Our reporter Su Xianggao
The shock wave of the new Internet personal insurance regulations on the insurance industry continues.
According to the statistics of a reporter from Securities Daily, as of the press release on January 13, 29 insurance companies have issued announcements on the suspension of Internet personal insurance business through their official websites or official WeChat accounts.
In addition, since the beginning of this year, 57 insurance companies have updated Internet product information on the official website of the Insurance Association of China, and many insurance companies have removed the previously popular Internet personal insurance products.
On the whole, the number of Internet life insurance products on sale after the new regulations has fallen sharply compared with last year, showing a trend of "big shrinkage".
From the perspective of insurance companies, there will be four major changes in the field of Internet life insurance in 2022: First, the scale of Internet life insurance premiums will drop sharply; The third is that there will be major changes in the product structure of Internet personal insurance products;
For consumers, how to buy Internet personal insurance after the implementation of the new regulations?
In this regard, Xu Yuchen, a founding member of the China Association of Actuaries, told the "Securities Daily" reporter that after the new regulations, there are still two major factors that need to be paid attention to when purchasing Internet life insurance: first, cost-effectiveness, and online products must not have obvious shortcomings or guarantee loopholes; second It is to pay attention to the long-term service ability of insurance companies, which is very important to consumers.
On this basis, consumers are advised to purchase insurance from professional institutions and professional agents to obtain scientific and comprehensive insurance protection.
Internet personal insurance
Market entities and products "shrink"
According to the "Notice of the General Office of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission on Further Regulating the Internet Personal Insurance Business of Insurance Institutions" (hereinafter referred to as the "New Regulations"), insurance companies that carry out Internet personal insurance business should complete the stock of Internet personal insurance before December 31, 2021. Insurance business rectification, entities and products that do not meet the relevant requirements of the new regulations will not be allowed to operate through Internet channels from January 1, 2022.
According to the above requirements, according to the reporter's incomplete statistics, 29 insurance companies have issued announcements to suspend the Internet life insurance business, including 15 life insurance companies, including Guobao Life Insurance, Bohai Life Insurance, Dajia Pension, etc.; 14 property insurance companies, Including Zhongyi Property & Casualty Insurance, Fubon Property & Casualty Insurance, Beibu Gulf Property & Casualty Insurance, etc.
Judging from the suspension announcements issued by various insurance companies, there is no mention of the resumption of sales.
While a large number of insurance companies have directly stopped selling Internet life insurance, there are also many insurance companies that have not completely stopped selling Internet life insurance products, but have greatly reduced the number of Internet life insurance products on sale.
According to the reporter's statistics, as of January 13, 57 insurance companies have updated the information of Internet insurance products, and many insurance companies have greatly reduced the number of products on sale compared with last year.
Insurance companies such as Dingcheng Life Insurance and Hengqin Life Insurance recently issued announcements showing that online sales of life insurance products this year have decreased significantly compared with last year.
Insurance companies have stopped selling or removed Internet life insurance products from the new regulations that reset the business qualifications of insurance companies.
The new regulations impose stricter requirements on insurance companies operating Internet personal insurance business in terms of minimum solvency requirements, comprehensive risk rating requirements, and reserve requirements. market.
In addition, the new regulations impose stricter requirements on insurance companies that operate ordinary life insurance and annuity insurance with a term of 10 years or more, put forward higher solvency adequacy ratio requirements, and require solvency surplus to exceed 5 billion yuan Wait.
Xu Yuchen also told reporters that these restrictions have a relatively large impact on the industry structure, and these regulations have restricted small and medium-sized insurance companies with poor strength from operating such businesses to a certain extent.
In general, the implementation of the new regulations has brought about a reshuffle of business entities, and the business entities will mainly be large and medium-sized insurance companies with stronger capital and stronger operating capabilities.
A large number of insurance companies have temporarily withdrawn from the Internet life insurance business, and some insurance companies have stopped selling some Internet life insurance products. This year's Internet life insurance market has ushered in great changes.
Internet personal insurance
Changes in premium and channel structure
Based on the new regulations, the industry predicts that there will be four major changes in the Internet life insurance market this year.
First, the scale of premiums may decline sharply.
Of the 211.1 billion yuan of Internet life insurance premiums in 2020, about 42% of the premiums are contributed by new insurance products such as participating, universal, and investment-linked insurance products.
