Insurance companies in Thailand are required by the Office of Insurance Commission (OIC) to publicly disclose their financial and business operating results on their websites and other channels, with the information presented in clear, precise, reliable, and updated formats. The disclosed information should illustrate trends in each company’s business operations and enable readers to compare companies within the insurance industry.
Recently, the OIC has circulated two draft notifications that will impose new disclosure requirements on insurers: (1) Rules, Procedures, and Conditions for Disclosure of Financial Standing and Operating Results of Life Insurance Companies; and (2) Rules, Procedures and Conditions for Disclosure of Financial Standing and Operating Results of Non-Life Insurance Companies. Both draft notifications are currently being considered by relevant stakeholders.
The draft notifications outline the different types of information that life and non-life insurance companies must disclose, as follows:
- Company background, history, direction, and business objectives;
- Business strategy, to the extent that it is not confidential and will not affect the ability of the company to compete in the market;
- Details of core products and services;
- Contact information;
- Procedures for claim submissions;
- Good corporate governance framework and internal control process, including compliance;
- Quantitative and qualitative data on the company’s enterprise risk management and asset liability management;
- Quantitative and qualitative data on underwriting risks, which are foreseeable and material and which could affect the financial status of the company, as well as reinsurance management, concentration risk, and the relationship between the company’s reserves and such risks;
- Quantitative and qualitative data on valuation, methods, and assumptions for the company’s insurance contracts liabilities assessment;
- Quantitative and qualitative data on the company’s processes, types of investment, and other types of business (i.e. non-insurance business), if any, insurance underwriting profitability, claims compensation, investment profits, premium adequacy, and other relevant ratios;
- Quantitative and qualitative data on reserve adequacy and assessment thereof, as well as directions, objectives, and process for the company’s reserves management; and
- Financial statements and remarks, including:
- Annual financial statement from the prior year, audited and commented on by an auditor; and
- Quarterly financial statements, audited by an auditor.
Insurance companies that fail to comply with the new disclosure requirements may face a one-time fine and a daily fine.
