong Kong Branch of the Munich Reinsurance Co., the former Pacific Century Insurance (now Fortis Insurance Asia), the Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd., Sun Life Hong Kong Ltd., The Ming An (Holdings) Co. Ltd., The Ming An Insurance Co. (H.K.) Ltd. (now China Taiping Insurance (HK) Co. Ltd.), Transamerica Life (Bermuda) Ltd., and the Zurich Insurance Group (Hong Kong): We offer all of these companies our heartfelt thanks.

Last but hardly least, this book was conceived thanks to the tireless efforts of certain key staff members of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers. These were Chief Executive Peter Tam, Deputy General Manager, Corporate Communications Selina Lau and Manager
�X Corporate Communications Cristal Tam. The Chinese and English versions benefited, respectively, from the editorial acumen of Anne Lee, deputy editor-in-chief of the Joint Publishing (HK) Co. Ltd., and Michael Duckworth, publisher of Hong Kong University Press.


Introduction
Insurance is one of the oldest industries in Hong Kong, and it has long played a significant role in the city��s economic development. Suffice it to say that the insurance industry has evolved in step with the economy at large. In essence, the industry��s development encapsulates that of the overall development of the territory.
The industry��s birth in Hong Kong can be traced to the establishment of the Canton Insurance Office Ltd. and the Union Insurance Society of Canton in the nineteenth century. Canton Insurance was jointly formed, and run, by turns, by Davidson-Dent (later called Dent & Co.) and Magniac & Co. (forerunner of Jardine, Matheson & Co.). In 1835, Dent quit the joint operation and set up Union Insurance. The following year, Jardine re-established Canton Insurance as a limited liability company.
After the British took over Hong Kong in 1841, Canton Insurance and Union Insurance moved their bases of operations and registered for business in what was soon to be the Crown colony. This made them the territory��s earliest insurers. The subsequent development of the insurance industry in Hong Kong can be broken down into five phases, chronologically:
�E The first phase runs from 1841 until the start of the Japanese occupation in 1941. This phase marks the industry��s fledgling days. In the 1860s, riding on its superior geographical advantages, Hong Kong took off as a newly opened free trade port. The concentration of foreign firms in the colony laid the foundation for the rise of shipping and international trade. Early on, the economy showed its promise of prosperity.
During this period, insurance, much like banking and shipping, became an important department in most foreign firms; investing in an insurance arm was all the rage among them. By the early 1940s, there were about 100 insurers in the colony. Nearly all were British-controlled subsidiaries that acted as agents and offered a single line of products related to shipping and trading; they primarily served foreign traders.
�E Phase 2 runs from the end of World War II until the late 1960s, marking a transition within the industry. The 1950s and 1960s saw Hong Kong evolving from an entrepot into the light-manufacturing hub of the Far East. As the economic base evolved, so did the insurance industry. Although marine products saw further growth, the competition became more cut-throat than ever. Fire products were thriving, while accident products, especially auto and employees�� compensation, were beginning to grow. In other words, the postwar insurance sector was gradually diversifying.
However, even until the end of the 1960s, the market remained dominated by British insurers, with only a few foreign-funded agencies, locally registered limited liability companies, and subsidiaries of large foreign insurers getting slices of the growing pie.
�E The third phase goes from late 1960s until the early 1980s, the period of the industry��s globalization and diversification. In the 1970s, with the rise of the stock exchange and continued economic growth, international financial institutions flocked to the city. These favourable macroeconomic developments gave rise to many more upstarts. Not only did foreign insurance firms begin to set up shops, but trading firms, real estate developers, and banks also entered the fray with their own insurance operations.
In addition, the sector began to diversify in scale; small and medium-sized local firms and large international underwriters intensified the competition. By this time, Hong Kong had already established itself as an insurance centre in the Asia-Pacific region.
�E Phase 4 is bracketed by the 1980s and the return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. In an effort to build Hong Kong into an insurance centre worldwide and to protect investors�� interests, the government issued the Insurance Companies Ordinance. This required the establishment of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, or HKFI, in August 1988. Under growing pressure in the 1990s from government regulators and the public, the HKFI pro-actively promoted self-regulatory measures,
Introduction
such as managing intermediaries and introducing legal sanctions, and cemented the institutionalization of the industry.
However, as more manufacturers relocated their operations to the Chinese Mainland, the demand for fire and employees�� insurance slackened, while that for life products began to dominate the market. This motivated the industry to offer new products and broaden the scope of service to satisfy growing demand for quantity and quality.
�E The last phase in the industry��s development encompasses the post-handover years until the present. Although by 1997 the number of licensed insurers per capita in Hong Kong was already among the world��s highest, the growth in life and bank insurance galloped on. The lucrative margins on life products and the tremendous room for growth set the stage for further development for global concerns and local firms alike.
After weathering the Asian financial crisis of 1997, large and mid-sized banks, tapping their expertise and customer pools, began to enter the life market, either through their own insurance subsidiaries or in joint ventures. For many banks, insurance has become their most important non-interest-generating business. Brokers act as financial advisers to clients. The increasingly competitive marketplace has become one in which it is the very fittest who survive.


Chapter 1

Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
There can be no form of commercial activity that so clearly reflects the state of trade
as that of insurance. No business thrives better on a free flow of international trade.
�X Sir William Shenton, in 1935, at the centennial celebrations of the Union Insurance Society of Canton
Sir William��s words have stood the test of time. Writing fifty years later, an insurance executive considered them again in a book called Adventures and Perils: The First Hundred and Fifty Years of Union Insurance Society of Canton, Ltd.1 ��That speaker [Sir William] knew then, as we know today, that trade is not simply a matter of two parties agreeing to an exchange of goods or services for good consideration,�� Alan Chalkley wrote. ��The conditions under which the exchange takes place, and the value of consideration, are affected by various external factors unrelated to the trade. It can be said that the development of insurance companies like Union reflects the history of their time and place.��
Insurance�Xone of the oldest industries of the modern world�Xcan trace its origins to the fourteenth century. The earliest incarnation of what we know today as the insurance industry emerged in the Mediterranean cities of Palermo and Genoa, both in what is now Italy.
On 23 October 1347, a business executive named Georgius Lecavellum entered into an agreement with the Genoan owner of Santa Clara, a commercial vessel, to bear all potential risks associated with a voyage from Genoa to Majorca. The signed agreement remains the oldest insurance contract ever discovered and is preserved in the national library in Genoa.
Since the fifteenth century, with trade expanding throughout the known world, the insurance industry extended its reach from Italy through Portugal and Spain, to the Netherlands, England, Germany, and the rest of the world.
The first product line was marine insurance, which offered financial coverage for total or partial loss at sea. These products were intricately linked to the development of overseas shipping and foreign trade. The growth of marine insurance was integral to the shipping and foreign trade sectors: it not only exerted significant influence on both but was also constrained by the development of both.
In England, the earliest marine insurance industry to take off was a joint venture between London��s merchants and their brokers. As foreign trade thrived in the 1540s, marine insurance had been growing apace in England, so much so that the amount on an insurance contract was widely accepted as the basis on which to calculate the costs of intangible services, such as shipping costs.2
At the time, Lombard Street, on the bank of River Thames, became known as the hub of marine insurance activities because of the concentration of Italian insurers there. In 1720, both the Royal Exchange Assurance Corporation and the London Assurance Corporation attained the Crown��s seal of approval to operate in marine insurance; at one point they created a duopoly in the market.
However, the duopoly did little to dampen the rise of the individual underwriters. Since the 1690s, the Edward Lloyd Coffee House on Lombard Street had evolved into an information hub for traders, brokers, shipowners, underwriters and others in the industry. In essence, it was the forerunner of the Corporation of Lloyd��s. In 1871, after Parliament passed Lloyd��s Act, which established insurance industry��s legal standing, the corporation
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Fig. 1.1
Lombard Street on the River Thames in London, 1830s. The street became known as the hub of marine insurance activities as Italian insurers concentrated their offices there.

formally registered with the government to become the centre of the marine insurance sector in England.
From the eighteenth century onward, the industry grew rapidly throughout England, with London as its centre and with London firms present at all of the country��s ports. As the Industrial Revolution came to a close at the end of the eighteenth century, the reach of the insurance industry, in tandem with the expansion of the economy and trade, began to
Fig. 1.2
Guangzhou (Canton) in 1837, the only free trade port in the late Qing Dynasty.
stretch beyond London to other parts of the world�Xincluding, in the Far East, Hong Kong and the Chinese Mainland.

The Insurance Industry in China during the Nineteenth Century
In the early nineteenth century, although England emerged as the world��s mightiest nation in economic terms, it still sustained a trade deficit with China. From 1781 to 1793, England exported products such as textiles, woven goods, and metalware. Although its exports were valued at as much as 16.9 million taels of silver, they amounted to only about one-sixth of the value of tea imported into England from China.
Foreign trade powers, headed by England, were anxious to crack open China��s market�X by selling opium. Using Guangzhou (Canton) as their base, American and English business executives affiliated with the British East India Company launched into opium trade and widespread smuggling activities. From 1821 to 1839, the first eighteen years of Emperor Daoguang��s reign (Wade-Giles: Tao Kuang), opium shipped to China mushroomed from 4,000 odd chests to more than 40,000, each weighing about 100 to 120 catties, or 50 to 60 kg.
Before the Opium Wars, with the Qing government��s closed-door policy and trade restrictions firmly in place, Guangzhou was the only free port on the Mainland. According to History of Insurance Industry in China, on the northern bank of the Pearl River, roughly half a mile outside the southwest corner of Guangdong and not far from Huaiyuan station was Thirteen Hong Street, where foreign ships from Europe and elsewhere came to trade, receive cargo and pay levies.
At that time, foreigners trading in China faced the menaces of piracy and war, as well as other unforeseeable risks at sea, so they turned to insurers for financial safeguards. The demand for insurance grew as a result.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union


��When Western merchants came to China they had, therefore, to provide themselves with insurance facilities as with most other services ancillary to merchanting,�� according an analysis of that era.3 In 1801, a group of foreign merchants in Guangzhou formed a temporary insurance association to cover the value of cargo on each of the members�� ship up to 12,000 taels of silver. This marked the entry of foreign insurers into China. A few insurance firms from Calcutta followed suit and set up shop in Guangzhou.
In 1805, the British East India Company��s director, W. S. Davidson, founded the Canton Insurance Society, the first English-owned insurer in China, with two English trading firms: Davidson-Dent House, the forerunner of Dent & Co., and Magniac & Company, which became Jardine, Matheson & Co. By 1835, Davidson-Dent bowed out of the partnership to form the Union Insurance Society of Canton on its own. In the era prior to the Opium Wars, Canton Insurance and Union Insurance were the only foreign insurers in China.
Because of the distance and time involved in doing business in China then, foreign insurers found it difficult to handle day-to-day operations and had to entrust management responsibilities to the foreign trading firms.
According to reports published in the Canton Register in February 1829, Magniac & Co. acted as agent for six insurers, and Davidson-Dent for four.4 In 1836, Jardine Matheson found that ��its chief interest, and largest investment, continued to rest in the Canton Insurance Office��. Even so, the firm ��acted as agent for as many as eight companies��.5
In 1842, the Chinese and the British concluded the Opium Wars with the Treaty of Nanking, turning Hong Kong over to the Crown and opening five ports to free trade: Guangzhou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, and Shanghai. Of these ports, Shanghai grew the fastest. In the late 1840s, Shanghai leapfrogged Guangzhou and rose as China��s main trading hub. Even the Guangzhou-based foreign firms were putting down stakes in Shanghai. By the middle of the nineteenth century, more than 160 foreign firms had established a presence in the city.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
As trade grew, so did the risks related to warfare, piracy, and marine mishaps�Xand thus the unequivocal significance of insurance. As The Times of London reported at this time: ��Our merchants are entering [China] as if it were a virgin country; and the first comers here found fortune at their feet. More money, it is said, has been made in China during the last five years than all the years of the East India Company��s monopoly . . . ��Can you insure?�� soon became the anxious inquiry of the Chinese consigners, and the trade of one-third of mankind also lay at the feet of the new adventurers.��6
Between the late 1850s and the 1860s, various foreign firms invested in their insurance operations in Shanghai and other ports. For instance, Augustine Heard & Co. was set up in 1859 by a group of American business executives as an agent but used Jardine Matheson and Dent as their agents. Two years later, Heard partnered with three New York City insurers to solicit business from American firms in China on a large scale. This pitched them against the British in the fight for marine insurance market share in China.
In 1862, the American-owned Russell & Co. raised 1 million taels of silver at the time, to fund a new shipping enterprise, the Shanghai Steam Navigation Co., with an insurance subsidiary, the Yangtze Insurance Association. With 200,000 taels in seed money and a singular focus on shipping insurance, Yangtze was set up to dominate the market of its namesake river.
By 1863, five foreign firms, including Gilman & Co., Rathbone, Birley & Co., and Sassoon, Sons & Co., had established an insurance consortium in Shanghai called the North China Insurance Co. Ltd. ��As recently as 15 years ago, there was only one insurance firm: Canton,�� Commercial Reports noted in 1875. ��Its success no doubt spurred on the establishment of six other firms in less than a decade. The capital of all these firms added up to about �G570,000, an equivalent of 2 million taels of silver.�� These firms include Canton, Union, and Yangtze, as well as the China Traders�� Insurance Co. and the China and Japan Marine Insurance Co.


Following in the footsteps of the global insurance industry, the insurance sector in China also saw its beginnings in marine products.
In 1866, Jardine Matheson founded the first fire insurer in China, the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co. Business was booming, with margins soaring by as much as 50% and the stock price rising by 400% in its first few years of operations. By the late nineteenth century, few Shanghai insurers were offering fire insurance directly, except for the more prominent insurers such as Union and the North China Insurance Co.; most others acted only as agents. And fire coverage was confined to businesses and residents in the city��s International Concession. Insurers would hang a copper or iron medallion over the covered shop or house for ease of inspection and as a marker for fire rescuers. Nearly all clients regarded the medallion as a badge of honour because only the most trustworthy would be accepted for coverage.
Life insurance surfaced in China roughly three or four decades after marine products. In 1846, the British-owned Standard Life Assurance Co. set up shop in southern China, but its clients were nearly all Westerners, and operations remained very small. In 1853, Thomas Moncreiff took the helm of Standard Life in Shanghai. By 1889, Standard Life had devised the first mortality table for the Chinese from 1846 to 1900. In 1897, the British established the China Mutual Life Assurance Co. in Shanghai with an issue of 5,000 shares, raising half a million taels of silver. By 1924, China Mutual had merged with Canada��s Sun Life Insurance Co.
The early development of the insurance industry in China caught on at major ports around the country. When Canton Insurance opened for business in Guangzhou in 1805, it created a considerable stir and spurred profiteering locals into action. In 1824, an


Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
affluent merchant from Guangdong established the Zhang Baoshun Co. in Guangzhou, which offered insurance services. The merchant was said to ��have a smart hand and wisdom in trading to have founded an insurance outfit to cover other merchants�� goods. This way he insured them against potential losses��, according to the earliest written record of Chinese involvement in the insurance industry. But since little is known about Zhang Baoshun, its place as China��s first locally owned insurance concern cannot be substantiated.
Based on extant historical records, the first documented Chinese-run insurance enterprise was founded on 25 May 1865 as a subsidiary of a prominent south China firm, De Shing Hao. Known as the Shanghai Yi He Insurance Co., it was a small outfit that insured cargo but not entire vessels. It pioneered the use of bilingual (Chinese-English) insurance contracts and broke foreigners�� lock on the domestic insurance market.
The landmark development in the homegrown insurance industry came when Li Hongzhang (Wade-Giles: Li Hung-chang), a leading figure in the Self�VStrengthening Movement, founded the China Insurance Merchants�� Bureau, and later an insurance offshoot, the Yen Chi He Co. In 1872, Li went on to found the China Merchants�� Steam Navigation Co. in Shanghai and buy the Eton and two other vessels from Britain. Ironically, Li��s fledgling


Fig. 1.5
Li Hongzhang, a leading figure in China��s Self-Strengthening Movement, 1870s.
enterprises faced discrimination on their home turf. For instance, when the Eton was refused coverage by certain foreign insurers in Shanghai, she was insured by Jardine Matheson and another firm, each charging an exorbitant premium of 15,000 taels of silver for a mere fifteen days�� coverage.
Given the foreign insurers�� cold shoulder, the merchant company realized it was imperative for Chinese traders to be self-reliant and set up their own shop. In February 1875, Li tasked company directors Tang Tingshu (Tong King-sing) and Hsu Jun with establishing China��s first shipping insurance enterprise. By 28 December of the same year, the China Insurance Merchants�� Bureau formally opened its doors with broad support from local traders. Their support boosted registered capital amount from the initial 150,000 taels to 200,000 taels, thereby increasing its ability to indemnify.
Even so, the insurance bureau was limited by its financial resources to cover only
vessels valued at less than 10,000 taels and cargo at less than 30,000. Most
vessels then were already valued at more than 100,000 taels. To indemnify
entire vessels, it still would require the involvement of foreign insurers.
But foreign insurers would only insure up to 60% of total value, so the
remainder was still up to the bureau, thereby compounding risks. Tang
and Hsu then raised 250,000 taels more to found the Yen He Marine
Insurance Co. in July 1876; the bureau oversaw both the business
operation and the books.
By April 1878, the steam navigation company again raised 200,000
taels through a share issue, and it set up the Ji He Shipping Insurance
Bureau. When 300,000 taels more were raised, Ji He expanded its
offerings to include fire products. In 1886, Yen He and Ji He merged to
form the Yen Ji He Marine & Fire Insurance Co. with a combined registered
capital of 1 million taels.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Outside the trade development bureau network, other Chinese-owned insurance concerns in those early years included the On Tai Insurance Co. (1877), the Shan On Insurance Co. (1880), the Shanghai Fire Insurance Co. (1882), the Man On Insurance Co. (1882), and the Fook On Marine & Fire Insurance Co. (1894). With the exception of Man On and Fook On, the rest were poorly run and quickly shut down. At the time, most local merchants relied on foreign insurers for re-insurance, and the British-owned Sun Fire Insurance Office Ltd. had nearly the entire re-insurance market to itself.
By 1911, just before the fall of the Qing Dynasty, China had roughly thirty-five locally owned insurers, of which twenty-seven offered marine and fire products and eight did life products. All of them together accounted for no more 10% of the market.
By the mid-eighteenth century, the concept of insurance had found its way into the Chinese�� public consciousness. Different translations of the term ��insurance�� appeared in business publications and dictionaries.
Hong Kong��s First Insurer: The Canton Insurance Society
By the end of the 1830s, a social crisis had emerged in China, prompted by the opium trade and the smuggling activities of the British East India Co. and other British ��free agents��. The call for banning opium grew ever more vociferous. The Qing government dispatched Lin Zexu to Guangzhou to stamp out drug traffic. Lin demanded that all foreign traders in Guangdong Province sign an agreement that they would not deal in opium. Should they violate the agreement, their vessels and all cargo would be confiscated and all involved would be executed.
All foreign traders consented to sign, but Britain��s chief superintendent of trade in China, Sir Charles Elliot, rejected the agreement. He ordered all British traders to evacuate to Macau. In June 1839, Lin destroyed all opium stocks in Bocca Tigris (or Humen), striking fear into the dealers�� hearts.
Fig. 1.6
Hong Kong��s Central district in 1857. Insurance, shipping, and foreign trade would become pillars of the new colony��s economy.
A year later, in the name of defending their opium-trading interests, the British invaded China. Sir Charles Elliot, along with a young naval captain named George Elliot, commanded troops from India and, on 25 January 1841, occupied Hong Kong Island. On 7 June, Sir Charles Elliot announced that the island was a free port and allowed vessels to travel back and forth. Hong Kong was thus opened up for business.
On 29 August 1842, Britain and China signed the Treaty of Nanking, making Hong Kong a British colony. With naval protection firmly in place, British companies that had


Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
close associations with opium dealings in Guangzhou and Macau, such as Dent and Jardine Matheson, relocated to the new Crown colony. Their insurance subsidiaries, Canton Insurance and Union Insurance, became the first to locate their headquarters in the territory.
In Hong Kong��s insurance industry, the Canton Insurance Society was a pioneer. It was jointly owned by traders in Guangzhou, Calcutta, and Bombay but was run, by turns, by management from the two founding firms, Davidson-Dent and Magniac & Co. Every three years (or, some say, every five), one firm��s managers would pass the baton to the other��s. Later, Davidson-Dent restructured in Guangzhou as Dent & Co., while in 1832 British merchants William Jardine and James Matheson founded Jardine, Matheson & Co. in place of Magniac. From 1832 on, Canton Insurance was run by Dent and Jardine Matheson, until this joint operating arrangement was terminated in 1835.
Canton��s main clients were foreign firms dealing in China, and opium was their most significant stock in trade. Thanks to Canton Insurance, these firms could get coverage within China and claim damages, thereby receiving some measure of protection for their drug trafficking. For example, in the spring of 1834, Jardine Matheson��s 488-ton vessel, Sarah, set sail from Guangzhou to London, ferrying raw silk, silk goods, rhubarb roots, cinnamon bark, native Chinese vegetables, and sundry goods valued at more than 4 million taels of silver. Her insurance contract was issued by Canton Insurance in Guangzhou.
Canton was dissolved when Dent bowed out of the joint operating agreement in 1835. The next year Jardine Matheson founded the Canton Insurance Office Ltd. When the former Canton Insurance opened for business in Shanghai in the 1830s, the risks associated with sailing the high seas of China and India beggar our imagination today. Ruthless pirates prowled the waters. In 1836, Jardine Matheson resorted to arming itself with a high-speed battleship, the Falcon, a 351-ton vessel fitted with square sails and three rudders�Xthe equivalent of a twenty-five-gun cruiser. This ship also took part in the Battle of Navarino.7
Figs. 1.7 & 1.8
Jardine, Matheson & Co.��s founders, William Jardine (left) and James Matheson (right).