This year, these three types of insurance will not be able to be sold online, which will have a significant impact on the premium scale of the Internet life insurance market.
The industry expects that the implementation of the new regulations will reduce premium income by 50% without considering any other product strategy adjustments.
The deputy general manager of a small insurance company told the "Securities Daily" reporter that as early as a few years ago, some small and medium-sized insurance companies began to gradually reduce the premium scale of online sales of participating insurance, universal insurance, investment-linked insurance and other wealth management insurance types.
In recent years, with the supervision and advocacy of the industry to return to protection, mainstream insurance companies in the industry have already reduced the premium scale of products such as online universal insurance, and the company is also continuing to reduce such products to further return to the protection function of insurance.
Second, there will be a major adjustment in the ranking of Internet life insurance premiums.
In 2020, the top 10 Internet life insurance premiums are China Post Life, Guohua Life, CCB Life, ICBC-AXA, PICC Health, Ping An Life, China Life, Taiping Life, Ping An Health, and Hongkang Life.
At present, CCB Life has announced the suspension of Internet life insurance business.
China Post Life, CCB Life, and ICBC-AXA are all bank insurance companies and rely on bancassurance channels.
In the bancassurance channel, most sales scenarios are for account managers to guide customers to apply for insurance through mobile banking or self-service terminals.
This model is an online and offline integration model, which needs to be subject to dual supervision of online and offline regulatory requirements. For example, offline sales must meet the requirements of double recording, which will further increase the resistance of banks to carry out agency business.
Xu Yuchen said that most of the insurance companies with the highest Internet life insurance premiums are bank insurance companies, and these insurance companies mostly obtain premiums through the "offline and online" integration model. After the implementation of the new regulations, they will be greatly affected.
Third, the structure of Internet life insurance premiums will change.
Xu Yuchen told reporters that in the past few years, the premiums of accident insurance, critical illness insurance, short-term medical insurance, and term life insurance sold on the Internet have grown rapidly.
After the implementation of the new regulations, universal insurance, participating insurance, and investment-linked insurance will be removed from the shelves, and accident insurance, critical illness insurance, medical insurance, and term life insurance are expected to have a good growth rate.
Fourth, there will be major changes in the ranking of Internet life insurance premiums.
Tianfeng Securities analyst Xia Changsheng believes that after the implementation of the new regulations, the competitive landscape is favorable for large insurance companies, while small and medium-sized insurance companies are under pressure.
In fact, after the introduction of the new regulations, it means that a large number of online products need to be sold through offline channels or integrated online and offline channels. Large insurance companies have a complete offline channel layout and have a competitive advantage, which has also led to the emergence of Internet life insurance premium rankings. Variety.
Looking forward to development prospects
There are still many positives for the industry
From the point of view of insurance companies, after the implementation of the new regulations this year, although the premium scale of the Internet personal insurance industry may experience negative growth, there are still many positive growth prospects for the industry.
First, mutual aid platforms have been shut down one after another, which is good for the development of Internet insurance products.
Xu Yuchen said that from the perspective of changes in Internet channels, mutual insurance has been closed recently. The services provided by mutual insurance are similar to critical illness insurance. Before the closure, more than 70 million people participated in the sharing. After the closure, the insurance needs of these people will return to the insurance market. Therefore, it is relatively clear that after a large number of mutual aid platforms are closed, the demand for short-term or one-year critical illness insurance will increase.
Second, due to multiple factors, the Internet penetration rate of the insurance industry is still low, and the industry's development prospects are still broad.
From 2011 to 2020, the insurance density in my country has risen from 1,067 yuan/person to 3,206 yuan/person, and the insurance penetration has risen from 2.9% to 4.5%, showing an obvious growth trend.
At present, the magnitude of insurance policies between Internet insurance companies and traditional insurance companies is very different, and the potential transformation space of the Internet insurance industry is self-evident.
Based on this, the deputy general manager of the above-mentioned insurance company told reporters that in order to reshape the insurance industry, insurance companies still need to start with the details of customer experience and design models according to the full product, full scene, and full life cycle when operating the Internet personal insurance business. Value chain, and create an innovative model integrating "digital operation, digital operation, and digital risk control".
(Securities Daily)