On the new journey towards high-quality development of the property insurance industry, China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the Three-year Action Plan for Promoting High-quality Development of the Property Insurance Industry (2020-2022) (hereinafter referred to as the Plan) in a timely manner, striving to realize the transformation and development of the industry in three years, steadily improving the ability to serve the national economy and people's livelihood, and constantly improving the level of opening up and international influence.
It is worth noting that in order to speed up the transformation and upgrading of the industry, the Plan has been comprehensively deployed from three dimensions: insurance structure, development kinetic energy and function, and promoted the formation of a property insurance market system with reasonable structure, abundant kinetic energy and complete functions.
1. insurance structure: from focusing on auto insurance to paying equal attention to both auto insurance and non-auto insurance.
In the first half of 2020, the auto insurance premium income was 408.2 billion yuan, accounting for 65.76% of the total property insurance premium; Non-auto insurance such as liability insurance, agricultural insurance, guarantee insurance and enterprise property insurance accounts for about one third. At the same time, the growth rate of auto insurance premium has dropped to 2.92% in the first half of the year, which is 2 1.75% higher than that of agricultural insurance, and 14.32% higher than that of liability insurance.
Previously, auto insurance, as the largest type of insurance, has always been the "handle" for the rapid growth of the property insurance industry; Many property insurance companies are highly dependent on auto insurance, which also causes the imbalance of insurance structure in the property insurance industry. Reasonable insurance structure is very important for insurance companies to avoid operational risks and develop healthily. Looking at the international insurance market, one of the strong signs of the insurance market is that the connection and proportion between insurance types form a reasonable structure according to the principle of combining social benefits with economic benefits. This is the reason why the plan puts forward "paying equal attention to auto insurance and non-auto insurance".
This will guide property insurance companies to tilt towards non-auto insurance. On the one hand, they will constantly optimize the stock structure of non-auto insurance business, on the other hand, they will strive to develop and popularize new types of insurance, fully meet the needs of other property protection, and provide all-round and multi-level insurance protection for social property. This will also change the extensive business model of the property insurance industry, reverse the increasingly fierce price war dilemma in the auto insurance market, and promote the non-auto insurance market to take the pace of letting a hundred flowers blossom. I believe that property insurance companies will jump out of the comfort zone of auto insurance and will surely usher in a broad market space.
2. Developing kinetic energy: changing from sales-driven to product-service-driven
Previously, under the guidance of the two goals of insurance depth and insurance density, China's property insurance industry has long pursued a sales-driven development idea. This is one of the reasons why China has become the second largest insurance market in the world, but it is also one of the challenges for the property insurance industry to change to high-quality development.
Under the traditional sales-driven model, property insurance companies especially rely on the "crowd tactics" sales model. With the rapid flow of insurance personnel, the complexity of property insurance products has also shaped the business model of "selling first, then serving" and "emphasizing sales and neglecting services", even misleading and deceiving consumers in the insurance sales process.
In fact, in the sales process, property insurance is not only a paper contract, but also services such as insurance guarantee, contract preservation, disaster prevention and mitigation agreed in the contract. In order to change the development mode of "paying more attention to the scale of premium and neglecting the quality of service", the planning focuses on innovation-driven, promotes high-quality development, and strives to promote the transformation of property insurance to service-driven.
For insurance business personnel, we should abandon the sales thinking that "insurance is for sale, not for purchase"; For property insurance companies, on the one hand, it is necessary to strengthen service concept and management, optimize service means and service products, on the other hand, it is possible to develop product lines based on the long tail effect to provide consumers with diversified services.
3. Function: Upgrade from traditional economic compensation to risk management and value-added services.
Economic compensation is the basic function of property insurance, which endows property insurance with the functions of economic "shock absorber" and social "stabilizer". In order to give full play to these two functions and plan for the long term, the high-quality development direction of upgrading to risk management and value-added services is put forward.
Based on the basic principle of "returning to risk protection", the scheme puts forward that by 2022, the comprehensive risk rating of property insurance companies will be above Grade B, and property insurance will become an important means of enterprise risk management and residents' risk protection, highlighting the overall goal of effectively resolving risks. On the other hand, it will be deployed from the aspects of accelerating the reinsurance market and preventing and resolving risks, so as to better play the role of insurance as a basic means of risk management in the market economy.
The plan also focuses on guiding property insurance companies to develop value-added services to help products and services drive the development of the property insurance industry. Specifically, property insurance companies can provide value-added services such as risk consultation, green claims channel, and accidental advance payment. For example, aviation insurance can arrange airport VIP rooms, travel insurance can increase services such as travel rescue and high-speed rail VIP rooms, and auto insurance can provide value-added services such as road rescue and vehicle safety inspection.
At present, risk management ability and value-added service level are increasingly becoming the core competitiveness of property insurance companies, and will also accelerate to become the "soft power" for the high-quality development of the property insurance industry under the guidance of planning, and cooperate with "hard power" such as capital, finance and investment to promote the healthy and sustainable development of the property insurance industry.
On the road of high-quality development, the property insurance industry urgently needs transformation and upgrading. With the change of insurance structure from auto insurance to both auto insurance and non-auto insurance, the development power will change from sales-driven to product-service-driven and the function will be upgraded from traditional economic compensation to risk management and value-added services. The driving force and vitality of the high-quality development of the property insurance industry will also be generate, and the property insurance market with reasonable structure, complete functions, scientific governance and orderly competition will not be far away.