According to the ship��s commander, the Falcon could effectively deter and defend against pirates. Jardine Matheson also had outfitted a fleet of high-speed crafts to facilitate the on-time delivery of information, rendering the firm extremely competitive in the trade and insurance arenas.
Canton Insurance often complimented the captains of these vessels for their bravery in fighting piracy. Captain Williams of the Lady Grant, for instance, was awarded a silver trophy for his efforts in thwarting pirates in Malaya, when his ship was ferrying newly
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
insured cargo through the Strait of Malacca on 2 February 1836. The trophy was later lost but was eventually bought back from a London auction house. Today, it is exhibited in the halls of the Lombard Insurance Group in London.8
After the British took over Hong Kong in 1841, Canton Insurance relocated to Macau and registered there for business. According to A Brief History of Jardine, Matheson and Company (1832�V1932), in those early days the company ��appears to have been a private body of underwriters similar to the syndicates of Lloyd��s, London, to-day. Prominent firms in Hong-Kong each took one or more shares, and the underwriting was done by Jardine, Matheson & Co. Annually, the syndicate had presented to them in manuscript a report of the year��s results, and there seems always to have been something substantial to divide. Indeed, the rates then obtained would make the mouth of an underwriter to-day water freely��.9
When agents in India courted the business of opium traders, they touted the shipping services and insurance protection offered by Jardine Matheson. Under Jardine Matheson��s management, Canton��s reach expanded to London, India, and other far-flung corners of the world.
When Canton Insurance relocated to Hong Kong in 1842, it did not retreat from the mainland market. As soon as China was forced to open up the five treaty ports for business, various Western nations set up concession districts at the port cities and introduced modern infrastructure and trading systems.
Canton Insurance was at the forefront of this rapid growth. In 1848, it opened its office in Shanghai and gradually expanded its coverage to Fuzhou, Tianjin, Shantou, and other cities. Until 1860, Canton Insurance remained the sole insurer in China. It even installed agents in Moscow to serve clients who used the Trans-Siberian railway.


By 1890, Canton had a presence in more than a dozen Chinese cities, including Xiamen, Guangzhou, Yantai, Fuzhou, Hankou, Jiujiang, Ningbo, Shantou, and Tianjin.10
In the latter half of the nineteenth century, Canton Insurance was controlled by a committee of directors populated with a Who��s Who of the Hong Kong economic scene, including Hongkong Land��s founder, Sir Paul Chater, and chief comprador Sir Robert Ho Tung.11
By 1872, Canton Insurance had become
a legal entity and adopted a corporate structure to replace the founding partnership. In 1881, the company further restructured itself into a limited liability company, based on the First Company Ordinance. Its sizable registered capital of US$2.5 million derived from the issue of 10,000 shares of stock at US$250 each. A few years later, Canton Insurance became one of the founding members of the Institute of London Underwriters.
One of Hong Kong��s Earliest Insurers: Union Insurance Society of Canton
Having quit operating Canton Insurance with Jardine Matheson in 1835, Dent & Co. set up the Union Insurance Society in Guangzhou. According to historical records, Dent founded the firm with US$50,000 raised through a stock issue. Jardine Matheson, Turner & Co., and Russell & Co. were among the stakeholders. The firm also welcomed investment from Chinese investors.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Fig. 1.10
Pedder Street and the former Bowring Pier in the 1870s. At right, Jardine Matheson��s first headquarters; at left, Dent & Co.��s offices and private pier. Canton Insurance and Union Insurance were the two leading insurers when colonial Hong Kong first opened for business.
Until 1874, Union required stakeholders to share the risks associated with shipping goods to Britain and other parts of the world and to clear all outstanding premiums every three years. This practice was rooted in Union��s origins as a mutual assurance society formed by Guangzhou��s merchants.12 These stakeholders-cum-clients raised capital and pooled resources together to cover one another. Even in its fledgling years, Union already had agents in London, Bombay, Calcutta, Singapore, and Manila, reflecting the insurer��s early success. When the ports of Hong Kong opened in 1841, Union moved its business operations from Macau and became the first insurer to be headquartered in the new colony.



The bankruptcy of Dent & Co. in the 1860s was a threat to Union��s continued growth. Turmoil in the cotton industry in India in 1866 forced many British firms and banks out of business. Even prominent establishments such as Dent were not spared. When the company declared bankruptcy, Chief Executive Lancelot Dent was replaced by G. D. Williams in 1862. Robert Watmore succeeded Williams in 1868 and served till 1871.
Management personnel changes notwithstanding, Union��s business was lifted by the rising tide of Hong Kong��s global trade. In 1868, Union installed Samuel Brown as head of its first-ever satellite office, in
Shanghai. By 1870, Union��s assets mushroomed to US$1.25 million. Each of Union��s 250 shares was valued at as much as US$5,000, although shareholders bought in at US$1,000 per share. Major Union stakeholders and directors included Jardine Matheson, Gibb Livingston & Co., Sassoon, Sons & Co., Rathbone, Birley & Co., Ross & Co., Holliday, Wise & Co., Siemssen & Co., and other big foreign firms in Hong Kong.
The ascension of Nathaniel Ede to the top job as secretary of Union in 1871 had a far-reaching impact on Union��s future development. During his twenty-six years at the helm, Ede instituted management reforms, laid down new company guidelines, and jettisoned the old convention of triennial accounting. Furthermore, Ede transformed business model from ad hoc, mutual risk-sharing into permanent and unlimited liabilities. Under Ede, however, Union still retained certain features of the old partnership model. For example, Union��s new corporate guidelines stated that stakeholders who fail to provide financial support for the firm may have their shares revoked by the board of directors.
Fig. 1.11
An advertisement for the Union Insurance Society of Canton, late nineteenth century.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Such revoked shares may be re-granted to those who bring businesses to the firm. On 24 October 1882, Union re-registered as a limited liability company under the Hong Kong Corporation Act of 1865 to 1881, with US$1.25 million in assets. Each of the company��s 500 shares was valued at US$2,500.
��The change from a short-term society of partners to a permanent corporation denoted not merely a change in legal form,�� some commentators pointed out, ��it also betokened a change in the style of management. Shareholders, boards of directors and chairmen might change frequently, but the administrative cadre was perm and stable.
��We see in the Society an early example of the ��managerial revolution�� which was to affect corporate establishments from that time to the present day. A merchants�� mutual had become a corporation with a life of its own. The technocrats, as they were later to be dubbed, were taking over.��13
The reforms gave Union a boost, in the form of a broadened scope of business. In January 1874, Union set up a branch in London to compete with better-known and better-funded rival insurers. In 1883, Union opened an office in Melbourne, to expand aggressively its presence in the Oceania market. Union rang in the twentieth century with a flurry of acquisitions. In 1904, it took over Russell & Sturgis, once a Union agent in Manila and a forerunner of Russell & Co., a Union founding stakeholder. Union also bought out the China Traders�� Insurance Co. in 1906, the China Fire Insurance Co. in 1916, and the Yangtze Insurance Association in 1925.


Hong Kong��s Insurance Industry in the Latter Half of the Nineteenth Century
In its early colonial years, Hong Kong��s economic development was at once overshadowed by the opening up of five treaty ports in the Mainland. Although at the time Hong Kong
Fig. 1.12
The paddle steamer Alaska was driven aground by the force of a typhoon in Aberdeen, 1874. The ship was typical of the long-haul freighters popular at the time. Marine insurance covering such vessels formed the bulk of the insurance business.
had two established insurers in Canton Insurance and Union Insurance, most policies were still underwritten by big foreign firms. Among them, Jardine Matheson and Dent dominated the market, and most trading firms relied on their underwriting services. In 1844, figures show that of the twenty-five insurers in Hong Kong and Shanghai, eleven were represented by Jardine Matheson and Dent.
In the 1860s, Jardine Matheson even represented the operations of Canton Insurance, Union, the Bombay Insurance Society, the Bengal Insurance Society, the Triton Insurance Co., the Ocean Marine Insurance Co. of Bombay, and two other insurers. At that time, most established trading firms had their own piers, godowns, dockyards, banks�X and insurance. Of these units, insurance underwriting vessels and cargo sported healthy margins.14
During the 1860s, Hong Kong��s growth as a newly opened port was fueled by its natural geographical advantages. A significant presence of foreign firms in the colony already contributed to economic prosperity. In 1867, goods from Hong Kong accounted for 19.8% of the Mainland��s total imports, and only 14% of the Mainland��s exports went to Hong Kong. Within a decade, these percentages rose to 36.3% and 22.6% respectively.
During Qing Dynasty��s waning years, transactions in Hong Kong accounted for at least 30% of China��s international trade. As more and more Americans and Europeans traded in China, the demand for insurance services grew apace. Foreign insurers and their agents flocked to the free-trade ports in pursuit of new business opportunities.
Around this time, Chinese-owned banks and insurers began to compete head-to-head with the insurance subsidiaries controlled by big foreign firms, thereby cutting down historically lucrative margins. Meanwhile, using the service of the local Chinese insurers, even small foreign firms could now trade directly on the Mainland. This further eroded the edge big foreign firms had once enjoyed.15
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union


Also, the increasing use of freighters in the 1860s, the 1869 opening of the Suez Canal, and the 1871 start of telegram communications between London and the Far East all added to the ease of trading in Hong Kong and other parts of the region.
All this caused the big trading firms to re-evaluate their operations and pay more attention to auxiliary areas critical to foreign trade, such as logistics, underwriting, banking, and port facilities, rather than the mere buying and selling of goods.16 They recognized that ��insurance and banking grew, like shipping, to be among the firm��s most vital functions��.17
Against this backdrop, big trading firms in Hong Kong stirred up a frenzy of investment activities in underwriting in the 1860s and 1870s. In 1861, the American-funded Augustine & Heard Co. began to flex its muscle by representing three large American insurers in Hong Kong. Before, Heard would collect commissions but stop short of acting as agents. That summer, the firm emerged as the agent of several large U.S. insurers. This expansion angered its American rival, Russell & Co., because it noticed that the company acted as ��agents for three New York insurance offices . . . offering to take large risks and adjust here, or in England and . . . in India. This indicates a change in the policy of the New York Companies, who not too long ago refused to appoint agents to grant policies��.18
In 1862, Russell launched an even more aggressive push than Heard in the underwriting market by establishing the Yangtze Insurance Co. in Shanghai. Registered in Hong Kong with a paid-up capital of 417,880 taels of silver, Yangtze quickly set up branches in London, New York, and Singapore; it also named some thirty agents in mainland ports. Russell acted as agent for Yangtze��s clients exclusively to indemnify all of the firm��s vessels and cargo. That way, Russell nearly monopolized the shipping insurance market along the Yangtze.
When Russell went out of business in 1891, Yangtze reorganized itself into an independent, British-owned company with a registered capital of 1.2 million taels of silver
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Fig. 1.13
The American-funded Yangtze Insurance Co. was established in Shanghai in 1862.


and a paid-up capital of 720,000 taels. It rose as one of the major players among foreign insurers in Hong Kong and Shanghai, until its operations were halted in 1941 by Japanese occupying forces.
In 1865, Heard founded and funded the British Traders�� Insurance Co. Ltd. (BTIC) in Hong Kong with a registered capital of 2.2 million taels of silver and a paid-up capital of 600,000 taels. BTIC offered fire, marine, and accident insurance products. Its business expanded quickly, and it set up branches in major cities such as Shanghai, Hankou, Tianjin, Guangzhou, Fuzhou, and Beijing, and later in other cities around China and along the Pacific coast. Heard and six other foreign firms, including Russell and Sassoon, pooled an investment capital of 1.5 million taels of silver and set up the Victoria Insurance Co. Heard was in charge of Victoria��s day-to-day operations. In 1906, BTIC was taken over by Union
Insurance Society of Canton.
At this time, British firms also stepped up their investments in the insurance market. Even in its early days in the 1850s, the Chinese branches, in Hong Kong and Shanghai, of the Jardine Matheson�Vcontrolled Canton Insurance ��prospered; receipts for many months
Fig. 1.14
A blaze in Sheung Wan, c. 1866. Note the absence of fire trucks on the scene.
indicated a larger sale of policies among Chinese than among Western merchants��.19 To expand Canton��s business there, the firm��s management began more actively to sell shares to the Chinese. In December 1868, Jardine Matheson��s manager in Shanghai, F. B. Johnson, wrote to a Canton Insurance manager: ��I��ve asked you to allocate more shares to smaller shipping concerns and Chinese firms so as to appease them. If we don��t do more to bring these clients into our fold we risk losing our foothold in the Shanghai market. It seems to me that our comprador Tang has done his utmost in currying favor with the Chinese traders. I hope you��d consider using the firm��s profits to reward his efforts and cultivate influential local traders.��
By 1866, with the expansion of the scope of coverage, Jardine Matheson established the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Company (HKFIC) in the colony, with a registered capital of HK$2 million and a paid-up capital of HK$400,000. This was the first Hong Kong�Vbased fire insurer the colony had ever seen. Like its European counterparts, HKFIC formed and trained its own fire brigade.20 A Lombard Co. archivist in London recalled that on Christmas Day 1878 Hong Kong was ravaged by a fierce blaze.
Fanned by strong northeasterly winds, flames licked the area far and wide. Firefighters were forced to demolish lots of surrounding buildings in order to contain the blaze. Residents survived by using wet blankets and rugs to insulate their buildings. Later, a godown packed with loads of firecrackers exploded. Many witnessed the awesome ball of flames looming over the hillside on Hong Kong Island.
In those days, an adjuster called Philip had indelible memories of traditional Chinese pharmacies he had visited on the job. He recalled: ��Surveying these pharmacies was an awful assignment. You ventured down the alleys with the agent. On your way down there you saw jar after jar of pickled awful stuff, such as turtle heads and colorful snakes.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union


One look at them could make you feel nauseous. And then there were powdered buffalo horns and dried unidentifiable organs of tigers. At first glance, they looked like preserved onions, but they could fetch much higher prices. In evaluating these items for coverage, you needed to keep in mind the tangible value of these ��secret ingredients�� so that you��d come closer to judging their true worth.��
HKFIC was headquartered in Hong Kong, with branches expanding to Shanghai, Xiamen, Guangzhou, Hankou, Beijing, Shantou, Qingdao, Chongqing, among others. The Shanghai Municipal History Museum has preserved for display an insurance contract issued by HKFIC on 12 June 1924.
The fire insurer saw its business grow at breakneck pace, and margins swelled. Its shareholders made a 50% profit on their initial investment, and stock prices rose by 400%. This was a level of profitability unrivalled by most insurers of the day, thus cementing the company��s prominence in the colony. The company also actively expanded its business overseas, including in Japan.
From 1868 to 1870, the insurer stepped up its marketing efforts in Japan. In 1897, it even published a front-page advertisement in the English-language Japan Times. But in those heady days the insurer sustained heavy losses in Japan. Seismic activity was frequent, and both Yokohama and Tokyo saw devastating fires, in 1866 and 1892 respectively. Despite this, trade among Japan, Britain, and Hong Kong was by and large smooth-sailing until World War II broke out.
Based on a partial survey, besides BTIC, Victoria, and HKFIC, insurers established in Hong Kong from the 1860s onwards included:
�E
The Hong Kong Marine Insurance Co, reportedly established in 1862 by the British firm Lindsey & Co., with a branch in Shanghai;

�E
The China Fire Insurance Co., established in 1864;

�E
The China Fire Insurance Co. Ltd., established in 1870 with a registered capital of HK$2 million, offered marine, fire, and accident insurance, with Union acting as agent. Although ��China�� was part of its name, the firm was in fact owned by British business executives. Headquartered and registered in Hong Kong, it had branch offices in London, Singapore, Bombay, and elsewhere, and agents in Shanghai, Guangzhou, Xiamen, Hankou, Tianjian, Beijing, and Shantou. Industry experts long suspected that the China Fire Insurance Co. and the China Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. were one and the same because of the similarities of their names.21 With the onset of World War II, the company was ordered to be closed down by the Japanese army;

�E
The Chinese Insurance Co., established in 1871 by a group of compradors on the Mainland with a registered capital of 1.5 million taels of silver. Because Chinese investors ended up contributing more than half of the 300,000 taels in paid-up capital, the firm was mistaken as a Chinese-owned concern, when in fact it was a joint venture of both Chinese and foreign merchants. Registered in Hong Kong, Chinese Insurance first opened for business in Hong Kong and Shanghai before offering marine coverage at various ports through foreign firm agents such as Dent & Co.;

�E
The Jardine Insurance Co., established in 1873 as the third insurer under Jardine Matheson. Its prominence was overshadowed by that of the first two;

�E
The Man On Insurance Co., established in 1891 and headquartered in Hong Kong;

�E
China Underwriters Ltd., established in 1909 and registered in Hong Kong with expansion into Shanghai.


Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
The latter half of the nineteenth century marked the first peak in the development of Hong Kong��s insurance industry with the following noteworthy trends:
(1)
Major foreign firms invested in and founded numerous insurers. Headquartered in Hong Kong, these insurers aggressively sought out business in the mainland market. In decades afterwards, this evolved into an insurance business network that covered major cities on the Mainland, with Hong Kong as the nexus. In the early 1870, for instance, Union Insurance already had agents in Shantou, Xiamen, Fuzhou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Hankou, Yantai, Tianjin, Taiwan, and elsewhere. By 1874, ��Union grew into a great specialized insurance company with worldwide activities��, according to the company��s written history.22

(2)
Major foreign firms continued to develop their insurance business via agencies. Although these foreign firms had established their own professional insurance arms, due to the lack of manpower and financial resources and considerations related to the trading environment, they still relied heavily on agents to vie for their share of insurance business in Hong Kong and on the Mainland. Even those insurance firms created by foreign firms were independent in name only and were operated by the firms that had invested in them. To fulfill commissions from important foreign firms, Jardine Matheson made sure to install superior insurance practitioners as managers of branch offices in key areas. 23

During this time, the foreign firms�� agency business underwent significant development. For instance, when Butterfield & Swire Co. Ltd. was established in Shanghai in 1867, it managed to secure agency rights for the big three British insurers in eight years. By 1900, Swire has wrested control of more insurance business in China than any other foreign firm, going head-to-head with Jardine Matheson.

(3)
At the time, the development of the insurance industry in Hong Kong was closely associated with foreign firms�� dealings in China. While marine products covering vessels and their cargo were the mainstay of these insurers�� business, fire products also gradually grew in significance. In 1866, Jardine Matheson founded the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co., a milestone in this developmental trend. However, the growth of life products lagged far behind. Only in 1898 was the first life contract signed.


Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
Fig. 1.15
A Butterfield & Swire vessel docked in Guangzhou in 1900. Swire already dominated the insurance market in China.

Fig. 1.16
The Wing On Life Insurance Co., one of the most influential Chinese-founded insurers in Hong Kong, was in the building on the right, on the floor under the American flag.
(4) Trade associations for insurers in Hong Kong began to take shape. The first was the Fire Insurance Association (FIA) of Hong Kong, founded in 1895 as a representative organization. In 1903, it was reorganized as a company, with the stated goal to unite practitioners from different parts of the insurance sector doing business on Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. The purpose of the new trade group was to ensure that every collective action would cover the interest of all member companies. The group was also responsible for drafting regulations governing fire product transactions in all parts of Hong Kong and for providing supervision for all operations. Members were required to have an insurance business in Hong Kong.23
Three years later, in 1906, the creation of the Marine Insurance Association (MIA) of Hong Kong followed. Lost records have made it impossible to get a good grasp on the MIA��s activities in those early years, but one thing is certain: the two associations forged a close bond from the beginning. The FIA��s secretary, A. R. Lowe, also served as the MIA��s founding secretary.24


Hong Kong��s Insurance Industry in the First Half of the Twentieth Century
The insurance industry kicked off the twentieth century at a low point. The civil war in China brought the end of the Qing Dynasty in 1911 and the beginning of prolonged turmoil on the Mainland. Disasters at sea were also rampant. In four short months during 1912 more than forty ships either disappeared or sank, including the Titanic on 14 April when more than 1,500 passengers were either killed or injured when it sank. Union paid out �G42,000 and the Prudential Assurance Co. Ltd., a British insurer that set up shop in Hong Kong after World War I, �G14,000. In addition, warfare on the Mainland cost Union about US$20 million in payouts, exceeding the firm��s total assets in 1914.25
However, until 1915, Union reported profitable operations in its annual reports and even doled out bonuses to shareholders. With World War I drawing to a close, Union��s might
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
was boosted, and in 1918 it distributed a �G30 dividend and a 20% bonus. In fact, the war had fattened the company��s premium revenues from 1.1 million pounds to more than 3 million pounds. Through those years, a singular principle Union hewed close to had been crucial to its success: maintain a high reserve as a safeguard against exigencies.
As one commentator said, ��This conservative philosophy stood it in good stead through many a bad time�Xnot only war and civil violence, storm and flood, fire and destruction, but the fluctuations of currencies and bullion, the wayward imposition of national law and the overthrow of governments.�� Although the bonuses never stopped flowing, Union still managed to maintain a high level of reserve capital.26 ��Times are abnormal,�� said Chairman P. H. Holyoak. ��The future is full of uncertainties.��
After World War I, Union expanded its network all over the world. In Asia it had nine branches, including Yokohama and Singapore, as well as Shanghai, Hankou, Beijing, Tianjin, and Guangzhou; in Australia there was Sydney and Melbourne; in North America, its presence included Toronto, Seattle, San Francisco. In Africa, it was Cairo and Johannesburg. With this expansion, Union emerged as a prominent multinational with branches and agents throughout the world.27
At the same time, Union��s registered capital and total capital were both swelling. In December 1882, Union called a shareholders�� meeting to double the face value of each share, to US$5,000, thereby boosting the company��s fixed capital to US$250 million, although its paid-up capital remained at US$250,000. In 1916, when Union bought out the China Fire Insurance Co., its fixed capital rose to US$4 million.
As for Union��s asset base, it stood at more than US$2 million in 1892 and soared to US$3 million by the end of the century. In 1906, it exceeded US$8.5 million when Union took over the China Traders�� Insurance Co. By 1908, it hit the US$10 million mark, and by 1914, assets were valued at US$17 million.
Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
In 1935, at Union��s centennial celebrations, Board Chairman S. H. Dodwell brimmed with pride. ��To grow from a small Company brought into existence by a group of merchants in Canton, to a world-wide business owned by shareholders resident in practically every continent, needed foresight and initiative,�� he said. ��That this was not lacking in our predecessors is evidenced by our position today. . . . The ability displayed by succeeding underwriters, the successful outcome of their operations and the sound condition of its financial structure have won for the Society a place in [the] London insurance world of which all associated with it have every reason to be proud.��
It was in response to Dodwell��s declaration that Union��s chairman, Sir William Shenton, made the remark with which this chapter began: ��There can be no form of commercial activity that so clearly reflects the state of trade as that of insurance. No business thrives better on a free flow of international trade.�� Sir William then went on: ��[C]onsequently, with wars and rumours of wars, prevailing low commodity values, the very small rate of interest earned on capital, the instability of currencies, the gyrations of foreign exchanges, quotas, rising tariffs and the general adoption of almost every form of trade barrier, it is most gratifying to find that the accounts now presented to us are as satisfactory as they are.��28
Such was an apt description of Hong Kong��s fledgling insurance sector.
In the early years of the twentieth century, various foreign life insurance firms gradually made their way into Hong Kong. Chief among them was Canada��s Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. (now called Manulife Financial). Manulife opened for business in Hong Kong and Shanghai in 1897, and by 1898 it established an agency, Bradley & Co. On 23 December 1898, A. H. Ellis, an executive at the agency, sold the first-ever policy for Manulife in southern China. It was a fifteen-year policy for a thirty-one-year-old Chinese man. The policy number was 25042. The coverage was for HK$2,000 at an annual premium of HK$151.61.29
Fig. 1.17
The Hong Kong office of the Manufacturers Life Insurance Co. (now Manulife Financial), c. 1935. Manulife had opened for business in the Crown colony in 1897.

Pioneer Insurers in the New Crown Colony: Canton and Union
At the time, due to a lack of understanding and experience, Manulife��s board was sceptical of business prospects in China and even declared at a meeting on 27 June 1900: ��Do not accept business from China without board approval.��
However, they also felt that China was a vast market and worth exploring. So the Toronto headquarters scrutinized its own risk assessment on the region and gradually issued policies through Bradley. At first, Manulife set up its office on Queen��s Road Central; it moved to Prince��s Building after World War I. In May 1931, Manulife officially opened a southern China branch in Hong Kong and moved its operations to the Hong Kong Club building.
The boundless energy the branch manager showed in promoting life products earned him the chairman��s prize in 1932 and pushed the firm��s presence into Shantou, Xiamen, and Macau, thus establishing Manulife as the pre-eminent life insurer in Hong Kong and southern China. The other foreign insurer that managed to establish itself in the colony before World War II was the Sun Life Assurance Co. of Canada, which also had an office in Shanghai.
According to surveys, the number of insurance companies, including the sum of their offices, swelled to about a hundred by the early 1940s. At that time the better-funded foreign firms tended to set up only satellite offices in Hong Kong, while Chinese-owned insurers, whose capital tended to be in the tens of thousands of Hong Kong dollars and not much more, based their headquarters in the colony.
Hong Kong��s insurance sector was basically buttressed by British firms, which acted as underwriting agents in the course of conducting their shipping and trading businesses. These firms offered mostly products related to those activities and to a clientele comprised primarily of foreign merchants.



Chapter 2

The Establishment and Development of the Chinese-Owned Insurance Sector
In the early days, insurance remained an alien import from the West and so foreign insurers ruled the industry ... But a few enlightened local Chinese insurers saw strength in numbers so they banded together to support one another. They weathered through thick and thin and built themselves up.
�X Lo Tai Yiu, Commemorative Booklet of the 80th Anniversary of the Chinese Insurance Association of HK, 1983
Toward the end of the Qing Dynasty, foreign insurers in China began to open up to investments from local merchants. However, Chinese investors were entitled only to profits and not voting rights or any voice in management. In other words, these insurance companies were lopsided joint ventures at best and far from equal partnerships.
The first foreign insurer that solicited Chinese investments was Union Insurance, which, when Dent & Co. founded it in 1830, had a significant capital injection from some Guangzhou business investors. In Shanghai, many foreign enterprises, including insurance companies, also welcomed Chinese money.
In 1868, as recounted in the previous chapter, Jardine Matheson established the Hong Kong Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. It did so in compliance with the colony��s newfangled companies ordinance on limited liability companies. At one time, the famous comprador Sir Robert Ho Tung sat on the consulting committee of both Hong Kong Fire and Canton Insurance, another insurance firm controlled by Jardine Matheson.
Based on existing records, the first Chinese-controlled insurance firm was founded by a Shanghai trading firm with close ties to Jardine Matheson. Although that firm covered the
Fig. 2.1
An illustrated promotional calendar by the Fook On Assurance & Godown Co. Ltd.

cargo shipments of Chinese firms and little else, it served to stir up some competition for the foreign insurers.

Chinese-Founded Insurance Companies between the Late Nineteenth Century and the Dawn of the Chinese Republic
The later years of the Qing Dynasty were an incubation period for Chinese-owned insurance companies. The first such enterprise was established in 1877 in Shanghai: the China Traders�� Insurance Co. Its founding mission was to keep trading profits within the Chinese business community.
With 1.5 million taels of silver in capital, the company opened up branches not just in Hong Kong but also in mainland cities, offering only marine and fire policies.
In the same year, some prominent Chinese business investors and compradors in Hong Kong pooled $400,000 and set up the On Tai Insurance Co. to cover cargo ships shuttling between Hong Kong and Australia, America, Southeast Asia, and Mainland China. With its Western-style management, On Tai posed a challenge to an insurance and finance industry dominated by foreign insurers. The company joined the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce in 1881 and became the first Chinese enterprise to have earned membership in a club long dubbed the ��Western Chamber of Commerce�� because its members were predominately American and British traders.
Several other Chinese insurers emerged in Hong Kong during the last decade of the nineteenth century. All, like On Tai, adopted the same word in their names: ��On��, which means ��peaceful�� in Chinese. All had offices in Shanghai, China��s financial centre, as well as other major cities and ports on the Mainland and around Southeast Asia.



Figs. 2.2 & 2.3
Policies issued by On Tai Insurance, left, and the Tung On Fire Insurance Co. Ltd. right, late 1800s.
Fig. 2.4 (opposite) The Shanghai night scene in the 1930s. On the taller spires are the neon signs of Wing On (left) and Sincere (right) department stores.
All told, from 1865 to 1911, thirty-three Chinese insurers arose in Shanghai, according to the Shanghai Finance Digest. By 1937, the count had mushroomed to eighty-seven.
One of the most noteworthy was Hong On Insurance, co-founded in 1914 by the two most prominent department store chains in Hong Kong: Sincere and Wing On. With a combined investment of $10 million, the insurer offered fire and marine coverage, mortgage-lending services, and other products.


Fig. 2.5
The Hong Kong Hotel on fire in January 1926.
Fig. 2.6 (opposite) Connaught Road in Central Hong Kong after a typhoon in 1906.

By 1930, Hong Kong had seen the rise of more than fifty insurers�Xboth local and foreign. Foreign insurers, mostly branches of firms headquartered elsewhere, had far more capital than local firms. The local and foreign firms were at once competitors and collaborators.
Their meagre capital did not allow most local firms to indemnify high-value cargo. So for any coverage worth more than $10 million, local firms had to divide it with foreign firms�X


usually the better funded among them. The local firms also had to rely on foreign insurers for re-insurance. This inadvertently stymied the growth of local enterprises. The same situation was also evident among Chinese insurers in Shanghai.
When World War II cut off Hong Kong��s trade links with England, this risk-sharing practice was no longer possible. Chinese insurers looked to each other to share the risks of a pool of policyholders for the same product line.
K. H. Wong Executive director and CEO, the Asia Insurance Co. Ltd. Joined the industry in 1962
I remember back in the 1980s, when foreign brokers just landed here from overseas, they mostly got with international firms and had few dealings with local insurers. At the same time, local Chinese insurers also resisted dealing with foreign brokers who saw only ��gweilos�� as business partners. Asia was the first local firm to enter into business partnerships with these foreign brokers.
But when the Chinese-owned insurance firms saw how they��ve been losing out to these brokers, they got smart and began to forge partnerships. So by the 1990s, nearly all the local guys had joined forces with the foreign brokers, thus resulting in the rapid expansion of international brokerages. Even now, the brokers�� position as the intermediary in the insurance market remains rock solid because the majority of clients are under their control.
Chinese Family Insurers: Sincere and Wing On
In the history of the Chinese-owned insurance sector, Sincere and Wing On both exerted a significant influence. Both firms�� founders were Chinese-Australian; both got their start in Hong Kong in retail and insurance and found success on the foundation of business diversification.
Figs. 2.7 (below left) A Sincere advertisement, c. 1910.
Fig. 2.8 (below right) The Sincere Department Store building on Des Voeux Road in Central as it was from 1917 to 1968.
Sincere��s founder, Ying Piu Ma (1864�V1944), started his working life as a gold miner in Sydney when he was nineteen. In 1892, Ma, a native of Zhongshan in Guangdong Province, joined a few others from the same area to found a trading firm dealing in sundry Chinese goods and specialties from various cities. He made a fortune. He then moved to Hong Kong and set up new firms to handle imports and exports.


Fig. 2.9
The Ma family, c. 1940. Sincere��s founder, Ma Yingpiu, is seated in the centre row, third from right, with his grandchildren.
During his time in Australia, Ma was impressed with the ��no haggling�� style of retail operations that prevailed at Western department stores and was determined to introduce such practices in Hong Kong. Once again, he garnered support from his fellow natives. With $25,000, they founded the Sincere Department Store in 1900.1
Sincere quickly diversified into other lines of business, including insurance and mortgage lending. In 1915, the Sincere Insurance Co. was established with a registered capital of $1.2 million and paid up at 50%. It offered fire and marine coverage, as well as mortgage-lending services from offices across Guangdong Province and in Tianjin, Shanghai, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Within a decade, the insurer got a shot in the arm: an additional $600,000 in paid-up capital.
In 1922, the Sincere Life Assurance Co. was founded with $2 million in seed capital from the parent company after consolidation. But almost right away it began to face turmoil that would last for decades, including the labour strife of 1925 in Hong Kong and, later on, the Japanese invasion. As soon as World War II spread to the Pacific, Sincere��s branches in Singapore and on the Mainland were forced to suspend operations until the end of the war; only the Hong Kong office managed to carry on, though not without hardships. Finally, the branches in Singapore and Shanghai shut down permanently, in 1948 and 1952 respectively.
Nonetheless, operations in the Hong Kong head office continued to grow steadily and branched out to property investment. The 1968 completion of a new headquarters building in Central laid down a milestone in the development and diversification of Sincere Insurance.
At first, Sincere Life had a hard time cracking the market because most Chinese were strangers to the concept of insurance. However, once Sincere switched gear and promoted life products as a tool to accumulate wealth, this appealed to the savings-


Fig. 2.10
A stock certificate issued by the Sincere Life Assurance Co. in 1949.
minded Chinese, and they gradually warmed to the idea. As soon as Sincere got a foothold in the life market once dominated by foreign insurers, four other Chinese-owned life insurers emerged to vie for a piece of the action.
After Sincere, another significant Chinese-owned insurance group, Wing On, also made its first foray into the market. Wing On was founded by the Gock brothers, James Gocklock (1872�V1956) and Philip Gockchin (1876�V1966), from Guangdong Province. They made

Fig. 2.11
Wing On��s founding brothers, James Gocklock (left) and Philip Gockchin (right).
their fortune in Sydney by running a fruit stall, called Wing On, meaning ��perpetual peace�� in Chinese.
Seeing how successful Sincere had been as a department store and more, the elder brother, James, dispatched his younger brother to Hong Kong to follow suit. He set up the Wing On Department Store Co. Besides dealing in exports and imports, Wing On also branched out into banking to capture hot money in the market.2



James Gocklock arrived in Hong Kong in 1909 and restructured the new firm into a limited liability company. Wing On prided itself on its ��fair trade�� principle and was well reputed in business circles. By 1921, the brothers had set up a textiles plant in Shanghai, and a department store followed. Wing On soon expanded into insurance, hospitality, foreign-currency trading, and other sectors, rising as a diversified business enterprise.
In addition to a headquarters in Hong Kong, Wing On opened up branches in Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Yangzhou, and Macau. The brothers�� teamwork and effective management of a family business empire quickly earned the family prominence and affluence.

In 1915, the brothers established the Wing On Marine & Fire Insurance Co. Ltd with $750,000. It proved such a hit that clients also demanded life products. So the brothers raised $15 million from local and overseas Chinese and set up the Wing On Life Insurance Co. Wing On��s rise was helped by Hong Kong��s soaring status as a financial centre in Asia, as well as a growing awareness among customers of the many benefits a life policy could bring. More and more Chinese saw life policy as more than just a savings instrument: it was also financial protection in case of accident. Even though life insurance Fig. 2.12 remained a novel investment tool, this dawning awareness and trust in reputable names
The Wing On Co. building
such as Wing On served to cement the foundation for the life insurance business.
on Des Voeux Road in Central, c. 1910.


The year before the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Mainland China, Gocklock left for the United States to expand his business there. But once the Japanese moved on to take over Hong Kong, he was marooned overseas. All of Wing On��s operations were thus under Gockchin��s watch. Wing On Life carried on under the most trying of circumstances in the occupied colony.
On 15 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered and the occupation came to an end. Gocklock and his son, Lam Po, returned to Hong Kong and reorganized the family business. After a half century in business, Wing On was about to turn a new leaf. The civil war in China and the founding of the new regime forced all the mainland stores to close. Wing On thus focused its growth on its home turf and in Southeast Asia.


