A buyer has his temperature taken throughout a screening outdoors a Cafe de Jargor restaurant throughout its first day of operations in Hong Kong,
A buyer has his temperature taken throughout a screening outdoors a Cafe de Jargor restaurant throughout its first day of operations in Hong Kong, China, on Saturday, Feb. 1, 2020.
Chan Lengthy Hei | Bloomberg Getty Pictures
Insurers in China will possible be capable of handle the financial fallout from the coronavirus outbreak, based on a number of analysts.
Hong Kong-listed shares of insurers have seen some uneven buying and selling classes since coming back from the Lunar New 12 months holidays final week. Since their final shut earlier than the beginning of the Lunar New 12 months, China’s Ping An noticed its inventory drop greater than 5% and China Life Insurance coverage plummet greater than 7%. Shares of AIA have additionally fallen greater than 4% on the shut of Tuesday’s buying and selling.
In a be aware dated Jan. 30, Fitch Scores mentioned it “expects the current outbreak of novel coronavirus infections to place some strain on Chinese language insurers’ profitability within the close to time period, however that earnings strain can be manageable.”
Echoing the view of the rankings company, analysts at Nomura mentioned in be aware on Jan. 31: “We predict direct declare losses for insurance coverage corporations can be manageable.” Three causes have been cited to help this view.
At this level, I feel the impact on the insurers remains to be very restricted. On the macro scale, it is nonetheless only a very small proportion of the entire inhabitants.
Kevin Leung
Haitong Worldwide Securities
Firstly,…