Bank insurance means that banks provide insurance products to customers in various ways, thus entering the insurance field. Bank insurance business originated in Europe, originated in19th century, matured in 1980s, and reached its peak in 1990s. In Belgium, Italy, Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Switzerland and other countries, its premium income accounts for 20%-35% of the total business in the life insurance market, while in France, Spain, Sweden and other banks, insurance is more developed, accounting for 60%.
There are four development modes of bank insurance: the first is the distribution agreement mode, in which insurance companies sign short-term agency cooperation agreements with banks to sell products, collect premiums, settle accounts and provide preferential financing support. The second is strategic alliance, in which banks focus on choosing one or two insurance companies to cooperate, * * * develop products, * * * build an information platform and establish a long-term benefit sharing mechanism. Third, joint venture mode, capital integration, * * * through the establishment of subsidiaries, through subsidiaries into the insurance field. The fourth is the financial holding group, in which banks buy insurance companies, or insurance companies buy banks, and they are closely integrated into a comprehensive organization through holding financial groups with the same interests.
Bank insurance started late in China, but it developed rapidly. 1995, Xinhua, Taikang, Huaan and other insurance companies signed agency agreements with banks to carry out bank insurance business in order to seize the market and quickly establish their brand image. Before 2000, the share of bank insurance was less than 2%. In 200 1 year, the proportion of bank insurance business in total life insurance income is close to 3.5%. In 2002, the national bank life insurance premium income was 38.84 billion yuan, accounting for 17 1% of individual life insurance. In 2003, the premium income was 76.5 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase. In 2004, the national bank life insurance premium income was 79.5 billion yuan, accounting for 25% of the life insurance premium income. In 2005, the bank premium income was 80.325 billion yuan, and the growth rate reached 42.79% in 2007. In the first quarter of 2008, the growth rate of bank premium income further increased to 65,438+028.71%,which promoted the growth of life insurance industry.
Second, the problems in the development of bank-insurance cooperation
Although China's bank insurance has developed rapidly, compared with European bank insurance, it is still in the first development mode, that is, the agreement agency mode. Insurance companies sign short-term agency agreements with banks to sell insurance products on a commission basis and collect premiums. There are many problems in the cooperation between bank and insurance under the agreement agency mode, and the accumulation of these problems has also greatly affected the further development of bank insurance.
(A) policy factors
The Regulations on the Administration of Insurance Companies promulgated in June 5438 +2000 10 clearly stated that insurance should be operated separately from banks and securities. Since then, China's financial system has entered the development mode of separate operation and supervision, and banks, insurance and securities have their own independent regulatory agencies and independent regulatory legal systems. Commercial banks can't operate insurance at the same time, and operating insurance can't be involved in banking business. This restricts the development of China's bank insurance business to a higher mode. From the experience and long-term development strategy of developed countries, financial mixed operation is an inevitable development trend.
(B) factors of bank insurance system
1. Under the financial system dominated by banks, banks are not enthusiastic about bank-insurance cooperation.
(1) The development of China's financial market is still not perfect, and the competition among banks has not developed to a white-hot level. The traditional asset-liability business is still the main source of profits, and bank insurance fees are only one of the intermediate income, but they have not become the main source of bank profits. As a foreign-funded business, bank insurance has never been integrated into the long-term development strategy of bank development, and banks cannot share the profits of insurance companies' bancassurance business.
(2) Banks occupy the advantages of brand resources, channel resources, related business resources and human resources, while there are many insurance companies. In order to seize the market and expand the business scale, fierce competition has been launched in the field of bancassurance, with banks in a passive position and insurance companies in an active position.
2. Bank-insurance cooperation is short-term and arbitrary. Short-term agreements cannot form a long-term strategic partnership of benefit sharing. Banks only want to use their own network resources to get as much resource rent as possible, that is, handling fees, while insurance companies are reluctant to make long-term investments in cooperation with banks, but focus on the competition for outlets.