The Establishment of the Chinese Insurance Association of Hong Kong
To counter the dominance of foreign insurers in the local market, Chinese-owned firms decided to join forces and strengthen their connections with one another. Together, in 1903, they formed the Chinese Insurance Association of Hong Kong. At its founding, twelve companies came on board. Membership was granted only to companies, not individual agents. Today, the association remains as one of the city��s oldest trade groups.
The position of chairman was not established until 1919; the first vice-chairman was named in 1942. Every year, member firms took turns to take the association��s helm.
During its first few decades, the association��s agenda was light, comprised mostly of charity functions and industry-wide social events intended to develop business opportunities. Some of the group��s most important tasks were setting the fire premium rates in Guangzhou and submitting comments on the Macanese government��s insurance regulations.
As soon as the association resumed business after the Japanese occupation, it set up a sub-committee to handle matters related to fire products. In the postwar years, the group played an important part in providing smaller member firms with a mechanism for reinsurance.
Over the last half century, the group has remained close to its mission: to defend members�� rights and interests. It has also played an active role in improving professionalism and the quality of service within the industry.


The Insurance Industry during the Japanese Occupation
After 1937, when the Mainland fell into the grip of defensive warfare against the Japanese, the development of insurance (and of all other industries) was stunted. Meanwhile, insurance continued to flourish in Hong Kong; combined annual sales in between 1938 and 1939 were more than $300 million. That was until 1941, when the Japanese invaded the colony as well. During a takeover that lasted three years and eight months, all businesses withered.
As soon as the Japanese took control of the colony, all foreign insurers saw their assets liquidated, while the Chinese-owned firms were ordered to carry on business as usual. However, the business climate was unusually trying. According to a brief company history


Fig. 2.14
The Japanese occupation dealt a blow to all industries in Hong Kong, including insurance.
compiled by Sincere, citizens in occupied Hong Kong lost faith in the future and were far more concerned about staving off hunger and staying alive than taking out life policies. On top of that, they were forced to trade in their dollars for Japanese military yen.
Fortunately for Sincere, most of its assets were in real estate and were spared from liquidation.
Its peer, Wing On, also toughed out the occupation period. After the war, the military yen became worthless. Yet, Wing On still accepted premium payments in yen. The insurer wrote off its losses and won praise from clients.




Chapter 3

Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
The history of the insurance market in Hong Kong can be traced back to the 1940s when fire was the main line of business, followed by marine. In those days, insurance business was run on a ��compradore�� basis, i.e. a commission agent was responsible for business production as well as premium collection.
Following the change of government in China, there was an exodus of industrialists from the Mainland to Hong Kong and the ports in China were blockaded. With the help of the expertise of these immigrants, Hong Kong became industrialized and its unrivalled position as entrepot for China��s imports and exports created large volume of shipments. The export business demand and the commercial and industrial premises development increased by several folds. The risks in construction and shipping thus attracted foreign insurers to enter the market. This boom extended across the 50s and 60s. During this period, the Hong Kong insurance market was dominated by foreign companies, particularly U.K. companies operating through their branch office or agents. These agents were and are still managed by the insurance departments of some of the big Hongs, such as Jardines [sic], Matheson, the Swire Group and Inchcape Group. Nevertheless, local companies were able to expand and prosper consequently.
�X Louis Sze Ki Kwon, A Study of the Profits of Local General Insurance Companies, 1987

The Insurance Industry��s Postwar Reconstruction and Development
On 7 December 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and occupied Shanghai��s International Concession. World War II thus spilled into the Pacific theatre. By Christmas day, Hong Kong was invaded. The war nearly destroyed a century of painstaking effort among British firms in Hong Kong and China. The colony��s insurance sector was not spared the havoc.
In face of imminent invasion, foreign insurers made plans to suspend business and retreat from Hong Kong. In January 1941, Union moved its headquarters from Hong Kong to Sydney, setting up an office at the City Mutual Building, 60 Hunter Street. The relocation decision had been approved by the board of directors only a year before. In hindsight, the board��s chairman, J. Dickson Leach, affirmed that this decision helped save the company.
Once the war broke out in the Pacific and Hong Kong fell to the Japanese, Union��s staff in Asia gradually retreated to Sydney. Tokio Marine & Fire Insurance Company, once Union��s primary source of re-insurance business from Japan, stepped up as agent for the company in Hong Kong. During the war, Union lost almost all of its records, saw its property ravaged, and suffered heavy financial losses.
During the occupation, Canton Insurance��s employees likewise relocated to Sydney, and its London office took over the operations in Hong Kong and maintained the company��s connections in the region. Other foreign insurers either retreated from the colony or suspended business. The insurance sector ground to a halt.
On 15 August 1945, the Japanese surrendered unconditionally and the war ended. Hong Kong��s postwar economy recovered, and businesses flourished. This ushered in a new phase in the development of the insurance industry.
Foreign insurers returned to Hong Kong and the Mainland to resume operations. In 1946, Union Insurance recovered part of its assets locally and in the Far East and saw its business rebound quickly. The company��s balance sheet was restored to its prewar shape. ��Fantastic��, exclaimed Union��s chairman, Frederick Tout.1 The headquarters returned home to the colony.
By July 1947, just as Union had completed its return, its Asia-Pacific employees hurried back to the headquarters to clean up the mess. In that same year, Union��s premium
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
revenues swelled from �G3 million the year before to a record �G4 million. The company brought in auditing firm Lowe, Bingham & Matthews, which it had used previously, to straighten the books by reclassifying some of the company��s reserves as paid-up capital. In 1948, Union again raked in record premium revenues, its assets exceeding �G10 million.
Before the war, for most insurers, especially the foreign firms, the focus of their business had been on Mainland China. So after the war these foreign insurers tried to return to the Mainland to rebuild their operations. In 1946, Union��s E. A. Brodie was assigned to Shanghai to pick up where the company left off.
Brodie, a manager originally based in Bombay, had been arrested by the Japanese army in December 1941 while on business in Shanghai, and was held there until the end of the war. Once freed, Brodie went to inspect the office and found it expropriated by a staff member of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity movement. The office otherwise had remained intact, except that ��we had to start practically from scratch as all our records were gone��, said Brodie.2
Next, Brodie travelled on the Royal Navy and U.S. Navy vessels to Beijing and Tianjin to examine Union��s offices there. The Tianjin office had been occupied by the Japanese and emptied of records; the Beijing office had been converted into a curio shop.
Union resumed operations in its Shanghai and Tianjin offices. But as the Nationalist Party was losing ground in the civil war, the volume of insurance business dwindled. By 1950, the year after the People��s Republic was founded, Union shut down both offices and relocated all its mainland business to Hong Kong.
Union took over the China Fire Insurance Co. in 1951 and, in 1953, renamed its Yangtze Insurance Co. the ��North Pacific Insurance Co��. Union��s chairman J. D. Alexander said the roaring river namesake no longer carried the same cachet as it had in the past.3
Canton Insurance also ceased its mainland operations in 1949. At one time, mainland business accounted for about 60% of the company��s revenues. But one Canton employee recalled how the spiralling inflation of 1947 caused the Chinese currency to depreciate rapidly, such that shoppers had to carry large wads of cash. Housewives often lugged canvas bags full of bills on their grocery shopping trips.
Jardine Matheson��s employees in Shanghai got paid three times a month, but the Chinese currencies they received were depreciating by the minute. So on every payday they would rush out to spend the money as fast as they could, or their families would come collect the money and go on a shopping spree, before the paycheque shrank even further.
In 1954, Canton Insurance, renamed Lombard Insurance since the year before, officially closed its office in Shanghai, marking the end of the company��s century-old operation on the Mainland. With the loss of the bulk of mainland business, ��Canton Insurance�� was by then a misnomer.
The Lombard name originated from the street where Jardine Matheson, Canton��s parent company, based its London head office. Its headquarters at 3 Lombard Street has stood for more than a century; in 1894 Jardine even gave the name to an insurance subsidiary.
The history of the name goes back still further, to 600 BC. Back then, a Germanic tribe invaded Italy and where they settled in the north became known as the Lombard duchy (or the Lombardy region in Italy today).
In medieval times, the duchy��s growth concentrated around Milan and Genoa, two thriving business centres. Soon enough, Lombard emerged as an important centre for innovation and worldwide transactions, as well as a hub for advanced development in banking and accounting. When traders and bankers from Lombard migrated to London to expand their business, the street where they congregated was nicknamed ��Lombard Street��. The name stuck, and lives on to this day.
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation


Later, as the trading empires along the Mediterranean withered and the British economy blossomed, Lombard Street became the global banking and insurance centre. The credit goes to the Germanic tribesmen from Scandinavia, who invaded Lombardy circa 500 AD, because it was their descendants who developed modern banking and bookkeeping know-how.
The 1950s witnessed significant changes in the global political and economic landscape. Growing nationalist sentiments in developing countries took the shape of greater restrictions on foreign vessels and insurers. Some of these nations actively developed their own national fleets to get their share of ��invisible income from shipping��. Others, in an attempt to foster domestic financial enterprises, limited the types of marine products foreign insurers could legally offer.
In 1962, Union��s chairman, J. F. MacGregor said, ��The Society, with its worldwide network of branches and agencies, is affected by these restrictive influences.��
Nigel Rigg, manager for Union��s marine department, put
it this way: ��The 1960s were years of great changes in the
commercial world in the East and I believe the Society showed the way, certainly as far as
the insurance industry was concerned.��
Driven by unimpeded nationalist sentiments, governments in Burma and Ceylon (as Sri Lanka was then known) shut down Union��s operations. By 1964, the Jakarta office was closed and did not reopen until five years later. Union��s branches in Asia dwindled down to ten.
Given the obstacles to growth on the Mainland and in Asia as a whole, Hong Kong��s foreign insurers began to explore the markets in Australia, North America, and North Africa. In 1950, Union opened branches in Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Winnipeg, thus strengthening the company��s presence in Canada. By then, the Beaver Fire Insurance Co. of Winnipeg, acquired in 1920, was fully incorporated into Union��s operations. Between 1952 and 1953, Union expanded into Africa with branches in Cape Town, Bulawayo, Durban, Mombasa, and Nairobi.
In 1957, the face value of Union��s shares was �G10, with a net asset value per share at around �G28. Because Union became known as ��one of the world��s most expensive insurance stocks��, the board split the shares into �G1 each so as to attract more shareholders.
In 1960, Union accepted a takeover by London��s Guardian Assurance. ��It would be true to say that the Guardian��s approach to the Society was not unwelcome,�� Union��s chairman, Percy Dunt, later would say. ��The Society, although very sound financially, was finding its relatively small size an increasing handicap when competing for the insurance business of the fewer and fewer but larger commercial and industrial companies around the world.��4
By 1966, the number of Union��s branches in Canada expanded to eighteen, spread across eight provinces. The expansion also took place in Oceania: Union had seven branches each in Australia and New Zealand by 1964.
To be sure, Union was not about to give up on Asia. At that time, many Asian countries encouraged, or even required, foreign firms to enter into joint ventures with local enterprises. The goal was to support homegrown business development and investment and expedite the transfer of technology and management know-how to local executives.
Hence, in 1975 in Indonesia, Union established a new joint venture, P. T. Maskapai Asuransi Union�VFar East. Even in its founding year, the new enterprise showed
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
tremendous promise, with an extensive network of branches being built up. ��We were the forerunners in forming joint ventures with local participation in the markets in which we operated,�� said Rigg, who was by this time Union��s chairman. ��Despite some misgivings in London, the Society formed its first joint venture in Indonesia in 1975 and this has proved to be successful over a period of years.��
Rigg continued: ��Perhaps more importantly, the Society began actively looking for nationals of the countries in which we operated to become executives of the Society. This was a conscious corporate strategy of the Society to identify more closely with the territories in which we made our money.��5
At the same time, Lombard (formerly Canton) also was aggressively expanding overseas. It first targeted Australia, where it had strong ties with three firms, each a century old and each with a significant local presence: Jardine Matheson, George King & Co., and the South Australia Insurance Co. A founder of George King was employed by Jardine Matheson in Guangzhou in 1827. Two years later, while visiting Sydney, he set up an agency, which afterward acted as an intermediary between Jardine and Australian firms. With this connection, insurance coverage could be provided by Magniac in Calcutta, India.
In 1881 Canton Insurance (later, in 1953, called Lombard) was incorporated in Hong Kong as a limited liability company. George King and its partners held some of its shares. In 1888, George King was appointed as official agent for Hong Kong Fire. This business relationship was maintained until 1893.
In 1964, Lombard acquired the Thacker Co. of Sydney, and set up branches in major parts of the country, such as Perth (1967), Melbourne (1969), Queensland (1972), and South Australia (1973). Some of these branches were established through acquisition of other insurers�� local agents.
In the 1950s and 1960s, Lombard��s operations expanded swiftly in Japan, Southeast Asia, and Europe. The company��s organization had evolved from a network of overseas agents and branches into a conglomeration of shareholding entities, such as in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Korea. By the mid-1980s, Lombard had Hong Kong as its base and subsidiaries all over the globe, including Japan, Korea, the Chinese Mainland, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. An international insurance conglomerate thus came into being.6


The Development and Transformation of the Postwar Insurance Sector
After three years and eight months of Japanese occupation, Hong Kong was liberated by the Pacific fleet commanded by Lt. C. H. J. Harcourt of the Royal Navy on 30 August 1945. The fleet docked at Victoria Harbour, and colonial rule resumed.
��While the harbour thundered to triumphant salutes of every warship[,] on land, rubble, dissolution, disorder and hunger were everywhere to be seen,�� according to one contemporary account. ��The harbour was jammed with sunken vessels. The population has been reduced by a million and most of those who remained had no money, no home, no food and no fuel.��7
The Royal Navy personnel who arrived set up a military government, but when the wartime governor, Sir Mark Young, returned in May 1946 from Japanese imprisonment, he re-established the civilian administration.
During that time, Hong Kong��s economy remained crippled, inflation deepened, unemployment was rampant, food and commodities were lacking. Once the colonial government resumed control, it introduced a series of measures to restore political and economic order.
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
By 1947, the political situation in Hong Kong had stabilized, and private businesses picked up where they left off. The colony��s traditional function as an entrepot was revived. On the eve of the Japanese invasion, in 1939, the total volume of cargo in and out of Hong Kong��s port was about 2 million tons. But by 1947, the volume had spiked to 3.3 million.
In that same year, the volume of external trade was valued at $2.77 billion, more than double the prewar (1931) volume of $1.28 billion. In 1951, the volume soared to $9.30 billion, a 236% increase from 1947. The reason behind this exponential growth in trade volume lay on the Mainland. Since foreign firms such as Jardine Matheson and Swire had retreated from the Mainland, the young republic was hungry for economic ties with the outside world. So Hong Kong filled the role of intermediary, with foreign firms there thriving on the Mainland��s growing demands.
The brief period between the end of World War II and the start of the United Nations embargo on China was the heyday of the marine sector. Coverage for imports and exports was in demand. Given the small number of established insurers, competition had yet to turn fierce, and margins were good. In those days, intermediaries benefited from both soliciting business and collecting premiums.
Good times do not keep rolling forever. When the Korean War broke out in 1950, the United States prevailed over the UN to impose an embargo on China. This dealt a huge blow to Hong Kong��s trans-shipment business, with a domino effect on shipping, finance, insurance, and other sectors. After 1952, marine products led in the long slide in the insurance sector, with sales shrinking by as much as 20% to 30% in 1954. The hardest hit was marine coverage along the South Asia route, especially in Indonesia and Thailand.
Beginning in 1952, Indonesian government required all imports to be insured by domestic firms. This nearly spelled the end for marine business for foreign firms. Political turmoil and trade restrictions in parts of Asia had also adversely affected Hong Kong��s foreign trade and, indirectly, its marine insurance business.
Fig. 3.2
Cheung Sha Wan, a thriving manufacturing district c. the 1950s.
In the marine sector, the trade routes that yielded the most business included those to the Chinese Mainland, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, and Japan. Although individual policies on these routes were not huge, the business was frequent and stable.
Of these routes, that to the Mainland generated the most business, but competition on that route was also increasingly fierce. From 1955 to 1956, the war insurance premium for mainland customers was slashed four times, from $3 per $100 of coverage to 25 cents on every $100. But all was not lost. The lower premiums on marine and war products brought down the costs of doing business and hence stimulated more trade. This resulted in a greater flow of business from the Mainland.
Even so, the pie of marine business was not big, with more and more insurers trying to get a slice of it. Most exporters would get insurance at the countries to which they were shipping, while importers would get their goods insured before they reached Hong Kong. As competition heated up, insurers pulled out all the stops. For example, some extended the grace period for premium collection from the standard one to three weeks to as long as six months for clients in good standing. Others hired go-fers and agents and paid them hefty commissions for soliciting businesses. This enticed more foreign trading firms, and traditional Chinese savings and loans were entering the fray. Still others would undercut rivals with deeper and deeper discounts and even offered paybacks to clients.
At that time, most insurers shunned, or rejected outright, business from certain ports in Africa and South America. Due to the high risk of theft there, insurers faced greater chances of incurring losses. Some insurers would charge higher premiums, but they could barely cover the payouts. But premiums on certain routes were already at rock bottom. For example, in 1952 British routes charged about 0.25%, which meant 25 cents on every $100; the Japan route commanded 0.15%; for Africa and South America, depending on the circumstances, it could run to $7 or $8 or even $10 per every $100 of coverage.
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation


Fig. 3.3
A car pile-up in North Point, 12 June 1966. Hong Kong had been pelted by unusually heavy rains, resulting in landslides, collapsed roads, traffic jams, and school and factory closures.
In a 1955 report, Union��s chairman C. Blaker emphasized the ��chronic competitive nature�� in the marine business, saying there was a ��scramble for business�� and ��indiscriminate rate-cutting�� going on.
From the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, Hong Kong succeeded in transforming its economy from a traditional entrepot to a light manufacturing centre in the Far East. Toward the end of 1940s on the Mainland, the Communists and the Nationalists broke into a third battle. The unstable political situation caused a throng of industrialists to flee Shanghai and other cities for Hong Kong. These refugees packed with them the essential ingredients for industrial development: capital, know-how, equipment, and business contacts worldwide. All this allowed them a fresh start in manufacturing business. First it was textiles, then clothing.
Also, Hong Kong had all the favourable conditions that enabled industries to flourish: a simple tax structure and low rates; liberal financial policies allowing unfettered capital flows; advanced telecommunications infrastructure; first class port facilities, and abundant cheap labour. In 1959, local exports rose to $2.3 billion, and trans-shipments to a record $2 billion. All this signalled that the economy was well on its way to industrialization. In 1960, total foreign trade was valued at $9.8 billion, far surpassing the 1951 record level.
The rapid export growth naturally lifted the boat of the marine insurance business. But Union��s chairman, MacGregor (chairman, 1957�V1965), pointed out, ��Competition for marine business is possibly keener now than it has ever been in the postwar years with rates at a dangerously low level.�� J. Dickson Leach, MacGregor��s successor as chairman, said, ��The immediate outlook for marine insurance is poor.��
In the 1960s, marine insurers were dealt blow after blow. In 1962, Typhoon Wanda ravaged the colony, resulting in 120 deaths, 20 capsized vessels, and enormous property losses. Insurers doled out damage payments in the hundred of thousands of dollars. In 1965, Typhoon Betsy engulfed Hong Kong again and resulted in a record payout for a single policy.
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
Fig. 3.4
The damage caused by Typhoon Wanda in 1962 cost insurers dearly.

