Singapore's general insurance industry saw premiums rise to S$3.6b in 2015

Singapore's general insurance industry saw premiums rise to S$3.6b in 2015
However, there was a 17 per cent drop in total underwriting profit to S$325 million amid the slowing economy and increased competition.

By Nicole Tan
Posted 17 Mar 2016 10:54 Updated 17 Mar 2016 23:59

SINGAPORE: Singapore's general insurance industry posted a 2.6 per cent growth in total gross premiums to S$3.6 billion in 2015.

However, margins declined amid the economic slowdown and increased competition, resulting in a 17 per cent drop in total underwriting profit to S$325 million, according to the General Insurance Association on Thursday (Mar 17).

Underwriting profit is the amount of premiums earned after claims have been paid and administrative expenses accounted for.

The motor insurance class, which makes up 32 per cent of the general market, saw a 4 per cent drop in gross premiums to S$1.1 billion in 2015, due to heightened competition and the falling car population. On average, motor premiums fell by about 3 per cent, partially accounting for the 20 per cent fall in underwriting profit.

Meanwhile, underwriting profit in the work injury compensation class jumped 92 per cent, while profits fell in both the fire and personal accident segments.

Looking ahead, the General Insurance Association expects personal accident and health insurance lines to grow moderately as consumers become more aware in coping with rising medical costs and growth in overseas travel.

However, motor revenue is expected to continue falling due to intense competition among current insurers and new entrants.

- CNA/kk

- wong chee tat :)

'Very warm temperatures' expected till end-March: MSS

'Very warm temperatures' expected till end-March: MSS
Over the last two weeks of March, daily maximum temperatures are expected to range between 33°C and 34°C, and could reach a high of around 36°C on a few days, Met officials say.

Posted 15 Mar 2016 20:07 Updated 15 Mar 2016 23:12

SINGAPORE: Expect "very warm temperatures" over the coming fortnight, Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS) said in an advisory on Tuesday (Mar 15).

"During this period, the daily maximum temperatures are expected to range between 33°C and 34°C, and could reach a high of around 36°C on a few days," MSS stated. It said the mean monthly temperature for March 2016 is likely to be comparable to that for the warmest March on record - 29.5°C in 1998.

"The warmer conditions are due the continuing influence of the El Nino and the presence of a dry and warm air mass over the region," MSS added.

Despite the drier conditions, short-duration thundery showers in the afternoon can still be expected over parts of Singapore on four to six days.

MSS said almost all areas of Singapore received below average rainfall in the first half of March. During the second week of March, the daily maximum temperature recorded was between 34.5°C and 35.0°C.

- CNA/ly

- wong chee tat :)

VirtualBox 5.0.16

VirtualBox 5.0.16 (released 2016-03-04)

This is a maintenance release. The following items were fixed and/or added:

• VMM: fixed a problem which could lead to a wrong guest behavior on AMD CPUs (tickets #14831 and #15186)
• GUI: don't try to synchronize the HID LEDs if the VM window is not active or if it's minimized (Windows / Mac OS X hosts only; bug #14302)
• GUI: prevent a crash during startup under rare conditions
• GUI: sub-menu option to disable the guest-OS type overlay in the application dock icon on Mac OS X
• GUI: position off-screen windows to be fully visible again on relaunch
• GUI: hide the VT-x/AMD-V checkbox if raw-mode is not supported (usually Mac OS X hosts; bug #15178)
• PC speaker passthrough: new experimental feature, available on Linux host only
• Audio: several fixes for Mac OS X hosts + guests
• Audio: properly handle default audio device changes (Windows hosts)
• USB: serveral fixes for the xHCI controller (e.g. for webcam passthrough)
• BIOS: fixed int15/AH=83/AL=00 function (4.2.0 regression)
• iPXE: enable the HTTP download protocol on non-Linux hosts (bug #13628)
• Shared folders: fixed a failure to load the saved state under certain circumstances (bug #6314)
• Guest Control: added support for (cached) Active Directory authentication in case the domain controller is not reachable (anymore)
• Serial ports: raised the number of serial ports per VM from 2 to 4 (bug #9109)
• Serial ports: fix for the TCP/IP backend (Windows hosts only; bug #15188)
• SDK: make the Python webservice API binding work again (5.0 regression)
• Seamless mode: fixed a crash under certain circumstances (bug #15106)
• Linux hosts: fixed the /sbin/rcvboxdrv script as well as the missing shebang in two scripts (bugs #15055 and #15057)
• Linux hosts: properly uninstall Python files installed by the .run installer
• Windows hosts: hardening fix required for recent Windows insider builds (bug #14052)
• Windows hosts: fixed Python installation path (bug #13131)
• Windows hosts: support MTU larger than 2 KB with bridged networking (bug #15140)
• Windows hosts / guests: properly sign binaries using a sha-256 certificate (bug #15054)
• Windows Additions: fixed guest property enumeration of logged-in users
• Windows Additions: fixed sporadical failure of the graphics driver in Windows 10 guests (bug #14409)
• Windows Additions: under rare circumstances no mouse movement events were delivered to the guest

- wong chee tat :)

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

- wong chee tat :)

System Updates: Router Changes

System Updates: Router Changes

- Added links for faster caching

- wong chee tat :)

Om Mani Padme Hum

Om Mani Padme Hum

- wong chee tat :)