3. Insurance companies still take handling fees as the main means in the bancassurance competition, and their business development mode is extensive. The proportion of bank insurance commission is lower than that of personal marketing, which should have cost advantage, but under the current situation, the cost advantage of bank insurance business is not reflected. (1) China has cancelled the "1+ 1" model, that is, a bank can only cooperate with one insurance company. Under the "many-to-many" mode, banks have more choices for insurance companies, and the strong position of banks forces insurance companies to compete for agency rates. (2) The bank's incentive distribution to employees is not in place, which makes bank employees pay great attention to the agency rate in the bancassurance business. Because banks still use the measures of charging agency fees into large financial accounts and then rewarding employees, the distribution incentives for individual agents are not in place, so bank employees are more willing to sell products of companies with higher agency rates. Therefore, in the process of bank-insurance cooperation, it is very easy to form a high agency rate, which insurance company represents which company's products, and the insurance companies have launched fierce competition in the rate. It is reported that the handling fee for five-year products used to be about 2%, but now it has climbed to about 3.5%. Considering the cost of public relations, extra incentive, salesman's salary, business document fee and back office salary, the insurance company has actually fallen into a "unprofitable" state.
4. The bancassurance products are single, with imperfect functions and serious homogenization. Bank insurance products are mainly paid in wholesale, three-year and five-year terms, which is not conducive to the risk prevention and control and long-term development of insurance companies. Moreover, due to the asymmetry of information, most of them provide customers with simple insurance with simple protection function, and the protection function is not perfect, and they tend to be dividend-sharing and investment-oriented. Moreover, the products of various insurance companies are homogeneous and replaceable, and the conversion cost of customers between products of different insurance companies is very low. In addition, the homogeneity of bancassurance products is also reflected in the substitutability of insurance company products and bank products. The savings of bancassurance products eroded the long-term savings of banks and plundered the capital flow and customer flow of banks.
5. The insurance concept and product sales skills of bank tellers are not perfect. Due to the different nature of property insurance and life insurance business, the classification of individual business and group business, traditional business and investment and wealth management business is different, and the insurance products themselves are diverse and complicated. Bank tellers adapt to the standardized sales model of banks, have not received professional training in insurance concepts and insurance product concepts, and lack business skills, which is not conducive to the development of bancassurance business.
6. The improper behavior of the bank's insurance agent damaged the bank's reputation. In China, people's acceptance of banks is higher than that of insurance, and the credibility of banks has always been higher than that of insurance. However, due to the uneven quality of bancassurance agents and the one-sided pursuit of business scale by insurance companies, there have been a large number of cases of misleading customers and even defrauding insurance. Some insurance products are often described as the same as or slightly higher than the savings deposits in the same period, promising customers the minimum dividend level, and including the concepts of "principal", "deposit insurance" and "deposit insurance", or confusing the difference between insurance and deposits, which seriously affects the reputation of banks and makes banks have scruples in bank-insurance cooperation.
(C) the impact of technical factors
The network information systems of insurance companies and banks are independent of each other, which is not conducive to the enjoyment of customer information and the provision of convenient services for customers. Banks don't want to share high-end customers with insurance companies, and insurance companies don't want to share technological advantages with banks, so they don't want to build a unified information technology platform together, which can't make customers get one-stop convenient services. Although the "Yintong Tong" system has been widely used, it is a business operating system independently developed by banks for various insurance companies. It is not connected with the insurance company's information system and does not have the same characteristics.
Third, the countermeasure research.
(A) For the government, a good macro policy is very important.
1, creating a good regulatory environment.
(1) Gradually lift the restrictions on mixed operation. Mixed operation is the general trend of the development of financial industry, and the current development of financial industry is gradually showing the trend of mixed operation. Banks are allowed to operate insurance, and insurance companies are also actively entering the banking field. Property insurance companies can operate life insurance, and life insurance companies are also actively expanding into property insurance. Ping An Insurance Company successively acquired Fujian Asia Bank and Shenzhen Commercial Bank and changed its name to Ping An Bank, thus establishing Ping An Financial Group. China PICC Life Insurance Company was established, and China Life Property Insurance Company was established. It is a sign of deregulation of the financial industry that insurance giants break the restriction of separate operation. Mixed operation can effectively cope with the competition of foreign-funded comprehensive financial enterprises and increasingly fierce competition in the same industry, improve the ability of resource integration and product development, and further improve the ability to cope with financial risks.
(2) Strengthen the competition supervision of insurance companies and actively guide insurance companies to develop from extensive competition to intensive competition. Strictly supervise the agency rates of insurance companies to prevent vicious competition in raising agency rates regardless of cost. Guide insurance companies to carry out business innovation, product innovation and service innovation, and enhance the means and methods of competition.