Union already paid out at least 85% of its premium revenues in 1964, and nearly 90% in 1965. Members of the insurance trade associations reached an agreement in 1964 to fix the premium rates.
Mother Nature aside, politics also intervened. The influence of the Cultural Revolution on the Mainland seeped into Hong Kong. First, it started as the Star Ferry riot of April 1966, then it took the form of unrest at a plastic-flower factory in San Po Kong, and, finally, a full-blown political riot engulfed the colony in 1967. In these troubled times, export-import trade was delayed and marine insurance business affected. And when the workers�� and sailors�� unions struck, cargo handling at the dockyards was paralyzed. Marine insurance demand fell nearly flat.
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation


Figs. 3.5 & 3.6 (top) Riots in 1956 cost factory owners heavy losses and persuaded many of them to get coverage.
Fig. 3.7 (bottom) Military policemen in North Point during the period of martial law in 1967. The riots that year hit the colony��s economy hard.



Fig. 3.8
A police raid on a union hall in August 1967.
Marine insurers began to impose a surcharge on older vessels to bring in more revenues. Beginning in March 1967, some older craft saw premiums increase fourfold, from 0.75% to 3%.
The riots of 1967 sent Hong Kong��s economy down a slippery slope: real estate value plummeted, emigrants left in droves, and middle-class policyholders suspended coverage or sought loans to cash in on the paid-up value. The shortage of U.S. dollars in circulation in the market compounded the difficulties. James Wong, who joined the American International Assurance Co. Ltd. in 1967�Xhe advanced to general manager for the Hong Kong region in 1987�Xrecalled that because the policies stipulated that all
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
payouts be made in U.S. dollars, to satisfy the demand of all the clients AIA had to ship in US$250,000 from the United States in order to overcome the crisis.
Once the crisis was over, AIA hoped to relocate its operations near the continental United States, but somewhere with British law. Bermuda was just the place. AIA became the first local life insurer to incorporate there. In fact, AIA incorporated in the name of a subsidiary, the American International Reinsurance Company. Many other foreign life insurers followed suit. This resulted in what Wong called ��the Bermuda enigma��.
James Wong Former CEO, Dah Sing Life Assurance Co. Ltd. Joined the industry in 1967
When I first started, my family members frowned upon my decision to join the sector, but then I ended up staying on for more than forty years. During the decades, only once did I think of quitting the business.
I was giving out a cash payment to a family member of a policyholder. As he was counting the bills, the family member suddenly burst out crying, so much so he wasn��t able to count anymore. I was baffled, and asked myself: ��Why should he be so upset? Is insurance so much a bad thing that causes such sadness?��
Gripped by that thought, I wanted to quit. But later, my superior explained that upon receiving the payout, the family of policyholder is invariably reminded of the departed. They��ve got the cash in hand but no longer their loved ones. So they just can��t help it. Once I understood this intricate chain of reactions, I decided to stay on�Xto this day.
The 1968 blockade of the Suez Canal, a result of the Six-Day War between Israel and Egypt, cast a long shadow on the global shipping trade. When it was over, the oil crisis
reared its ugly head in the 1970s and 1980s, and an unprecedented wave of inflation soon followed. The oil crisis paved the way for high-tonnage tankers. Ironically, as recently as the 1950s, Union��s chairman, MacGregor, pointed out that ��tankers of a capacity [were] unthought-of as being practicable a few years ago��, because their high costs ��produced problems for underwriters��.
In fact, in the two decades that followed, a series of tankers was christened around the globe, not just supertankers of 500,000 tons but also super-sized bulk carriers and globular liquefied petroleum gas carriers. As the tonnage rose, so did the risks. Frequent oil spills and messy cleanups courted stiff opposition from environmentalists. The sector also was laden with anxiety by these giant tankers. However, by the 1970s, insurers realized that these tankers merely changed the scope of coverage for policyholders and brought in higher margins. That was because containerization had helped reduce losses through theft and damage.
But the fire insurance business was thriving, when compared with the ups and downs in marine. When the Korean War broke out in early 1950s, foreign trade shrank and with it the marine business. However, the demand for fire coverage surged as more unsold goods were put into storage.
In hopes of attracting more fire business, firms began to hire agents by the dozens, if not by the hundreds. To compete, firms also handed out handsome commissions to brokers and discounts to clients. Taking all that into account, insurers raked in 65% to 70% of premium revenues. The more established firms with a deeper client pool tended to get the upper hand and reaped higher margins. Newcomers often lost out in such a competitive environment and closed down for lack of liquidity. Some clients would even divide their fire coverage into a few smaller chunks among various insurers to placate competing firms.
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Figs. 3.9 & 3.10
The red-covered ��Bible��:
Tariff of the Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong, at left; at right is its index page.

According to practitioners, a firm could previously break even on $300 million worth of polices, but by 1961 it would require $400 million of business. To attract more business, insurers offered premium discounts. For instance, firms charged about $3 for every $1,000 of residential fire coverage, plus a surcharge of $1 or $2 if the policyholders lived next to factories with inflammatory materials. Lots of firms would waive this surcharge to win clients. So, on the surface the 1963 fire rates remained stable, but the discounts were not. The discounts ran at 30% to 35% in 1962 but up to 40% to 50% by 1963.
In the early 1960s, tariff (premium) rates for fire coverage ran the gamut from 0.18% to 2% or 3%, depending on the covered environment and its amenities. Rates for shophouses could go from 0.18% to 0.6%. Most policies expired after one year.
Fig. 3.11
Firefighters deploying a ��turntable ladder�� at a plastics factory, October 1970. Fires were frequent as Hong Kong industrialized in the 1960s and 1970s.


Not long afterwards, the Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong began to publish the Tariff of the Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong. Dubbed ��the Bible�� by industry practitioners, it listed the rates for every type of fire coverage. All FIA members had to charge the published rates. The FIA revised the rates annually; however, the big British firms got the most say as to the adjustments; others had no choice but to go along with it.
As the number of marine and fire policies grew, many insurers began to establish a re-insurance system to spread risks among peers.
In Hong Kong, the re-insurance system was bifurcated: consensual and mandatory. In consensual re-insurance, for every high-value policy a firm issued, it would be responsible for the entire coverage, but a percentage of the coverage, on a case-by-case basis, would be assigned to a partner firm. With mandatory re-insurance, firms entered into mutually binding long-term contracts, which stipulated a fixed portion of a certain type or line of coverage. Parties to the contract
would audit their accounts every month.
But frequent fires in 1961 meant a heavier payout burden on the insurers. For example, the cotton cargo in the Kowloon Godown caught fire quite a few times. After every incident, investigators from the insurance company would look for inadequacies in the storage facilities that may call for higher tariffs, but they had no luck. In 1966, of the
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
more than 2,700 reported fire incidents, 150 were serious blazes and cost $10 million in damages for the insurers. In 1969, the number of reported incidents jumped to 5,105, a 25% increase over 1968, and cost $20 million in payouts.
The reasons the fire business thrived in the 1960s are as follows: (1) The blazes that broke out from 1960 to 1963 had seriously damaged shops and homes alike; insurers used the incidents to solicit more clients and issue more commercial policies. (2) As trans-shipment activities intensified, packed warehouses were often vulnerable to fire; and as factories received more orders for their products, they put away more raw materials and inventory for storage and sought more coverage. (3) There were more new buildings and hence more candidates for fire coverage.
Table 3.1. Hong Kong Insurers in the Early 1960s

MIA FIA AcIA CIA Total no. of insurers 1959 107 80 87 20 N/A 1960 117 123 96 21 157 1961 119 129 99 21 160 1962 119 130 100 24 160 1963 119 132 105 25 160 1964 119 151 116 26 160
MIA : Marine Insurance Association of Hong Kong FIA : Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong AcIA : Accident Insurance Association of Hong Kong CIA : Chinese Insurance Association of Hong Kong
Source: Hong Kong Economic Yearbook, 1960�V1965
Fig. 3.12
Cars on Garden Road in Central, 1962. The Motor Vehicle Insurance (Third Party Risks) Ordinance went into effect as the number of cars and auto accidents rose in the 1960s.
Apart from fire insurance, accident products were also in demand. The most popular were car-and work-related. For shops, banks, savings and loans, and jewellers, coverage related to theft, robbery, and transportation were most common.
By the 1950s, as the number of cars and auto accidents grew, colonial governor Sir Alexander Grantham issued the Motor Vehicle Insurance (Third Party Risks) Ordinance and mandated insurance for anyone who controlled a vehicle. The goal was to protect outside parties involved in car accidents. Rates for motor vehicle coverage were set by the Accident Insurance Association of Hong Kong, the AcIA, based on a vehicle��s age and horsepower. Because car accidents were frequent, insurers paid out more and more. Motor vehicle insurance became a loss leader. In 1954, one insurer saw an incident rate as high as 60% of the client pool; another paid out half of its premium income.
The AcIA, established in 1946, played its role in uniting insurers that offered accident coverage and instituting a well-oiled system for providing such coverage. It conferred membership on insurers dealing in any kind of accident products. By 1987, 141 firms were members.8
In 1966, the AcIA announced a rate increase on all vehicles, since auto repairs costs and payout percentages for third parties both had increased. Full coverage on buses, minibuses, and private cars went up 35%, on motorcycles 15%, and on third-party risks 50%.
Meanwhile, in industrializing Hong Kong, the number of factories and workshops was increasing by the day, and so were industrial accidents. Coverage for workers was gaining momentum. In December 1953, the Hong Kong government enacted the Workmen��s Compensation Ordinance, which required all employers to take out policies for all those on their payroll. The ordinance also stipulated rates commensurate with the level of job-related risks. For most employees, the rate was 1%, but it could be as high as 10% for well-drillers, demolition workers, scaffold builders, and the like.
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However, only large factories and commercial conglomerates purchased the required insurance, while most of the smaller factories and enterprises in dangerous industries neglected to do so. Disputes over compensation arose whenever there was a job-related casualty. In light of this, in June 1957 the Labour Department ordered employers to take out policies and list the expenses on their books as recurring operating costs.
During that era, certain events served to simulate the demand for accident products. In October 1956, riots in Kowloon caused work stoppages in the entire textiles sector. This set off a chain of events that snowballed into serious losses to the industries, measured in the hundred thousands of dollars every day. To make things worse, the factories�� accident policy did not cover riots. Factory owners wised up and took out riot insurance, some with coverage as high as $100 million.


The Dominance of British Firms in the 1960s
As much as the development of the postwar insurance sector included diversification, the roster of major players did not. Even in the late 1960s, the sector was dominated by big British firms, with agencies, a few locally registered insurers, and subsidiaries of foreign firms setting the agenda.9
(1) General agents
These were mostly the traditional ��hongs�� acting as local agents handling policies issued by foreign insurance companies. They included Jardine Matheson, Swire, the Gilman Group, Wheelock Marden, the Inchcape Group, and some big banks such as the Hang Seng Bank, which, since the 1950s, had begun to build up an insurance department.
At the time, Jardine Matheson was by far the most influential agency in Hong Kong. Kenneth Kwok, who joined Jardine��s insurance department in 1968, recalled that the department��s office on the second floor of Jardine House (today��s Wheelock House) on
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Pedder Street was composed of various sections: marine, fire, accident, compensation, marketing, and personnel, with about a hundred employees. Jardine Matheson not only handled policies issued by wholly owned subsidiaries Lombard and Hong Kong Fire, but also acted as an agent for nearly a dozen multinational insurers based in England, Continental Europe, the United States, and Japan.
Jardine��s insurance clients at the time were mostly the blue chips and included Hongkong Land, Dairy Farm, China Light & Power, Hong Kong Tramways, Hongkong Electric Holdings, and Hongkong & Kowloon Wharf & Godown. And by the late 1970s, the department grew to roughly 120 members, took in more than $100 million in premiums and became the first local insurer to computerize its operations.
Kenneth Kwok Chairman, Marsh (Hong Kong) Limited Joined the industry in 1968
Jardine��s business: In the postwar insurance sector many a British firm was flourishing. Jardine owned the most market share, thanks to subsidiaries Lombard and Hong Kong Fire, which specialized in marine products and fire and accident products respectively. At its peak, Jardine also was the underwriting agent for no fewer than fifteen firms.
Lombard��s legacy: When Lombard was sold to Continental Insurance, it was a deal forged on the green by none other than Jardine��s insurance department head, Michael Somerville. The name stayed on until Lombard was sold again, this time to HSBC. In 1996, HSBC finally merged Lombard, name and all, into its insurance arm.
But that was the end of the storied Lombard name. When I founded Falcon, we adopted a British ship logo very much like Lombard��s. In fact, the Falcon was the first vessel ever to have entered China��s waters.
Hong Kong Fire��s demise: CNA became the owner of Hong Kong Fire after acquiring its parent, Continental. CNA even hung Hong Kong Fire��s original insurance license�Xthe first ever in the city�Xin front of its Wanchai headquarters. I tried to buy back the license, but CNA asked me to write a carte blanche for it; I couldn��t possibly have done that.
In the insurance sector, only Swire could match Jardine Matheson��s scale and strength. Swire has been involved in the business since shortly after it was founded in Shanghai in 1867. In addition to handling coverage for its subsidiaries, such as Taikoo Sugar, Taikoo Dockyard, and Swire Shipping, Swire also represented several British insurers, including the Royal Exchange Assurance Co., the British & Foreign Marine Insurance Co., the London & Lancashire Co., Union Insurance, the Palatine & Atlas Assurance Co., and others.
After World War II, Swire quickly resumed business in the colony. At first, Swire��s insurance department had its office at 1 Connaught Road; it subsequently moved to the second floor of the Union Building (later rebuilt as Swire House), facing Jardine Matheson��s insurance department right across the street.
Like its arch rival, Swire��s insurance department was also organized into several sections, such as marine, fire, accident, compensation, and accounting. There also was a life section, handling the policies issued by China Underwriters Ltd.
George Yan, who joined Swire��s insurance department in 1971, recalled that of seventy-odd employees, all were university graduates except for the few foreigners.
Gong Yiu, who was then head of the department, was particularly successful in winning the trust of the big boss because he knew Yiu��s father from his days as a preacher in Shanghai. When Yiu attended Cambridge University, he lived at his future boss�� home. Under Yiu��s watch, Swire��s agent pool swelled to 500.
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George Yan Executive director, Chong Hing Insurance Co. Ltd. Joined the industry in 1971
I learned a great deal during my seven years at Swire, especially about corporate culture. As an English firm, Swire is steeped in the class system. Even toilets came in two classes: one for clerks and managers, the other for high-level executives.
Also, because Swire is a foreign firm, with an emphasis on a systemic approach to management, no one could thrive in the insurance department without a solid understanding of how the industry worked. The younger employees were especially aggressive, often getting in earlier and getting off later than their Western bosses. They sought every chance to show off their talent, so they couldn��t wait for their managers to go on vacation and fill their shoes.
We also learned to cover ourselves. We��d keep a memo on every agreed-upon decision in case some colleagues reneged on their word. One superior of mine even kept a carbon copy of every memo.
My Union Days: Within my first three years at Union, I found myself in a totally different milieu. Unlike Swire, Union was more like a family with a long history with all its employees. Working there gave you a sense of well-being and security. Union treated the employees so well that most would recruit their family members to join the firm. So it was common to find three generations of the same family under Union��s employ.
Union was never very hard on its employees. Offices closed at 5:15 p.m. and lights were turned off on the dot. Some employees even headed out to the wet market by 3 or 4 p.m. to do grocery shopping and get ready for dinner. No one in the office was trying to get
Fig. 3.13 (left) The Hang Seng Bank��s headquarters, left, late 1950s.
Fig. 3.14 (right) An Associated Bankers monthly premium statement.
qualifications or get promoted. Even so, those who have served Union over generations have amassed sizable fortunes. I remember once a colleague in accounting, after being chided by a superior, slammed his desk saying that he��d rather quit because his salary wasn��t enough to feed his two dogs. It turns out that he fed his dogs American beef. Union was full of people like him, who didn��t care much for the work or promotion.

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Among the marine insurers, Union was one of the largest and boldest. It tended to go where others feared to tread. During the advent of containerization, most insurers didn��t even know what a container was, but Union had researchers in England who pointed out that cargo in containers was less likely subject to damage or theft. Given the lower risks, Union was more willing to cover containers and at lower rates. And when a client suggested that the container be vacuumized in order to maximize tonnage and minimize damage, Union was open to trying this new technique and lowering premiums.
Union enjoyed long heydays. Western employees recalled that when Union moved to Hong Kong it bought land all over the Victoria Peak to build quarters for foreign hires. If Union had held on to all the real estate, it would have been a bigger property owner than Hongkong Land. Many buildings in Central, including Chater House, were once owned by Union.
When I first joined the firm, many Westerners told me that even if Union didn��t open for business, its assets could more than support all the employees. It didn��t take long for Union��s mountain of assets to be levelled: The plots and HSBC stocks were gradually sold off. Its conservative style of operations soon lost big accounts in my time, such as Jardine, Hongkong Electric, and HSBC, to competitors. Ultimately, Union��s biggest mistake was to have lost faith in the future of post-colonial Hong Kong. In 1967, the company decided that it had to begin to disinvest in anticipation of the handover and eventually sold to Guardian.
In Hong Kong��s banking sector, Hang Seng Savings & Loan (called ��ngan ho�� in Chinese) was the first to launch into the insurance arena. In 1953, Hang Seng officially became a bank and almost immediately set up an insurance department. In 1958, Ko Ying joined the bank as the department��s deputy manager but also oversaw marine products. Ko recalled that the department began with a bare crew of five by focusing on only marine and fire lines and acting as Union��s underwriter.
Y. Ko General Manager, KSY Specialty Ltd. Joined the industry in 1958
How Associated Bankers was born: In 1958, I joined Hang Seng Bank as deputy manager of its insurance department, but I also oversaw marine products. At the time, my department had a skeleton crew of five. We focused our energy and time only on marine and fire lines, acting as Union��s underwriter. But by early 1960s, the bank��s director, Sin-hang Ho, decided that insurance would grow to be a perennial industry so he set about expanding the operation.
On 15 January 1965, Hang Seng took the lead in establishing Associated Bankers, an entity specializing in insurance, with $5 million in capital. Other banks also participated by buying stakes in the startup, including Bank of East Asia (2% share), Wing Hang Bank (10%) and Wing Lung Bank (20%). Other shareholders were personal friends of Ho and the bank.
Associated was headed by general manager Raymond Kan, a veteran of American International Underwriter, and I became his deputy. Kan��s brother Anthony, also an AIU veteran, was of the underwriter of the personal accident department. Its business mostly came from the stakeholding banks, especially Hang Seng��s clients.
The Vietnam War also brought business to Associated. Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Hong Kong served as an entrepot for supplies, machinery, and equipment bound for Vietnam, while Vietnam��s produce and foodstuff exports passed through Hong Kong. Associated charged 1% for comprehensive coverage on trade with all other countries, but as much as 10% (including war coverage) on trade with Vietnam, because the raging warfare posed a much higher risk. So in the late 1960s, Associated reaped huge profits.
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Associated��s staff grew to ninety employees in the 1980s and was wholly acquired by Hang Seng in March 1993.
Steven Lau Independent Non-executive Director, China Region, AXA Joined the industry in 1969
By the late 1980s, Union ran into financial difficulties and was forced to accept a takeover bid from the Guardian Assurance Group of London. Guardian was a listed company in Britain and ranked among the top five in the global insurance industry. The motivation behind the Union takeover was to use it as a launching pad in the Far Eastern market. That was why Guardian kept Union��s name and clientele.
But at the end of the day, Guardian��s management was never quite able to crack China��s market and was reluctant to invest on a large scale. This doomed Union��s growth in the 1990s. In 1999, Guardian was acquired by AXA, the large French insurer.

