Liu Minxia, Zhang Hao

    mllmx@msn.com

    SHENZHEN’S insurance regulator issued stricter measures to protect investors from misleading sales by commercial banks that sell insurance policies, it said yesterday.

    The new measures, laid down by the Shenzhen offices of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) and the China Banking Regulatory Commission (CBRC), aim to improve the risk prevention mechanism of insurance agency businesses in commercial banks.

    Commercial banks are encouraged to record their insurance policy selling processes and to pay return visits to policyholders, according to the rules.

    Sales agents will be forbidden from selling unauthorized insurance products. Commercial banks and insurance companies are encouraged to cooperate closely whenever there are massive renunciations of insurance policies.

    The regulators also clarified issues about anti-commercial bribery and reinforcement of marketing management.

    Premium income derived from insurance sold in Shenzhen increased by 21.5 percent from a year ago, to 30.29 billion yuan (US$4.93 billion), in the first half of the year.

    The total assets of insurance companies in Shenzhen, of which there are 17, reached 2.2 trillion yuan by the end of June, ranking second among Chinese cities, the insurance regulator said.