Exclusive | More mainland Chinese buy insurance policies in Hong Kong, and the watchdog is taking notice

Moses Cheng Mo-chi, the first chairman of Hong Kong’s new Insurance Authority (IA), was already enjoying a beckoning retirement before being called out by the government to establish the insurance watchdog agency.

At 67, Cheng has seen a lot of change in the city and in its financial and insurance industry. Cheng was one of the first full time law students to get his degree from Hong Kong University, taking his first job in 1973. Though he retired in 2015, he continued to work as a consultant. Known for his contributions to society and love of the arts, he is the founding chairman of Opera Hong Kong and the Child Development Matching Fund.

The IA is so new that Cheng’s interview for this article took place in his old law office – the offices of the Insurance Authority were still in build; the IA officially started operations on June 26, 2017.

The new regulator took over from the Office of the Insurance Commissioner as the regulator for all insurance companies and overseeing about 90,000 insurance sales staff.

It’s no small task. The government debated the creation of such an agency for ten years, as the industry itself exploded. The gross value of insurance policy premiums in 2016 stood at HK$448.8 billion (US$57.5 billion), up 763 per cent from HK$52 billion in 1997, according to government statistics.

The number of policies had more than tripled in the same period, to 12.66 million last year from 3.4 million 20 years ago. And the number of sales agents in Hong Kong has grown by 141 per cent to 92,465 in 2016 from 38,383 in 1997.