(2) Locally registered shareholding insurance companies
Among the main ones were Union, Lombard (formerly Canton Insurance), and Hong Kong Fire. However, most of these were controlled by foreign trading or insurance firms. To be sure, there also were a few wholly Chinese-controlled and -funded insurers, such as Wing On Marine & Fire Insurance and the Sincere Insurance & Investment Co. Ltd.
Of all, Union exuded the most influence and strength on the local insurance scene from mid-century through the 1970s. Although traditionally the company��s core competency was marine and fire products, it soon dominated the car insurance market in Kowloon, as one of the few insurers with a branch on the peninsula in the 1950s. At the time, nearly all insurers concentrated on Hong Kong Island. When the government mandated insurance for all drivers, long lines formed in front of Union��s Kowloon office for motor vehicle policies.
Fig. 3.15
Staff of the South British Insurance Co., 1959, Kam Lung Restaurant, Sheung Wan.


(3) The trend towards consolidation among foreign insurers
Consolidation activities were heated among the foreign insurers that had operations or branches in Hong Kong. What follows are descriptions of the ones involving major players.
Founded in 1872 with New Zealand capital, the Auckland-based South British Insurance Co. Ltd. was so named because Oceania lies on the southern fringe of the British Commonwealth. When South British first expanded to Hong Kong in 1881, George R. Stevens & Co. was its agent. Later, South British set up branches here.


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After the Korean War broke out in 1950, supply shipments often passed through Hong Kong, but most insurers were unwilling to undertake the risks. Consequently, South British saw ever more marine business, even at rates as high as 15%, and reaped $3 million to $4 million in premium income a year.
But in 1983, South British was acquired by the New Zealand Insurance Co. Ltd.
H. C. Wong Non-executive Director, The Ming An (Holdings) Co. Ltd. Joined the industry in 1950s
War and peace: The history of the industry has shown that insurers benefit from both war and peace. When the Korean War broke out in June 1950, demand for supplies shot up, but most insurers were unwilling to shoulder the risks of shipping to the Korea peninsula. Those who did charged a war risk premium as much as 15%, much higher than any risk premium we see today.
C. C. Wat MSIG Insurance (Hong Kong) Ltd. Joined the industry in 1950
Father-and-son team: Both my father and I worked for South British; our tenures add up to more than half a century. He made it up the rank and file at a major foreign firm because he understood English when others didn��t, and he graduated from Queen��s College, a prestigious local secondary school. In that era, people tended to trust foreign firms more than local ones. If you were an exporter who wanted to secure a letter of credit from the bank, most banks would accept only foreign insurers as guarantors.
Fig. 3.16
A South British Insurance Co. brochure, 1892.

Vincent Cheung Agency Development Manager, MSIG Insurance (Hong Kong) Ltd. Joined the industry in 1970
The merger mania of the 1990s: It was as though every firm was looking to merge with somebody, either to shore up its own position or to pre-empt a hostile takeover. Although at the time the foreign firms were already rather well endowed, most firms thought they could become stronger through M&As and cut down the number of competitors. For instance, General Accident merged with the Commercial Union Assurance Co. Ltd. in 1998. After
Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
a short while, the new company merged again with Norwich Union to become CGNU,
later called AVIVA.
The New Zealand Insurance Co. Ltd. (NZI)
In the industry, the firm has a storied history: It had covered the Titanic and underwrote the damages sustained in the Great Kanto earthquake in Japan in 1923. As early as before World War II, NZI had already expanded its operations to Hong Kong. As light industries�Xplastics, textiles, and clothing�Xthrived in the postwar economy, NZI chose to target small and medium-sized enterprises. This strategy paid off, and NZI became a household name in the plastics industry.
Another insurer, the American Foreign Insurance Association, also targeted the same market, while offering the traditional marine, fire, and car products. Its office in Hong Kong also served as the regional headquarters for Asia.
However, by the mid-1980s more and more factories were relocating to the Mainland, and textiles were no longer king in Hong Kong. NZI switched gears and aggressively expanded into real estate and banking, but the stock market crash in 1987 did it in. In 1993, financial difficulties compelled NZI to accept a takeover bid from the General Accident Co.
General Accident, in turn, merged with the Commercial Union Assurance Co. Ltd. in 1998. Established in 1899, Commercial Union also was a firm with a long history and a prominent presence in Hong Kong and Kowloon, with a force of 150 agents. Commercial Union then merged with Norwich Union to become CGNU, later called AVIVA. The merged, restructured firm boasted a team of 250 agents and an annual premium income upward of $1 billion.
In 2005, AVIVA sold its Asia operations to the Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Co. Ltd. of Japan. The Japanese buyer formed MSIG Insurance (Hong Kong) Ltd. as a springboard to expand its reach in the rest of region.


Post�VWorld War II Rejuvenation and Transformation
Fig. 3.17
Staff of Commercial Union Assurance in 1911.
Allan Lam General Manager, the Sun Chong Fung Insurance Agency Joined the industry in 1964
Ring of fire: It was a sun-filled day in December 1984, with Christmas just around the corner. A young subordinate reported to me that a barge loaded with firecrackers had burst into flames. I didn��t pay much heed because, based on my experience, a barge usually carries cargo worth not much more than half a million.
Ten minutes or so later, another colleague hurried over and said a series of barges had caught fire, all at the same time. Only then did I realize the situation could��ve taken a serious turn. ��It looks like a ring of fire�Xon barges,�� he quipped.
The fact is, firecrackers are high-risk goods long banned from land storage by a law passed in the aftermath of the 1967 riots. So at the time they were being stored on barges or freighters moored at the waterfront of Sham Shui Po and the Western District. Most insurers were unwilling to cover such cargo, but we did so only as a favour to a long-time client.
At the time of the fire, cargoes of a few barges were unloaded into a container. When the boat full of firecrackers began to explode, the blaze licked the nearby barges and spread unfettered, because these couldn��t be steered away on their own power. At the end, as much as $5 million worth of goods were torched.
American International Underwriters Ltd.
Of all the American firms in Hong Kong, AIU was among the oldest and most significant. It had expanded here even before World War II, with its headquarters in Shanghai. After the war, the Hong Kong office became the regional headquarters, overseeing operations in Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, and elsewhere in the region.
AIU��s product lines included marine, fire, auto, accident, and property. It was the first insurer to adopt a computerized system and trained employees in state-of-the-art sales and marketing strategies. Among foreign firms, AIU was also known to employ local Chinese even in the upper echelon.
W. S. Ching Experienced practitioner Joined the industry in 1958
Factory fires everywhere: In the 1970s, Hong Kong saw ever-more textiles factories. Inside, highly flammable cotton bits often littered the floor. It took only a spark to set a place on fire. It was the same with plastics manufacturers, with powdery plastic waste blanketing what could easily�Xwith the help of a stray firecracker from an open window�Xturn into an inferno.
All these factories became likely clients for various insurers. After securing a promise of damages, it was customary for the factory-owner beneficiary to take out a ��thank you�� advertisement in the major dailies. The insurers later caught on and would ask the factory owners to pay for an acknowledgement ad when it came time to cut the cheque. This way, insurers also got some free publicity.



The Sector��s Development in the Late 1960s
According to Hong Kong government statistics, there were a total of 207 insurance companies in March 1969. But this figure included many agents and may represent an overstated count.
Another estimate by the Hong Kong Economic Weekly showed that, setting aside agencies, there were 167 insurance companies at the end of 1969. An overwhelming majority, 146, offered marine and fire products; the remainder dealt in life products.
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Fig. 3.18
A Hong Kong shop floor in the 1960s. The city��s booming manufacturing sector boded well for the fire and marine insurance markets.


Of them, British firms accounted for more than a third: sixty-eight. At nineteen, American insurers formed the second largest group of foreign insurers. There were only sixteen locally funded firms. The balance was Asian (including Chinese Mainland), Australian, and Continental European insurers.
O. F. Leung Chairman, Everbest Insurance Holdings Ltd. Joined the industry in 1969
Party time: The annual banquet hosted by the Insurance Institute of Hong Kong was a see-and-be-seen occasion for the
industry��s Who��s Who. It also was a time to show off your company��s strength. The black-tie event was modeled on that of The Chartered Insurance Institute in the U.K., a traditional English banquet.
The head table was invariably populated with government department heads and CEOs from prominent foreign firms. Each insurer had its own table: The longer the table, the better its show of force. The banquet always began with a toast to the Queen and lasted until midnight over glass after glass. By the 1980s, as the insurers were increasingly dominated by local Chinese firms, standard British colonial fare was no more.




Chapter 4

The Rise of Hong Kong as an Insurance Centre and the Industry��s Diversification
Unlike many other advanced countries, where non-bank financial intermediaries form a significant segment of the financial sector and collectively tend to grow at a faster rate than commercial banks, in Hong Kong the commercial banks still dominate the financial scene, even with the recent emergence of the DTCs [deposit-taking companies]. . . .
The insurance companies are the most important of the non-bank intermediaries. Hong Kong is already a considerable insurance centre: 31 March 1977 there were two hundred and eighty-five insurance companies, of which a hundred and sixty-four were foreign companies, transacting all types of insurance business. This is a natural concomitant of Hong Kong being a major trading, manufacturing, and financial centre.
�X Y. C. Jao1
Between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s, Hong Kong��s economy expanded at a breakneck pace. With the emergence of homegrown stock markets, a whole slew of global financial institutions rushed in, transforming the city into an international financial centre in Asia.
As Yu-ching Jao, a retired honorary professor at Hong Kong University��s School of Economics and Finance, has pointed out, Hong Kong��s rise as an international financial centre was only one of its two postwar achievements. The other was its successful transition from an entrepot to a prosperous industrial town. Many locals and even some foreigners would declare Hong Kong as the world��s third-largest financial hub, after New York and London. Although this might be an overstatement, according to Jao, suffice it to say it is now generally recognized that Hong Kong is one of the world��s major financial centres.
This macroeconomic background has created an excellent business environment for the insurance industry. In the 1970s few Hong Kong laws governed the industry. An insurance firm could open up shop after only making a deposit at the colony��s Registrar of Companies.
The lack of foreign currency controls in Hong Kong made it easy to move capital around. The low profit tax rate also allowed firms to build up operating funds relatively quickly. Therefore, it was no surprise that all kinds of insurers flooded the sector, including many from overseas. Even some trading firms, real estate companies, banks, and finance companies joined the fray.
According to data compiled in the yearly Hong Kong Economic Review, six new insurers began doing business in 1970, but in 1977 forty-three new companies opened. Of the forty-three, only nine set up head offices locally. This was the year that saw the largest number of new entrants, an increase prompted in part by the government��s repeated insinuations that more industry regulations on minimum paid-up capital and solvency margin would be forthcoming.
By the end of the decade, a total of 335 insurers registered for business in Hong Kong, with 203 of them members of one or another trade association. To a large extent, said Jao, ��Hong Kong [has become] already a considerable insurance centre.��2

The Diversification of Hong Kong��s Insurance Market
As a rash of foreign insurers entered Hong Kong��s market in the 1970s, the following structural changes were evident:

(1) Joint ventures between traditional local insurers and foreign newcomers
According to a historical study, ��A major feature of insurance in the Colony is ��tied business��, especially in the Fire and Marine markets, arising out of their historical

Fig. 4.1
A third-party insurance policy issued by the Royal Insurance Co. Ltd. in 1971.


development. Every large merchant house is tied up with a favoured insurance company for which it holds the official agency, the connection in some cases going back more than a century��.3 These large merchant houses, traditionally known as ��hongs��, tended to act as agents for the foreign insurers.
However, in the 1970s, some agents began to realize that it would be better for their business if they set up their own insurance firms. So they began to hunt for partners.
In 1971, Swire made plans to establish its own insurance firm. This move was a pro-active response to its clients�� desire
to deal directly with domestic insurers, instead of a foreign agent that might decamp to its London base at any time. And when Swire learned of similar plans by the Royal Insurance Group, the two joined forces, in 1973, and set up the Royal Insurance Co. Ltd., with the latter taking a 51% stake. By the early 1990s, Royal was the fifth largest insurer in Hong Kong.4
Meanwhile, Jardine Matheson, through its insurance department, forged a joint venture with Britain��s Sun Alliance Group called Lombard Alliance. In 1976, a longtime agent for the Eagle Star Group, the Mollers Co., formed the Asian Eagle Insurance Co. with the group. In 1977, HSBC re-allocated its insurance business to Wardley Assurance, its joint entity with the Malayan Insurance Co. Inc. Wardley was then re-christened as the Carlingford Insurance Co. Ltd.5
Four years before this reorganization, Michael Somerville joined Jardine��s insurance department. He recalls the many unprecedented trends shaping the insurance sector in that era.
Michael Somerville Former Chairman and Executive Director, Lombard Insurance Ltd. Joined the industry in 1973
The insurance market of the 1970s: In 1973, when I first came to live and work in Hong Kong, the insurance industry was very different than that of today. It was still typical of many of the Asian and indeed colonial markets in that much of its business and practices were dominated by the big general agency houses�Xthe ��hongs��, such as Jardine, Swire, and Gilman�Xrepresenting predominately British international insurers. I recall that we in Jardine represented about a dozen of such companies, of which names such as Alliance, Sun, Commercial Union, Royal, Chubb, and Generali come to mind. Our association with some of these went back a century or more. Behind my desk there hung a framed letter from Jardine to Alliance Assurance dated, as I recall, in the 1860s responding to a request for information on market conditions in Hong Kong on these lines: ��We have made enquiries and have the honour to report that we know of no dangerous substances in Hong Kong other than gunpowder.��
Most of our core business was ��tied��, coming from subsidiaries, close associates, customers, and friends of our respective agency houses. I remember that when we bought a controlling interest in Zung Fu, which held then, as it does today, a monopoly on the Mercedes franchise in Hong Kong, being told by my chairman to arrange transfer of all their insurances to us and equally strongly being told by their no-nonsense chief executive to get lost. In the end, a mutually acceptable deal was struck.

Historically, the core insurance business of Hong Kong had been marine and fire and much of the business related to our manufacturing and textile industries. The bulk of this was placed through commission agents, there being no real brokers as we know them today. In Jardine we had a big commission agency department, which principally comprised the professional footballers employed to represent Jardine in the football league, in which we fielded a leading team. Insurance was their second occupation.
Several things combined to change this basic mix of business. Car ownership was growing rapidly, employees�� compensation insurance had become compulsory, and major new infrastructure projects were taking place such as the Cross Harbour and Aberdeen tunnels, the High Island [Reservoir] dam construction, and the MTR rail project, resulting in the introduction in the early 1970s of the first contractors�� all-risks covers. This business, in particular, together with our growing aviation and shipping industries, brought the big overseas insurance brokers to town with their specialist skills, their access to new markets, and their lack of interest in, even disdain for, old ties and relationships.
Many of our local insurance companies and agencies, lacking the skills and capacity to handle these new challenges, found increasing support and guidance from the international re-insurers, led by Swiss Re and Munich Re. These re-insurers absorbed the lion��s share of risk and largely dictated the underwriting strategies of local companies, whose basic risk retentions were often very small, with their revenue principally generated from commissions and property investment. In essence, these big re-insurers acted as midwives and nannies to many such companies.
It was international insurance brokers, above all, who forced the pace of change. When I took over as head of Jardine Insurance I combined the roles of broker, insurer, and general agent, but that was soon to change.


Fig. 4.2
A painting from colleagues of Michael Somerville when Jardine Insurance Brokers split off as a separate business in 1970s.
In my office, as I write this, is a painting given to me by colleagues when Jardine Insurance Brokers�Xnow JLT�Xsplit off as a separate business. It depicts me in a cocked admiral��s hat at the stern of a galleon cutting the painter to a rowing boat manned by pirates flying the Jolly Roger�Xour new broking team setting off to cause havoc to old underwriting traditions!
Whilst the general agencies are now history, they did leave one legacy that has been central in managing the massive changes the industry has undergone and its recent emergence as a major pillar of our financial sector. (Scanning the Hong Kong Yearbooks from 1973 to 1983 I find no reference to insurance as even being part of our economy!) That legacy is trained professionals.
The Swiss Republication, Insurance Markets of the World, published to mark their centenary in 1964, has this to say of Hong Kong: ��There are, as yet, no special training or educational facilities for insurance in Hong Kong. A pamphlet on insurance as a carrier in Hong Kong is in course of preparation.��
By 1973, Jardine, Swire, and other major players in the insurance market had begun recruiting graduate insurance management trainees from the universities and polytechnics. It is a source of great satisfaction and some personal pride for me that we recruited, trained, and offered international exposure during my time at Jardine and Lombard Insurance to upward of seventy graduates who have pursued their careers to become key players in the industry both in Hong Kong and in China. Many remain my friends to this day. It is they who have faced the challenges of creating new disciplines to replace the outdated rules of the past and have built an industry that is playing an increasingly important role in our social and economic structure.
All that I have written so far is about the general insurance industry. It is in fact the life-insurance industry that has shown the most dramatic growth since my early days in insurance in Hong Kong. The Swiss Re 1964 book I have already quoted said this of life assurance in Hong Kong: ��Life assurance has been slight both because of the protection extended in the Chinese family and in adequate registration of births and deaths.��
One of my main assignments on my arrival in Hong Kong was participation in a project aimed at establishing an all-Asia life insurance company offering investment-linked products to be marketed in Hong Kong through a pension consultancy company and personal financial consultancy company. The two consultancy companies were duly established and became well-known players in their respective fields, but the proposed life insurance company fell victim to the 1970s oil crisis. It was to be another decade before we were able to launch Jardine Life Insurance, later renamed CMG and now part of Sun Life.
But that, as they say, is another story.
As more firms were setting up their own insurance companies, business for agents gradually dried up. And to make matters worse, agents were also squeezed on the margins. As recently as 1972, agents could expect a margin�Xcommission minus rebates to brokers�Xof 15% to 20%. But by 1977, the kickback rate jumped by 15% or 20% and thereby slashed the margin to 5% at best, and sometimes to close to nothing. So as the agents saw it, the best way out was to set up their own insurance firms and capture all the profits from issuing policies and investing the premium income.6


(2) The influx of international brokerages in the mid-1970s
As defined in a directive of what was then the European Economic Community, the meaning of insurance brokers is ��persons who, acting with complete freedom as to their choice of undertaking, bring together, with a view to the insurance or reinsurance of risks, persons seeking insurance or reinsurance to the conclusion of contracts of insurance or reinsurance and, where appropriate, assist in the administration and performance of such contracts, in particular in the event of a claim��.7

In other words, a broker is independent of any particular insurer and can freely negotiate with any insurer that offers beneficial terms. A broker acts in accordance with a policyholder��s instructions. By law, the broker is agent for the policyholder.
According to veteran broker Sidney Ku, before the 1970s, domestic brokerages were neither visible nor active. Altogether, they accounted for less than 10% of market share, earned mostly as middlemen for small to medium-sized clients.
So when the 1970s ushered in a slew of large-scale infrastructure projects, such as the Mass Transit Railway system, local brokers simply didn��t have the wherewithal to offer coverage. That opened up the playing field for large international brokerages. In 1974, two of the world��s three largest brokerages, The Marsh & McLennan Cos. Inc. and Johnson & Higgins Ltd., got into the act.
During the early 1980s, Marsh and Sun Hung Kai Properties Ltd. formed a joint venture to set up a local brokerage,8 but they soon went their separate ways due to a disagreement. Marsh sold its stake to Sun Hung Kai. In 1982, Johnson scored its first local client, the Kowloon-Canton Railways. Meanwhile, London-based Willis Faber and America��s Aon also cracked Hong Kong��s market.
According to historical data collected by the Munich Reinsurance Co. (Hong Kong), the number of international brokerages mushroomed from six in 1972 to twenty-six in 1977.9 Most of them were brought in by the big British trading firms to work primarily with British insurers. But other international brokerages also got to monopolize the big businesses of their home countries after they entered the Hong Kong market. For instance, Marsh was made the broker for household American brands such as Coca Cola and Colgate.
Later, even big local businesses, such as Hong Kong and China Gas, China Light & Power, Hongkong Electric, the Royal Hong Kong Jockey Club, and Cathay Pacific Airways, flocked
to these international brokerages. As a result, eight to ten such brokerages came to dominate the intermediary market of big domestic corporations and institutions.
The impact of such dominance would continue to shape the sector for a long time to come.
Sidney Ku General Manager, AMTD Risk Management Ltd. Joined the industry in 1980
Jardine, the rates renegade: At the time nearly all insurers�Xexcept Jardine�Xwould abide by the premium rates set up by the trade group. What Jardine would do was to use the brokers to concurrently negotiate with various insurers on the same contract. Only the insurer offering the best terms would be recommended to the client. Because Jardine dealt with mostly foreign insurers, which tended to blow off the rate guidelines anyway, so sometimes they would even offer rates as low as 20% of the listed rates. Many agents found this disconcerting because they could afford to cut rates by 10% to 20%.
Jardine��s tactics helped win it ever-more market share. Other foreign brokerages, meanwhile, also fought to have a piece of the action. All these guys tended to focus on catering to companies from their home countries, not bothering with local businesses.
Needless to say, the local insurers and brokers were not pleased to see that the unfair competition has disrupted what was before a more level playing field. Some began to undercut one another with under-the-table dealings. The tariff rates posted by the trade association gradually became more a relic of the past. The market turned upside down.


