Showing posts with label life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Demand for life insurance increases

The domestic life insurance market has been sparked into life by a story that received wide media coverage about a businesswoman who paid an annual premium of 1.2 billion VND (61,000 USD).

The policy was reported to cover her for 39 billion VND (2 million USD).

The story is clear evidence that the Vietnamese attitude towards life insurance is changing.

Instead of purchasing life insurance to support friends and family in the industry, Vietnamese people are now looking at the actual benefits of taking out a policy and many of them are willing to part with large sums of money for the privilege.

"In recent years, my company has sold more and more policies," said Lam Hai Tuan, General Director of ACE Life Viet Nam , one of the country's leading life insurance provider.

Tuan said that up to the end of August, his company had sold nearly 8,400 policies with premiums from 1 billion VND (51,000 USD) each.

"We currently have 15 policies that provide cover of over 10 billion VND (510,000 USD), the largest of which is worth 50 billion VND (2.5 million USD)," Tuan added.

Other companies such as AIA Viet Nam, Korea Life and Dai-ichi Vietnam have also witnessed an increase in customers.

The Association of Vietnamese Insurers reported that the market had grown in the first half of the year.

"Up to the end of H1, more than 4 million policies had been taken out, worth VND323.6 billion USD, an increase of 33 percent over the same period last year," said head of the life insurance division under the association Nguyen Viet Hai.

Better economic conditions were cited as the main reason.

"Living conditions have improved and demand has increased for services such as healthcare and life insurance," said Hai.

Hai added that many people were planning for the future.

"This happens in many countries, not just in Vietnam ," he said.

Agreeing with Hai, Tuan said, "Vietnamese people now realise that life insurance is a means of planning for the future and providing financial protection for their families."

According to an association report, Vietnamese life insurance has witnessed high growth this year, but still lags behind other countries in terms of value and the number of insurance companies./.

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Monday, December 13, 2010

Ex-official files appeals against life sentence in graft case

Ex-official files appeals against life sentence in graft caseA former vice director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Transportation Friday lodged an appeal against the life sentence handed down to him this month for taking bribes from a Japanese firm.

In his appeal, Huynh Ngoc Si asked the People’s Supreme Procuracy to reconsider the punishment, saying that he didn’t receive bribes from the Tokyo-based Consultants International (PCI) to help the company win contracts of the Japanese ODA-funded East-West Highway Project.

On October 15 Si, who was in charge of the city’s major infrastructure project between 2000 and 2008, was sentenced to life for taking US$262,000 in bribes from PCI’s former leaders on May 28, 2003.

The HCMC People’s Court also ordered Si to pay back the money to the state.

Although Si didn’t admit his wrongdoing at the first hearing, the court convicted him based on testimonies of PCI’s former leaders who accused him when standing trial in Tokyo on November 11, 2009, as well as other materials.

During the proceedings, the Japanese officials claimed to have offered Si a total of $820,000 in bribes.

Si, who is currently serving a six-year jail term for "abuse of power," is now under investigation for allegedly taking bribes from PCI on six additional occasions.

So far he has only stood trial for his acceptance of $262,000 in bribes, because the initial investigation deadline had passed.

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Ex-official files appeals against life sentence in graft case

Ex-official files appeals against life sentence in graft caseA former vice director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Department of Transportation Friday lodged an appeal against the life sentence handed down to him this month for taking bribes from a Japanese firm.

In his appeal, Huynh Ngoc Si asked the People’s Supreme Procuracy to reconsider the punishment, saying that he didn’t receive bribes from the Tokyo-based Consultants International (PCI) to help the company win contracts of the Japanese ODA-funded East-West Highway Project.

On October 15 Si, who was in charge of the city’s major infrastructure project between 2000 and 2008, was sentenced to life for taking US$262,000 in bribes from PCI’s former leaders on May 28, 2003.

The HCMC People’s Court also ordered Si to pay back the money to the state.

Although Si didn’t admit his wrongdoing at the first hearing, the court convicted him based on testimonies of PCI’s former leaders who accused him when standing trial in Tokyo on November 11, 2009, as well as other materials.

During the proceedings, the Japanese officials claimed to have offered Si a total of $820,000 in bribes.

Si, who is currently serving a six-year jail term for "abuse of power," is now under investigation for allegedly taking bribes from PCI on six additional occasions.

So far he has only stood trial for his acceptance of $262,000 in bribes, because the initial investigation deadline had passed.

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Thursday, October 14, 2010

Vietnamese woman sells it all to open orphanage

A Vietnamese-born woman who was adopted by a British family 40 years ago has sold all of her possessions, including a £500,000 home and sports car, to fund an orphanage in her home country, The Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

Suzanne Hook, 42, was one of the first 'air babies' rescued during the Vietnam War after her desperate mother dumped her under a bush when she was born in 1969.

She was adopted by a British family aged three and used her golden opportunity for a better life to become an extremely successful business woman.

Suzanne, whose birth name was Thi Hien, has now sold her £500,000 home in Buckinghamshire, her Mercedes sports car and an enviable shoe collection.

She has also sold off all of her clothes and furniture to achieve her dream of setting up an orphanage for abandoned children in Vietnam.

Suzanne, who is abandoning her English life to run the Allambie Orphanage in Ho Chi Minh City, says: “I'm practically selling everything. My whole life is up for sale."

'I've had a comfortable adult life and now I'm giving it all up to live in Vietnam which will be the opposite.

“I'm leaving my friends and whole way of life to take on between eight and 10 children for the rest of my life. It is important to get a chance to better themselves.

“My life here has gone - it will be out in Vietnam with the children.

“I want to give them a future and educate them at a level to get them to university or a job and a home so they can stand on their own two feet.

“But also make them feel wanted, needed and loved. This is something I never felt when I was a child and it is important they have that.”

Suzanne, who is the daughter of a Vietnamese woman and black American soldier, was born at the height of the brutal conflict which ravaged her homeland.

She was taken to an orphanage in 1969 suffering from malnutrition and was too weak to move when she was spotted by British nurses.

The nurses paved the way for Suzanne to be one of first 'air babies' rescued from the war in 1972 with the promise of a better life.

Her arrival at Gatwick Airport at the age of three made national news and she was adopted by a Christian Evangelical family in Hayes, Middlesex.

Suzanne left home when she was 18 and went to catering school before working as a head chef in restaurants and cruise liners for 13 years.

Since 2002 she has built up a successful beauty firm called Couture Nail Service, in Beaconsfield, Bucks, which has allowed her to plough money into the orphanage.

When she visited Vietnam during a career break in 2007 she went on a teaching course and tracked she tracked down her old orphanage.

Inspired by what she found Suzanne returned home and secured funding to open her own orphanage for five girls and four boys all aged between six and 16 years old.

Allambie Orphanage is due to open in November and is named after the home which cared for Suzanne after she was abandoned by her mum.

Suzanne hopes that selling her Western possessions will pay the orphange's £950 a month running costs until she attracts suitable families to sponsor the children.

To make a donation to the orphanage log on to www.allambie.co.uk

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