Network mutual aid platform encounters "growth troubles"


   Li Chenyang, our reporter

  At the beginning of this year, Meituan Mutual Aid, a subsidiary of Meituan, announced that it would officially shut down the mutual aid business on January 31, only one and a half years before it went online.

Not only that, last September, Baidu's Lanhuo Mutual Aid announced its termination because the number of participating members was less than 500,000.

Spread a few yuan a month, and once you get a serious illness, you can get a mutual aid fund of 300,000 yuan-the low threshold and high security of network mutual aid has attracted a large number of users, and the number of participants has shown rapid growth in a short period of time, which can be described as unlimited.

Nowadays, many network mutual assistance platforms have fallen into a development bottleneck. What is the reason for this?

What challenges will the mutual aid industry face in the future?

  The profit model is not yet clear

  Xiao Yuanqi, chief risk officer and press spokesperson of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, recently publicly stated that Meituan Mutual Aid’s deviation from Meituan’s main business and the increasing risk of adverse selection are the main reasons for its closure.

In the next step, further attention will be paid to the network company's mutual assistance business, to understand its operation mode and risk situation, and then take corresponding measures according to the situation.

  Since 2011, China's first online mutual assistance platform "Anti-Cancer Commune" went online, and online mutual assistance has been around for nearly ten years.

However, it has really attracted the attention of the industry since the Internet companies entered the field of network mutual assistance in 2016. Mutual assistance platforms such as Water Drop Chip, Mutual Bao, Meituan Mutual Assistance, Denghuo Mutual Assistance, and Xiaomi Mutual Assistance have been launched one after another. It can be said that Internet giants have entered the market one after another to boost Network mutual assistance drives into the fast lane.

  Take Meituan Mutual Aid as an example, it went live in June 2019; in April 2020, the first recipient case was announced; in June 2020, it was upgraded to the first "unlimited disease" mutual aid plan for major illnesses.

Since its launch, Meituan Mutual Aid has publicly shared 18 issues, helping 382 sick members receive mutual aid treatment.

The maximum number of participants has reached 34 million, and the number of apportioned people remains at approximately 15 million.

In response to Meituan’s shutdown of the mutual assistance business, some market analysis said that mutual assistance products themselves are difficult to make profits, and more are to keep the traffic entrance, but the current mutual assistance products experience poor, many users choose to escape the mutual assistance mode, making it difficult to realize the realization of traffic monetization .

  The data shows that the number of people assisted by Meituan Mutual Aid in the third period of June 2020 is 3 people, and the mutual aid fund is 76,000 yuan, but in the second period of December 2020, the number of people who need help quickly rises to 70, and the mutual aid fund has reached 11.584 million yuan.

This means that due to the loose front-end review of the mutual aid plan, the number of mutual aid cases has increased, and the apportioned amount has increased.

The increase in the apportioned amount will cause more healthy people to opt out of the plan, thus forming a vicious circle.

  Licensed operation is the general trend

  At the same time, the qualification disputes surrounding the network mutual assistance platform have never stopped.

The network mutual assistance plan has the characteristics of commercial insurance in nature, but currently there is no clear supervisory subject and supervisory standard, and it is in an embarrassing situation of unsupervised.

In addition, for the network mutual aid platform, once there is an imbalance between the retained members and the people who need to receive mutual aid, the mutual aid plan will face the risk of adjustment or even termination.

  "Although network mutual assistance and commercial insurance are both derived from the "mutual assistance" of human civilization, there is a fundamental difference between the two. Commercial insurance will fully consider the uncertainty of the expected payout to ensure solvency and rate It’s too high.” Wei Li, director of the Insurance Department of Renmin University of China, said in an interview with the Economic Daily reporter that the network mutual assistance program retains the original mutual assistance model, and it carries out the loss sharing after the event. The advantage is that the cost is reduced. There is still uncertainty. The post-mortem share depends on the risk of the plan and cannot diversify all the risks. An excessively high share can easily make members withdraw. Therefore, the adverse selection and moral hazard of network mutual assistance cannot be ignored.

  In September 2020, the China Banking Regulatory Commission’s Anti-illegal Affairs Bureau published an article "Analysis of Illegal Commercial Insurance Activities and Countermeasures and Suggestions", pointing out that some online mutual assistance platforms have a large number of members and are non-licensed operations. Stakeholder risks cannot be ignored. Some pre-charging models The platform has formed precipitation funds, and there is a risk of running away. If it is not handled properly or managed, it may also cause social risks.

  The article recommends that all insurance activities should be strictly admitted and licensed, driving without a license should be strictly prohibited, and various illegal commercial insurance activities should be severely cracked down.

It is necessary to include the network mutual assistance platform into supervision, study the access standards as soon as possible, and realize licensed and legal operations.

  Scientific risk dispersion is the key

  Judging from international experience, the international network mutual assistance platform (also known as P2P insurance platform) currently has three main operating modes: individual mutual assistance mode, group customization mode and other innovative modes.

International P2P insurance platforms generally focus on the participation of small-scale acquaintances. Most of the insurance targets are small-value products with a relatively wide range of distribution, and the risk of business stakeholders and the risk of fund escape are relatively small.

Developed countries in Europe and the United States generally include P2P insurance platforms in the scope of supervision, and are subject to strict supervision by insurance regulatory agencies, and when necessary, they also accept securities regulatory review. Generally, there is no situation where they are completely separated from supervision.

  It is worth noting that under the background of increasing population aging, the demand for medical security continues to rise, the existing medical security system has been severely challenged, and basic medical insurance has become increasingly difficult to meet the growing medical security needs of the people.

Wei Li believes that commercial insurance costs high for low-income people.

my country's medical security system urgently needs to inject new forces, and network mutual assistance is a practical exploration worth encouraging.

As an emerging model, the Network Mutual Aid Plan has some difficulties to explore in the absence of supervision and industry standards, but it does not affect its development trend.

  Data from the "White Paper on Network Mutual Aid Industry 2020" shows that 79.5% of network mutual aid members have an annual income of less than 100,000 yuan, 68% of members have no commercial insurance at all, and 72% of members are located in cities below the third tier. Low-income groups urgently need more A guaranteed product with inclusive nature.

  "In the future, the network mutual aid plan can use modern risk management and control techniques to set a reasonable allocation limit, and transfer the excess risk to commercial insurance. This will enable most members to obtain the required protection at a lower cost, but also meet The needs of some high-guarantee members and coordinated development are conducive to perfecting my country's multi-level medical insurance system, and scientific risk dispersion mechanism is the key to the stable, sustainable and healthy development of network mutual assistance." Wei Li said.