2. Improve the access mechanism of banks and promote full competition in the banking industry. At present, the banking market in China is an oligopoly dominated by workers, peasants and China Construction. The state-controlled status of the four major banks makes banks deliberately avoid business competition, while other non-state-controlled banks have limited ability in peer competition, so the competition in the banking industry is incomplete, which is not conducive to improving the overall competitiveness of the banking industry and its ability to withstand financial storms. It is the lack of competition that leads to the rapid development of world finance today. Chinese banks still take the traditional asset-liability business as the main source of profits, and are not eager to seek new profit growth points in other fields, so that the cooperation between banks and enterprises cannot rise to the strategic height of long-term development of banks.
(2) Both banks and insurance companies should set out from the long-term development strategy and build a benefit-sharing mechanism.
The cooperation between banks and insurance companies is mutually beneficial and win-win For insurance companies, it can expand business scale, reduce costs, expand business channels and seize the market quickly. For banks, in the face of increasingly fierce inter-bank competition and foreign investment competition, as well as the enhancement of bargaining power between fund providers and customers, the profit margin of traditional asset-liability business will continue to decline, and the cooperation between banks and insurance companies will undoubtedly bring new profit growth points. And we can retain high-quality customer resources by providing customers with all-round financial services, and the improvement of comprehensive strength can also enhance our ability to cope with financial risks.
1. Utilize the advantages of both parties to jointly develop superior products. Insurance companies have the advantage of product development technology, and banks have the advantage of customer resources. On the one hand, both parties should make full use of customer resources, segment the market, determine the corresponding target market, and design corresponding insurance products for prospective customers and potential customers with different demand levels, so that the products can integrate supportability, savings and investment, and meet customers' demand for financial services to the maximum extent. On the other hand, explore the joint development of products by banks and insurance companies, so as to increase the attractiveness of bank customers, mobilize the enthusiasm of bank agents, realize the organic combination of bank financial services and insurance protection functions, and better improve the sales efficiency of insurance products. Such as the development of bundled mixed products, insurance related to bank financial instruments such as credit storage and credit cards. , enrich the insurance products that banks can sell.
2. Accelerate technology development, and establish and optimize the information platform for bank-insurance cooperation. At present, the bancassurance system widely used by banks can meet the requirements of real-time billing at the counter. Due to security and information confidentiality, the actual operation and information enjoyment of insurance products are still insufficient, and their functions are still limited. Banks and banks should strengthen the construction of information platforms so that customers can enjoy convenient and one-stop banking and insurance services through information platforms.
3. Let banks share the profits of insurance companies and cultivate stakeholders within banks. We can consider distributing the salary of insurance companies to employees who manage bank insurance internally, which will certainly attract outstanding talents from banks to enter the field of bank insurance and attach importance to bank insurance from the perspective of internal interests. Institutional setup can reflect that banks pay less attention to bank insurance than insurance companies. Insurance companies have specialized intermediary banks and insurance business departments, while banks have only relevant institutions and no independent departments. Therefore, actively guiding banks to set up special banking and insurance departments, and distributing corresponding salaries for their managers, undoubtedly provides a solid foundation for banks to pay attention to bank insurance from the internal related interests.
(3) Insurance companies still need to seek solutions under established constraints.
1. In the case of serious product homogeneity, efforts should be made to improve service quality and build brand advantages. The homogenization of products needs to improve services, establish a good brand image by relying on high-quality services, and make yourself the first association for customers to buy bank insurance through the construction of market brands. Only in this way can we win in the fiercely competitive bancassurance market.
2. Strengthen the insurance concept and product training for bank tellers, and the insurance company will issue relevant payment incentives on behalf of the bank. We can apply the strict and professional training mechanism of the insurance industry to the training of bank tellers. Insurance companies have perfect training mechanisms to train new people and improve their business skills, which are also completely suitable for the training of bank tellers. Through the operation of these mechanisms, the insurance concept and product sales concept and skills of bank tellers will be greatly improved. Banks are not enthusiastic about introducing distribution incentives, and are often reluctant to introduce special plans to give tellers physical rewards, while the insurance company's planned incentive mechanism is quite perfect. In this case, insurance companies can introduce relevant planning measures and reward them in the name of banks.
3. Improve the quality of professional managers and financial managers, and strive to build a professional, dedicated and honest bank insurance sales team. Strictly implement the access standards for bank insurance agents, strengthen the integrity assessment, improve the integrity incentive mechanism for special managers and wealth management managers, put an end to misleading customers and fraudulent insurance, and prevent the bank's reputation from being further eroded.