(3) Cut-throat competition among the swelling ranks of small and medium-sized local insurers
According to Hong Kong government figures, the number of insurers grew from 270 in 1974 to 335 in 1979, more than anywhere else in Asia.

As the count grew, so did the competition. Some firms would ignore the trade groups�� guidelines. They wanted only cut rates and did not make payouts according to protocol. All this may have adversely affected the industry��s once healthy growth.
Other firms would compete by offering novel products, such as jewellery coverage, comprehensive retail-store insurance, or life insurance that paid out by installment. As the conventional rates set by the trade associations held less and less sway, insurers saw their premium income plunge. Some, especially fire insurers, began to target small and medium-sized clients, where competition (especially from brokers) was less fierce and margins healthier.
As more and more insurers cropped up, bankruptcy risks for those poorly funded concerns rose. More government supervision became necessary. In 1978, draft legislation on minimum capital requirements for insurers was introduced, followed by many more wide-ranging regulations.10
William Woo Managing Director, the NIU Insurance Agency Ltd. Joined the industry in 1958
American Asiatic Underwriters: In its early years, AAU got its start acting as agent for American insurers and offering fire and marine products, but soon enough it tapped into the mainland Chinese market and moved its headquarters to Shanghai. But when the civil war broke out, AAU had no choice but relocate its operations to Hong Kong. However, its loyal Chinese clientele�Xmostly the Shanghai textile moguls�Xstuck by AAU through thick and thin as they, too, fled the warfare and moved their factories down south to the Crown colony.



Industry Development in the 1970s: Marine and Fire
The 1970s saw a transition in the sector. For most insurers, growth in marine lines slackened and fire products became the mainstay. Motor vehicle, employees�� compensation, and other products showed significant growth.
Although in 1970 and 1971 Hong Kong��s exports and imports both rose by double-digit percentages, new trade regulations by Western countries resulted in shrinking demand for marine coverage in Hong Kong. Some of these regulations required coverage be offered by the importing nations.
Meanwhile, those years were marked by significant payouts. In the first half of 1971, fires were frequent on freighters transporting cotton. Later that year, Typhoon Lucy wreaked havoc.
In early 1972, the 83,000-ton Seawise University burst into flames while undergoing repairs at a Hong Kong shipyard. The payout, in the tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, was one of the largest in the history of the insurance industry worldwide. But the ship, originally the luxury cruiser Queen Elizabeth, was covered by London-based insurers, with only one or two Hong Kong firms covering a small portion. The material impact on the local marine sector was negligible.
The more serious threats stemmed from cargo theft, especially on the Africa and South and Central American routes. To curb losses, insurers raised premiums and limited coverage to ��free from particular average�� and ��with particular average��.
The oil crisis of 1973 set off a domino effect that quickly dampened export-import trade in Hong Kong. Marine premium income shrank by as much as 30%, prompted by decreases in both the volume and value of cargo. To compete for the dwindling business, insurers cut rates. Even comprehensive coverage was cheaper than ever.


Fig. 4.3
Typhoon Lucy in 1971 turned the streets under a Cheung Sha Wan flyover into a flood zone. The storm brought heavy economic losses.
After 1975, however, the crisis subsided and the downward trend reversed. But the industry witnessed a rise of dubious claims, which smacked of ��moral hazard��. In 1978 alone, owners of twelve ships submitted claims to insurers that their cargo had been lost at sea. None of these ships filed any accident or casualty report. No wreck or cabin logbook of the ships in question was ever located. The locations of these ��lost�� cargoes were in the deepest of oceans, which rendered any attempt at recovery impossible.
Fig. 4.4
The Seawise University, formerly the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth, caught fire while docked for repairs at a Hong Kong shipyard in 1972. The payout, in the tens of millions of Hong Kong dollars, was one of the largest in the history of the insurance industry.

The Rise of Hong Kong as an Insurance Centre and the Industry��s Diversification 113
Ironically, fire business benefited from some of the adverse economic trends, at least briefly. Inflationary pressure in the early 1970s, a consequence of the oil crisis, helped push up the value of goods and hence rates for fire coverage. In 1972, the Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong (FIA) raised the minimum premium per policy from HK$20 to HK$30 and later imposed a 30% surcharge on all industrial coverage. The surcharge would remain in effect until April 1978.
Even so, the higher premiums barely covered the mounting number of claims. To cut costs, factory owners often packed the premises with excess inventories and raw materials, many of them inflammable. Inside most industrial buildings, tinderbox-like factories sat cheek by jowl. Poor safety management also added to fire risks.
In 1972, there were 7,677 cases of fire, of which ninety-two were four-alarm blazes. A few of these, factory fires all, each caused more than HK$10 million in damage. As a whole, property losses were estimated at HK$85 million.
But by the mid-1970s, the drag of the sluggish economy finally caught up with the fire sector. The size of policies shrank and premiums fell, except for large-scale factory buildings.
K. P. Cheng Vice-Chairman and CEO, the China Taiping Insurance (HK) Co. Ltd. (formerly The Ming An Insurance) Joined the industry in 1964
When it came to setting rates for fire coverage, the FIA had it down to a science ever since its early days. A case in point: Of all the risk factors set down by the FIA, one was called ��adjacency risk��. By that it meant how likely a factory would be affected by a blaze next door. Insurers determined this risk by examining, among other things, the thickness of firewalls of the factory seeking coverage and the factory��s proximity to others. Based on these minutiae, an insurer would set the premium rate accordingly.


In the late 1970s, the world economy showed signs of recovery. A rebound in exports and imports injected renewed momentum into the insurance sector. In the 1970s, the industry��s total revenues rose between 20% and 25% every year. And as more residential buildings became available and mortgage lenders mandated insurance for borrowers, business opportunities thus expanded.

Fig. 4.5
Paterson Street in Causeway Bay after an explosion and fire, 1972. Rampant blazes in the 1970s made selling fire products a brisk business �X and a mainstay for most insurers.


Growth in Other Product Lines
In 1970, the Hong Kong government issued the Workmen��s Compensation (Amendment) Ordinance, prompting many more employers to take out policies and thus advancing workplace safety. However, accidents remained rampant, given the tight workspace and a general lack of safety awareness. Rates of claims were far higher than those for fire and marine policies.
In 1977, the government once again amended the ordinance with requirements for, among other things, severance payments, reimbursement on medical treatment for on-the-job injuries, and a much higher minimum compensation for workers not engaged in manual labour. All this fostered greater growth in this line of insurance.
As Hong Kong��s population passed the four million mark in 1972, the number of vehicles neared 190,000, making the territory the world��s second most car-saturated place, after Monaco, on a per capita basis. Auto accidents were similarly prevalent. In that same year, 438 people died in nearly 12,800 accidents, the highest toll in a quarter of a century.
The number of private cars plummeted over the next few years, due to higher petrol prices and registration fees, along with doubled parking rental charges. Even so, the number of accidents reached another record in 1977�X13,900, a 12.4% jump from previous year. By June 1978, the government mandated third-party risk coverage for all car owners.
In addition to auto accidents, another major threat to life and property in Hong Kong in the early 1970s was robbery. The city was then one of the world��s more dangerous, and the crime figures bore out this notoriety. The total number of robberies rose from 7,260 in 1972 to 8,700 in 1973, an astounding 20% rise.
In 1974, costly armed robbery cases included those of the Hong Kong Spinners Industrial Building in Cheung Sha Wan and the Standard Chartered Bank in San Po Kong; each involved losses of up to $1 million. That same year, a jewellery shop at the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel (now the site of Cheung Kong Centre) was robbed four times. In August 1975, $7 million in cash was snatched from Hang Seng Bank��s security detail in transit, an audacious act that rattled the city. In light of all this, most insurers handled robbery coverage with extreme care. Some would fold it into fire coverage, or jerk up both the premium and the deductible�Xor even refuse to write a policy at all.
Also, since 1973 Hong Kong had embarked upon many major infrastructure projects, such as road flyovers, desalination plants, and landmark skyscrapers such as Connaught Centre (now Jardine House). With these came new products such as comprehensive construction coverage and mechanical-engineering all-risks. But only the few most experienced and well-endowed firms could offer this kind of coverage because it entailed a significant amount of liquidity and complex actuarial calculations. At that time, firms such as Munich Re and Swiss Re emerged as the winners.


The Development of Life Insurance from the Postwar Era into the 1970s
Although life insurance had been introduced in Hong Kong as early as the nineteenth century, it developed slowly. Large extended families, conservative cultural attitudes, and a traditional mindset in matters related to life and death made life products a tough sell.
In the 1950s, the city��s rapid population surge and economic development greatly expanded the room for growth for life insurance, but the conservative mindset just noted died hard. Most Chinese regarded insurance agents as carriers of inauspicious tidings, or lepers. Indeed, due to a lack of systematic supervision and training, especially among local insurers, many agents ended up selling policies to their friends and family without being able to give them any sound advice. Some of these policyholders ended up with unsuitable contracts and financial losses. This, too, dampened growth in the life sector.

Into the 1970s, the swelling ranks of middle-class families began to improve living standards and increase savings for the future. Meanwhile, the influence of Western ideas was growing while the hold of the traditional extended family was diminishing. More Chinese warmed to life coverage. The period saw the true takeoff of this product line.
At that time, twenty-odd companies were involved in this sector, with Manulife, AIA, and Sun Life the major players. The first two accounted for nearly 80% of the market. But local insurers such as Sincere and Wing On were also doing brisk life business.
Manulife
The first insurer to have offered life products in Hong Kong was the Canadian firm Manulife. Manulife ceased its operations in southern China during the Japanese occupation but resumed business in Central as soon as the war ended. In the postwar years, interest in life coverage was intense and the client pool large. Inquiries came not just from residents in Hong Kong and Macau but also from former policyholders in Shanghai and other mainland cities.11
The mainstay of life business at the time was the more Westernized segment of the middle class. This was because ordinary poor folks could hardly afford the premium, while the well-heeled would hardly need that kind of protection.
Just as insurers were trying to recruit more agents, the mores of the time rendered these insurance professionals shysters, or worse. Policyholders were jeered as fools who fell for scams. When he was fresh out of college, Joe Sun applied for an agent��s position with Manulife�Xunwittingly, because in the ad he responded to the company did not call itself an insurance firm. Had he known, Sun, who is now a senior executive consultant with Manulife, said he most likely would not have applied.
Joe Sun Senior Executive Consultant, Manulife (International) Ltd. Joined the industry in 1954
English speakers: Armed with an economics degree from a Shanghai university, I ventured to Hong Kong, looking for a better first job. It wasn��t easy. Times were bad, as was my Cantonese. But at the time the only people in Hong Kong who could afford insurance were mostly English-speaking higher earners. So my English skills came in handy in helping to win over clients.
My first client: He was a caretaker with the Taikoo Dockyard. He was forty-ish, married, from up north, Shandong Province in China. He had a wife at home and four daughters. He could really use some coverage but he couldn��t spare a dime for the start-up premium. So I helped him with the payment at the outset. I came to know his family and afterward got referrals.
I made $400 in commission on this contract; I was beside myself with joy.
In 1959, Manulife��s office in southern China was reorganized as its Hong Kong branch. It moved into the Union Building (now Swire House) the next year. During the 1960s, the ranks of agents swelled to nearly forty, from barely a dozen a decade earlier. Through it all, Manulife upheld its standards in training the agents, some of whom sat for exams offered by the Life Office Management Association in the U.S.
Manulife��s growth in Hong Kong continued unimpeded into the 1970s. The premium income of the local office, at C$20 million, ranked fourth among all branches. In 1971, it climbed to No. 2. By the mid-1970s, Manulife borrowed a page from AIA��s playbook and introduced a system to organize agents and have them answer to respective managers. The system proved essential as the ranks of agents mushroomed to seven hundred

Figs. 4.6 & 4.7
At left, American Asiatic Underwriters in Shanghai. Right, Cornelius Vander Starr, its founder, in 1919.
by the late 1970s and topped a thousand by the late 1980s. By then, recruiting talent was no longer difficult because Hong Kong society had long shed its prejudice against insurance agents.
Manulife��s growth in Hong Kong weathered the economic upheavals of the 1970s. Its products targeted mostly the upper middle class, and contract renewal rates were consistently 90% or above.
The American International Assurance Co. Ltd.
Going head-to-head with Manulife at the time was American International Assurance. Each accounted for 40% of the life sector.
AIA traced its roots to a small general agency founded by Cornelius Vander Starr, an American entrepreneur, in December 1919. Called American Asiatic Underwriters, it was incorporated in Bermuda but headquartered in Shanghai. In its early years, AAU acted as agent for American insurers and offered fire and marine products. Two years after its founding and bullish about the life market on the Mainland, Starr tapped AAU��s reserves to set up the Asia Life Insurance Co. in Shanghai, the first foreign firm ever to market life products to the Chinese.


Although Asia Life lacked the benefits of precedent and experience, its business grew rapidly. Its offices soon spread across the Mainland, Hong Kong, and Southeast Asia. Such an expansion was made possible mostly by the company��s drive to recruit and groom local talent for responsible positions. This soon became ingrained in AIA��s corporate culture.
In 1931, Starr founded the International Assurance Co., a conglomerate later known as the American International Group, Inc., with Asia Life absorbed as a wholly owned subsidiary. But that was not all. Before the war, Starr went on to set up eight other firms on the Mainland. Once the war was over, Starr went about rebuilding his business in the Far East, and in 1949 he moved AIG��s headquarters to Hong Kong.
Alwin Lam Chairman, Hong Kong and Macau, the AIA Co. (Bermuda) Ltd. Joined the industry in 1971
The teething pain of life products: The demand for life products took off in the 1970s, and the decade following was the heyday. At that time, anyone with a dose of diligence and discipline could make it in this business, and you didn��t have to be smart.
However, the public had no idea how insurance worked. Insurance companies were way more keen to sell policies than train their agents and brokers. They sold products without clearly explaining how they would benefit policyholders. As a result, many policyholders terminated their contracts. It was a lose-lose situation, and, it hardly bears mentioning, cast the sector in a poor light.

But the sector has made tremendous progress since then. Beginning in 1997, the life sector has faced more fierce competition from banks and because of an ever-growing roster of new products. So we see the need to redouble our efforts to train our workforce and improve customer service. To that end, we have pushed our practitioners to qualify for the Multimillion Dollar Roundtable. Only about 1% of insurance professionals worldwide have earned this coveted credential. By 2008, 1,178 of our local practitioners had achieved this recognition.
By the late 1960s, the iconic AIG high rise was erected on Stubbs Road to house its staff and a sales force of four hundred. By the late 1980s, it had mushroomed to at least 1,700 people.
In the 1970s, AIA introduced a string of life and short-term products with saving elements, ranging from ten to twenty years. These proved wildly popular with clients because they could begin receiving interest income by the fifth year. AIA soon expanded its operations to Malaysia, Thailand, and Singapore, emerging as the leading life insurer in Southeast Asia.
Edmund Tse Honorary Chairman, The American International Assurance Co. Ltd. Joined the industry in 1961
Coming home to China: Most people in the industry remember AIA��s humble beginnings on the Mainland. But business there was halted after the company��s postwar move to Hong Kong. Ever since the reform and opening up of 1980s, Maurice Greenberg, AIA��s chairman then, started to make inroads back into China. It so happened that in 1983 I was transferred from Taiwan back to Hong Kong. So I started going with him to the Mainland. Our goal was to re-establish AIA��s operations there. For that we went to Beijing at least twice, or even three times a year.
Finally, in November 1991, AIA became the first foreign-owned firm to receive a license in [modern] China. We officially opened for business in Shanghai in 1992.
The Sun Life (Hong Kong) Co. Ltd.
The story of Canada��s Sun Life in Hong Kong is emblematic of other companies that entered the life business. Like Manulife, Sun Life also established a beachhead in Hong Kong��s life sector early on. It matched Manulife in scope and strength of operations in the mid-1960s. But the riots of 1967 rattled Sun Life��s management and they retrenched, only to make a return to Hong Kong in the late 1970s. This wavering caused Sun Life to lag behind other life insurers throughout the 1980s. Sun Life caught up, with the 1997 acquisition of CMG Asia, an Australian life insurer, and became one of the top ten life insurance firms in Hong Kong.
The 1970s also saw an incursion of mainland-owned life insurers, such as PICC, China Ping An, and China Taiping. These mainland startups ushered in innovative products that offered short terms, lower premiums, and quicker yields. Given the wild swings in the Western currency market at the time, the mainland firms attracted customers with their yuan-denominated products, which paid out Hong Kong dollars at maturity.
Anthony Lau Former President, Sun Life Financial (HK) Ltd. Joined the industry in 1974
One table fits all: When I joined the life sector, it was a fledgling business in Hong Kong, at best. Since local practitioners didn��t have a life table to call their own, they all referenced the one in use in England and the States. So policyholders in Hong Kong ended up paying more than they should. Also, the same table was used for both men and women. The rule of thumb was to take three years off a female client��s age. It wasn��t until much later that we learned that, on average, women outlive men by seven to eight years.


