(Countering new crown pneumonia) war speech: Zhou Yanli: New crown pneumonia epidemic is forcing China's insurance industry to transform and upgrade

China News Agency, Beijing, April 1st: Title: "Epilogue" war speech: Zhou Yanli: New crown pneumonia epidemic forced China's insurance industry to transform and upgrade

China News Agency reporter Chen Xiaoyuan

The new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought unprecedented challenges to many industries in China. Zhou Yanli, a member of the Economic Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and former vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, recently said in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Agency that the insurance industry is also deeply affected and the epidemic will force the insurance industry to transform and upgrade.

He also pointed out that the long-term positive development trend of China's economy has not changed, and the good development momentum and long-term stable development trend of the financial and insurance industries are unchanged.

Statistics show that in 2019, the original premium income of China's insurance industry was 4.26 trillion yuan (RMB, the same below), an increase of 12.17% year-on-year; the total net assets of the insurance industry were 2.48 trillion yuan, an increase of 23.08% from the beginning of last year.

Zhou Yanli pointed out that in recent years, China's insurance industry has continuously promoted supply-side structural reforms, actively participated in the construction of agriculture and rural areas, the development of large health industries, the construction of multi-level pensions and medical security systems, and continuously innovated products to improve the level of security and achieved significant results.

After the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia, China's insurance industry actively responded. Zhou Yanli said that the insurance industry has joined hands with all walks of life to fight the epidemic through donations and donations, free insurance protection, expansion of insurance liability, R & D and reinstatement of epidemic insurance, appropriate extension of protection periods, and credit support.

Statistics show that in the first two months of this year, China's life insurance premiums increased by 20.51% year-on-year, and even in February, which was most affected by the epidemic, it achieved a year-on-year increase of 9.9%. Zhou Yanli believes that the premium income and total assets of the industry in China are expected to continue to grow this year, and the industry will achieve stable and healthy development.

"The epidemic has prompted the insurance industry to actively develop Internet insurance." Zhou Yanli analyzed that the high growth in Internet insurance product sales was mainly due to the significant increase in user insurance awareness and the restriction of outdoor activities by users to favor online products.

He said that with the traditional offline channels blocked, the Internet channel "ushered in a corner overtaking opportunity." At present, the integration of some short-term insurance and the Internet has formed a better operating model. It is believed that with the gradual onlineization of financial services, fintech and insurance technology that provide information technology support will also usher in new development.

"The epidemic prevention and control forces the insurance industry to accelerate the transformation and upgrading of services." Zhou Yanli believes that offline sales are currently blocked, and new order marketing is temporarily under pressure. Insurance company performance and staffing plans are also disrupted. The transformation of big technology and the acceleration of the application of insurance technology will be beneficial to the sustainable and healthy development of the industry in the long run.

He also pointed out that the public's awareness of anxiety is increasing, the demand for health insurance is increasing, and the intention to insure is stronger. In the long run, it is also conducive to the rapid development of health insurance and liability insurance.

Zhou Yanli said that under the test of the epidemic, insurance companies have increasingly realized the shortage of insurance services, the need for the transformation and upgrading of the insurance industry, and the importance of insurance technology.

As a special researcher in the counselor's office of the State Council of China, Zhou Yanli believes that the insurance industry must actively innovate and develop, accelerate the adjustment of business structure, and strengthen product security attributes; actively promote business transformation and accelerate online and offline service integration; Deepen the level of management refinement; publicize insurance knowledge in an all-round way to further improve public awareness of insurance.

In terms of industry transformation and upgrading, he believes that it is necessary to make full use of the Internet and insurance technology, continue to promote the supply-side structural reform of the insurance industry, and achieve high-quality development of the industry.

Zhou Yanli suggested that new technologies such as distributed blockchain technology, depots and tables be used to "plug wings" for core business systems; big data and cloud computing technologies should be widely used to build a unified and centralized data center; accelerate the promotion of insurance Online services, focusing on creating "zero-touch" insurance technology formats; widely adopting big data technologies to build proactive risk control capabilities. (Finish)