Life Insurance Companies to Become Listed Next July

It appears that life insurance companies such as Samsung Life and Kyobo Life will be listed from as early as the second half (July to December) of next year.

The Life Insurance Stock Listing Advice Committee announced at the Life Insurance Policy Seminar held by the Korea Insurance Academic Society and the Korea Risk Management Society yesterday, “The dividend payment to dividend-paying insurance product contractors was concluded as ‘adequate.’ This was the biggest obstacle hampering life insurance companies from becoming listed.”

The committee explained, “We received the result of this research after asking the English insurance accounting firm Tillinghast-Towers Perrin to determine this issue’s adequacy.” They added, “It means that life insurance companies do not need to pay a listing profit to insurance contractors.”

Committee chairman Na Dong-min said, “We achieved objective verification that life insurance companies paid adequate dividends through an external service.” He added, “We will soon solve the problem of how to treat reserved capital within life insurance firms. We will then present a final report to the Korea Exchange (KRX) at the end of this year or early next year.”

After making listing-related regulations on the basis of the advice committee’s report, KRX will ask for approval from the Financial Supervisory Commission (FSC). The FSC will then approve the life insurance companies’ listings only after consulting with the Ministry of Finance and Economy.

It will take about six month to prepare after obtaining the FSC’s approval. Therefore, the insurance industry predicts that listings will start from the second half of next year.

jinhup@donga.com