The Founding and the Functions of the Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Corporation (ECIC)
Export credit guarantees are used by many governments worldwide to help expand foreign trade by absorbing a range of risks not normally covered by commercial insurers. Such risks are mostly related to currency fluctuations and other factors resulting in non-payment by overseas buyers. This kind of statutory protection has proven an effective measure to promote international commerce.
This system�Xin the form of the Export Credit Guarantee Department (ECGD)�Xwas invented in 1919 by the British government to encourage traders to export to Australia. So, in the 1950s when Hong Kong��s export sector took off and exporters sought similar government protection, they naturally looked to Britain.
The first two people to take this route, in 1961, were G. R. Ross of the Hong Kong General Chamber of Commerce and H. C. Fung of the Federation of Hong Kong Industries. But they were told that under British law the department��s scope of insurance was confined to merchants within the country. Not about to give up, Fung and Ross surveyed the membership of their respective groups. Although they garnered only a 10% response rate, they concluded that some insurance trust scheme would be crucial to furthering the colony��s export sector.
��The motto for the government at the time was non-interventionism,�� said Victor Fung, eldest son of H. C. Fung who sat on the ECIC��s advisory board from 1977 to 1982. ��However, my father believed that as export trade was of prominent importance to Hong Kong��s small and open economy, it must have its own export credit insurance corporation.��12
Besides non-interventionism, the government��s neutral stance behooved the export sector to mount a Herculean effort to convince officials and policymakers alike of the necessity of such an entity.


Fig. 4.8
Edmund Tse at a September 1992 press conference. The Chinese government awarded the first insurance license to AIA.
It did not take long for the effort to start paying off. In 1962, Sir Robert Black, the governor at the time, appointed a working group to advise the government on whether or not an export credit insurance scheme should be put in place. The group produced a report, saying that given the commercial and political risks and the market competition faced by Hong Kong exporters, such a scheme should be set up with expert assistance from Britain��s ECGD.

In 1964, an ECGD expert completed a report, affirming the necessity for Hong Kong to have its own export credit guarantee mechanism.
Finally, on 23 December 1966, the Hong Kong Export Credit Insurance Corp. was established, with an initial capital of HK$10 million and with the maximum liability backed by the government limited, by law, to HK$300 million. The capital base was raised to HK$20 million in 1973 and maximum liability, by 1977, to HK$2 billion. Although it has government backing for all its liabilities, the ECIC is, by law, an autonomous body operating on a self-sustaining, break-even basis.
Ken D. Robertson, then of HSBC��s Malaysia branch, was appointed as the first commissioner of the ECIC. In 1969, the corporation was admitted to the International Union of Credit and Investment Insurers, a.k.a. the Berne Union.
During its first decade, the ECIC offered exporters the following policies:
(A)
To cover raw materials, semi-processed items, and consumer goods for which terms of payment are a maximum of 180 days�� credit: (1) a comprehensive contracts policy under which liability for these losses starts from the date of contract (comprising all methods of payment); (2) a comprehensive shipments policy, under which liability starts from date of shipment (to cover shipments on documents against payment, documents against acceptance, and open account terms); (3) Comprehensive Cover Policy.

(B)
To cover capital goods and production equipment, for which the terms of payment can range from one to five years�� credit or longer: (1) a specific contracts policy, covering a single transaction from the date of contract; (2) a specific shipments policy, covering a


Fig. 4.9
The Kowloon Godown, shown here in the 1960s, at the beginning of a dramatic rise in export trade.
single transaction from the date of shipment, and (3) special services policies catering to specific needs of exporters.
The ECIC��s job is to indemnify exporters against unpredictable buyer and country risks. Overseas importers might fail to pay or delay payments to Hong Kong��s exporters due to bankruptcy, warfare, currency restrictions, the cancellation of import licenses, the imposition of import restrictions, or any number of factors unforeseen at the signing of a contract. During its first year, in 1967, the ECIC��s ability to shoulder such risks was seriously tested by a string of untoward world events�Xthe Nigerian Civil War, the Suez Canal blockade, the Six-Day War, and so on. Making matters yet worse, some industrial countries reacted by tightening domestic credit or imposing import restrictions. In the corporation��s first fifteen months, it settled eleven claims, six of which related to the Suez closure and the balance caused by buyer bankruptcy.
During the first thirteen years of the ECIC��s operations, it insured exports totalling $19 billion. The aggregate premium income for these exports was $90 million, and total investment income for the same period amounted to $24 million. Against these revenues, total claims actually paid, together with the provisions for claims set at 31 March 1980, amounted to $59 million, of which $11 million (nearly 19% of all claims) was recovered. The underwriting reserves at 31 March 1980 stood at nearly $17 million.
The significance of the ECIC in promoting foreign trade was evident from the beginning and was best summarized as follows by Sir Crawford Murray MacLehose, then the governor, at the tenth anniversary luncheon:
The ECIC, like so many really potent financial organizations, tends to operate outside the limelight, but the role it fulfills is absolutely vital. . . . It is a tribute to the flexibility and responsiveness of the Corporation that over the past decade it has coped so well with the political and economic vagaries attending the world trade.13





Chapter 5

The Formation and Evolution of Industry Supervision
A decade earlier, in the mid-1970s, the industry was very different from what it is today. Life insurance, with the exception of operators representing international insurers catering primarily to the expatriate market, was minimal. General insurance was dominated by a few players, principally large general agencies representing big overseas insurers. Agents were mainly tied and, other than in marine hull, brokers were not a major force. Domestic insurers were struggling for a share of the market.
Prudential regulation and control were almost non-existent and capital requirements for insurers were derisory. One could register and operate an insurance company with a capital sum of HK$10,000, if my memory serves me correctly. Fly-by-night operators without any sense of responsibility either to the industry or to the public cropped up continually. That most sensitive of all insurance buying groups, the motorists, were constant victims. At a time when the rights and interests of the consumer were increasingly coming into focus�Xthe age of consumerism�Xthe public perception of insurance was extremely negative. Alleged abuses and unprofessional conduct were constantly high on the hit list of the new Consumer Council, formed in 1974.
�X Michael Somerville,
The Story of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers 1988�V1998
All legal matters related to insurance were dealt with using contractual agreements and common law cases. The earliest government regulations on the insurance industry were embodied in laws governing other economic activities, such as the Companies Ordinance and the Workmen��s Compensation Ordinance.
Figs. 5.1 & 5.2
A commercial motor vehicle policy issued by the China Insurance Co. Ltd., 1973�V74. Left, cover page; right, inside page.

In the 1950s, the Hong Kong government set about laying down laws for the insurance sector. Hence, both the Third Party (Rights Against Insurers) Ordinance and the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third Party Risks) Ordinance were enacted. The former guarantees a third party��s right to seek compensation in the event that a policyholder or insurance firm files for bankruptcy. The latter is based on the Road Traffic Ordinance, which mandates insurance coverage for all drivers so as to protect the third party��s right to compensation in case of accidents caused by drivers.

In 1961, Hong Kong��s legislature passed the Marine Insurance Ordinance, based on Britain��s Marine Insurance Act of 1906, which was drafted by Sir Mackenzie Dalzell Chalmers, the parliamentary counsel to the Treasury. This act has stood as the model marine insurance act for many other countries.
However, even before the mid-1970s, primarily reflecting its laissez faire economic policy, the government��s supervision of the sector was rather lax. All it took to start a business was to show some cash, and not much for that matter. A company offering fire or marine products was required to deposit, for each branch, $100,000 in cash or acceptable securities. For life insurers, the capital requirement amounted to three-quarters of the firm��s annual premium income, minus claims and losses. A separate fund to meet policy liabilities must be maintained and a quinquennial (decennial for some older, established firms) valuation balance sheet submitted. The required deposit should be no less than $50,000 but not exceeding $200,000.1 But all insurers may qualify for certain general exemptions if they complied with Britain��s requirements for authorization contained in the Insurance Companies Act of 1974.
After the mid-1970s, to groom Hong Kong as an international insurance centre and protect policyholders�� interests, the government began to introduce legislation and strengthen supervision on the industry. But before that happened, the number of insurance firms continued to mushroom, from 186 in 1975 to 335 by 1979.
Facing increasingly vociferous criticisms of the insurance sector, the government��s regulatory body called upon industry leaders and other veteran practitioners to examine how the industry could be reined in, through both self-regulatory measures and legislative means. After some arduous negotiations, a working group convened by Michael Somerville decided on the three principles that should guide the Hong Kong insurance sector:
�E
The regulatory mechanism should be tailored for the city��s unique business environment and should not be thoughtlessly transplanted from another country.

�E
Companies need to operate on adequate liquidity, and their boards of directors and executive suites should be filled by fit and proper people.

�E
The industry should rely on self-regulatory measures as much as possible so that practitioners understand that they have to fulfill responsibilities to society.


After rounds of painstaking deliberation and difficult negotiations with the Legislative Council, the Consumer Council, the banking, accounting and legal sectors, as well as other special interest groups, the first body of regulations was advanced in February 1978. The Insurance Companies (Capital Requirements) Ordinance stipulated that all insurers must have a minimum share capital issued for cash of $5 million. And until the capital was fully paid up, the company could not open for business. This was a rigorous, if onerous, requirement, considering that almost half of the three hundred-plus companies in operation at the time did not put up that much cash. In 1982, the government pushed up this requirement a few notches: The minimum paid-up capital must double, to $10 million.
The regulatory machine did not stop there. In December 1980, the government published in the Gazette the Fire and Marine Insurance Companies Deposit (Amendment) Ordinance and the Life Insurance Companies (Amendment) Ordinance, both to be enacted the following month. The amendment ordinances stipulated not only a minimum paid-up capital of $5 million, but also a solvency margin of $2 million (i.e., total assets over total liabilities), and if an insurer offered life in addition to marine or fire products, the margin must be twice as much, $4 million. Insurers offering motor vehicles (third-party risk)
coverage must obtain authorization from the Registrar of Companies.

All this culminated in an Insurance Companies bill, a comprehensive body of regulations, first drafted in February 1982. Besides provisions for a higher minimum paid-up, the ordinance also spelled out a more stringent solvency requirement and tighter regulatory oversight. In addition, the government set up an Insurance Advisory Committee (IAC), to be headed by the finance secretary or his representative, to advise on the administration of the legislation. The committee acts as a liaison to represent the industry��s interests and provide technical advice and assistance to the authorities.2
After more than a year of consultation and revision, the ordinance was put to a motion in the Legislative Council. The ordinance was released in June 1983 and went into effect six months later. The content of the ordinance��s sixty-one sections and three amendments can best be summarized as follows:
I. Who is an insurer? Any firm, group, or individual that applies to operate in the insurance business based upon the ordinance and receives authorization to operate from the regulatory body. According to the ordinance, an insurer can be an insurance firm, a member of Lloyd��s, or an organization approved by both the governor and the Legislative Council to offer coverage. Of the three, insurance firms accounted for the most. The ordinance also spelled out that to operate in the insurance sector, a firm or an individual must have an office that deals in insurance and declare to the public this intent.
II. What makes an insurer? To begin with, all insurers must have a minimum registered capital of $5 million. For those offering comprehensive or statutory coverage, it is $10 million. Insurers must have the financial ability to make payouts. The minimum solvency margin is $2 million for firms whose annual premium income is less than $10 million. For firms grossing $10 million to $50 million in premiums annually, the margin is set at 20% of its income. For all those bringing in $50 million or more, the margin must be $10 million plus 10% of whatever is in excess of $50 million. Firms offering comprehensive coverage must have a minimum solvency margin of $4 million.
Also, firms must have an adequate arrangement for re-insurance, or a sufficient explanation in its stead. If firms operate in other lines of business outside insurance, they must not jeopardize the policyholders�� interests. A firm��s name must not be deliberately misleading.
III. Who watches the insurers? To enforce the new ordinance, the Insurance Authority (IA) was set up 3 to monitor all aspects of an insurance firm, from authorization and operations to financing and liquidation. In order for the IA to get a clear picture of their finances, companies were required annually to file audited financial statements within six months of the end of an accounting period. The insurers must explain the accounting policies used in evaluating each asset and liability and estimating reserves.4
Also, companies must submit information on their executives and boards of directors so the IA can make sure they all are ��fit and proper�� operators. It has the powers to intervene in a company��s operations, when deemed necessary, as it did with thirty-two of them in 1984.
Once the ordinance was enacted, firms complied by shoring up their capital bases. By some estimates, as much as $200 million was injected into the sector by April 1985. A quarter of this new money was raised through share sales; most of the balance was infused by foreign firms.
The new ordinance prohibits life insurers from liquidating at will. Its enactment coincided with the collapse of the Carrian Group. The group rose in the 1970s and 1980s as a property development conglomerate and owned a life insurance company called China

Fig. 5.3
Derek Sullivan, Hong Kong��s first insurance commissioner.

Insurance Underwriters Ltd (CIU). When Carrian collapsed like a house of cards in what became the largest bankruptcy case in the history of Hong Kong, the government stepped in to take over CIU for a year before selling it to Sentry Insurance Co. Ltd., which was founded in Wisconsin, US.
In the late 1980s, the government amended the ordinance and shifted the IA from the Registrar General��s Department to the Monetary Affairs Branch, where it became an independent entity. This move put the authority on a par with the regulatory body overseeing banks and raised the level of supervision over the sector.
On 8 June 1990, the government officially established the Office of the Commissioner of Insurance (OCI) to administer and amend the ordinance. The OCI was first staffed with two assistant commissioners, for general insurance and long-term insurance respectively. In later years, another one was added to handle policy and development issues.
The OCI supervises insurers through authorization, regulation, intervention, and on-site inspections. The ordinance requires the OCI to extend its supervision not just on insurance firms but also on all intermediaries. Its mission is to ensure that all practitioners conduct business in accordance with ethical and statutory standards. This is done largely through the enforcement of regulations and the promotion of self-regulatory initiatives. Whenever appropriate, the OCI may assist or cooperate with regulatory agencies, local or overseas. A list of all commissioners of insurance follows.
Table 5.1 Commissioners of Insurance, 1990�V2009

Derek Sullivan 1990�V1992 Nigel Shipman 1992�V1993 Stephen Ip 1993�V1994 Pamela Tan 1994�V1995 Ros Lam 1995�V1996 Alan Wong 1996�V2000 Benjamin Tang 2000�V2003 Richard Yuen 2003�V2006 Clement Cheung 2006�V2009 Annie Choi 2009�Vpresent
Source: Office of the Commissioner of Insurance, Hong Kong

The Sector��s Self-Regulatory Drive: The Birth of The Hong Kong Federation of Insurers
The enactment of the Insurance Companies Ordinance in 1983 signified that a regulatory regime for the industry was taking shape. Yet, the formation of a self-regulatory mechanism still lagged behind. This mechanism came with the start of the Hong Kong Federation of Insurers, in 1988.
On the occasion of the HKFI��s tenth anniversary in 1998, Michael Somerville, the inaugural chairman, vividly recalled the backdrop that gave rise to the organization:
While regulation of insurance companies and the conduct of their affairs was taking shape, community attention was increasingly being directed at the abuses and

inconsistencies within the intermediary system, both life and general. Questions were asked as to who was the principal and therefore accountable when things went wrong. The fast growing brokerage community, emphasizing their independence, was adamant that insurers were not the principals. But who were brokers and how could they be relied on to meet their commitments?
Once again the industry found itself unprepared, divided and on the defensive as the Law Reform Commission set up a sub-committee to look into insurance contract law in general and that of intermediaries in particular. From the outset we had to fight a rearguard action against strongly held legal views that legislation should be enacted to follow closely the incredibly complex (and ultimately discredited) control of intermediaries recently enacted in the United Kingdom.
By 1981 it had become generally accepted by insurance industry leaders that something had to be done. The industry was too inward looking, secretive and small thinking. We were constantly on the defensive in the face of growing consumer discontent. We were not chasing opportunities and had an inability to address or articulate our position on broader community issues. We lacked unity and were not pulling our weight in the rapid economic and social development of Hong Kong.5
In light of this, attempts were made to unite the sector. In December 1981, plans were made to set up the Insurance Council. Finally, in June 1982, after many rounds of meetings among practitioners, the Insurance Council of Hong Kong was launched. The council��s structure and agenda were to be determined by those hailing from various trade groups, including that serving life insurers. The thinking at the time was to build the council up as an umbrella group representing both life and general insurers. (It was renamed the General Insurance Council of Hong Kong in April 1988.)
Fig. 5.4
From left to right, Sir David Akers-Jones, the former chief secretary of Hong Kong; Alex Wong, chairman of the General Insurance Council, and former financial secretary Sir Piers Jacobs at the annual meeting of the Life Insurance Council, 25 March 1991.
K. S. Choy Former Manager, Committee of The Hong Kong Federation of Insurers Joined the industry in 1960
Before HKFI was established, there was myriad trade groups in the 1960s. Price Waterhouse [as it was then known] was entrusted with running the secretariat of three of them: the Fire Insurance Association of Hong Kong, the Marine Insurance Association, and the Accident Insurance Association of Hong Kong. These three later formed a committee. Since I was working at Price Waterhouse at the time, I became involved in the committee.


However, given the tremendous growth of the life sector and the prevailing feeling that the council was weighted too heavily in favour of general insurers, the Life Insurance Council of Hong Kong was officially founded in 1984. Each had its own secretariat.
The two councils worked closely on issues related to self-supervision, legislation, intermediaries, and taxation. When the government began to introduce political reforms in the 1980s, talk on the streets hinted that the insurance sector would be made a functional constituency. Yet the existence of twin councils kept any seat out of the sector��s reach. This hammered home the urgency for unity.
Meanwhile, the regulatory pressure on the industry kept mounting. In a draft Insurance Companies (Amendment) (No.2) Ordinance published in the Gazette in June 1986, the government considered raising the capital requirement and invoking a provision that could deny any firm��s application to become an underwriter for reasons unspecified. The Law Reform Commission also set up a sub-committee looking into insurance contract law and especially that governing intermediaries.
In face of all this, the industry realized the need to develop a self-regulatory mechanism�X and a united front�Xwas more urgent than ever. So in 1986 the two councils began to take the necessary steps towards a more well-rounded and representative lobby. Within a few months, a working group on self-regulation was formed of local insurers from myriad backgrounds, including British, American, and Chinese Mainland-funded firms. Together, they discussed with the government a mutually agreeable self-regulatory framework that would relieve the need for more stringent legislation.
In May 1987 and January 1988 the Hong Kong Society of Insurance Brokers and the Professional Insurance Brokers Association were formed.
Fig. 5.5
The HKFI established its joint offices with the Motor Insurers�� Bureau of Hong Kong in the Malaysia Building on Gloucester Road in 1992. Present at the opening ceremony, left to right, were Alex Wong, chairman of the General Insurance Council; Bernard de Petrucci, the Life Council��s chairman; Elvon Harris, chairman of the HKFI; Insurance Commissioner Derek Sullivan, and Y. Y. Tang, the HKFI��s executive director.
The very group that would finally unite all these industry bodies�Xthe HKFI�Xwas launched on 8 August 1988. Its founding was a milestone in the industry��s development. Its mission is as follows:
�E
Safeguard and expand the common interests of all in the sector;

�E
Seek common ground on issues affecting member firms�� interests;

�E
Act as the medium for consultation and discussion with the government on legislative and other matters impacting the sector;

�E
Promote insurance among Hong Kong residents;

�E
Devise and implement measures that protect policyholders�� interests.