http://www.bjreview.com MARCH 26, 2020 BEIJING REVIEW 37
BUSINESS
Copyedited by Sudeshna Sarkar
Comments to wangjun#bjreview.comreleased on March 4 that in the Ķ rst Tuarter
of 2020, the expansion of agent teams in
various insurance companies will slow down.
This is because traditionally, the recruitment
of agents is done mainly through meetings,
interviews and training, which need to be
supported by ofß ine operations.
The property insurance business will be
seriously affected in the short term. SpeciĶ cally,
growth of premium income from car insurance
will face some pressure due to limited new car
sales. Sales of aviation accident insurance and
trafĶ c accident insurance will decrease due to
the massive cancellation of travel plans, the re-
port said.
According to it, during the epidemic, except
for one company that saw growth in its pre-
mium income in early and mid-February, all the
other top 10 property insurance Ķ rms in China
suffered signiĶ cant declines in business.
Health cover to rise
“After every disaster, people are inevitably
more keen to buy insurance. Health-related
insurance is expected to see a new round of
breakout after this epidemic,” Wang Xujin, head
of the Insurance Research Center of Beijing
Technology and Business University, was Tuot-
ed as saying by China Economic Times.
The ZhongAn report also said the epidemic
will make the public more aware of health man-
agement and safeguarding against risks, which
will greatly boost the breakout of health insur-
ance in the short term and its development in
the long run.
According to Wang Xujin, three reasons will
lead to the rapid growth of health insurance
after the epidemic.
It will increase people’s awareness of their
health and risks and risk awareness is the most
important reason for people to buy insurance.
Also, as people’s incomes grow, how to
live with dignity becomes a common need.
Insurance, especially health insurance, is an im-
portant guarantee of that.
The epidemic will also further educate
the public in the importance of commercial
insurance, especially health insurance, as a
supplement to social security.
The China Securities report pointed out
how health insurance grew explosively after
the severe acute respiratory syndrome out-
break in 2003. During the May-August period
that year, when the outbreak had come
under control, health insurance premium
soared by 309 percent, 265 percent, 158
percent and 131 percent in the four months
respectively year on year, and then went
back to the normal state after the epidemic
situation further stabilized.
“As a risk management industry, the
insurance industry is a stabilizer of social de-
velopment and booster of economic growth,”
Wang said.
The CBIRC Ķ gures showed that in 2019, the
premium income earned by the Chinese insur-
ance industry totaled 4.26 trillion yuan (608.57
billion), a year-on-year increase of 12.17
percent.
Of this, property insurance generated a
premium income of 1.16 trillion yuan (165.71
billion) while life insurance earned 3.1 trillion
yuan (442.86 billion), up by 8.16 percent and
13.76 percent, year on year, respectively. In life
insurance, health insurance generated a pre-
mium income of 706.6 billion yuan (100.83
billion), surging 29.7 percent.Transformation needed
“The epidemic will accelerate the insurance
industry’s transformation and upgrading. Ofß ine
sales have been affected, bringing pressure for
increasing new policies and recruiting insurance
agents and insurance companies will have to
accelerate information technology application.This will be conducive to the sound and sustain-
able development of the industry,” Zhou Yanli,
former Vice Chairman of the China Insurance
Regulatory Commission, said in an article in
China Banking and Insurance News.
According to the ZhongAn report, the
COVID-19 outbreak is a kind of new opportunity
for the development of the insurance industry.
Because of the epidemic, insurance companies
have widely recognized the importance and
urgency of digital transformation. Highly effi-
cient online sales channel will be one of the key
points in the future market competition.
“This epidemic will accelerate the establish-
ment of online insurance sales channels, and
information technology-based insurance prod-
uct innovation will also speed up. Under the
mobile and digital trends, insurance companies
will increase investment in insurance technolo-
gies, which will bring more vigor and impetus to
the industry,” the report said.
According to Wang Shuo, his company is
now holding meetings and trainings via the
Internet, and his colleagues share information
and conduct business exchanges via WeChat or
e-mail.
“Through the online insurance system, our
clients can process, anytime and anywhere,
businesses such as automatic claim settlement
and policy inTuiry, and we can also make feed-
back visits through this system. The contactless
operation model is really efĶ cient, and it can be
used even after the epidemic is over,” he said.
Wang Guojun, a professor with the
University of International Business and
Economics in Beijing, told Financial News that
during the epidemic, the insurance industry has
been relying more on technology and focusing
more on online sales, which is in line with the
trend of sales channel revolution.
Online consumers, especially young people,
are very capable of accessing Internet-based
insurance, and they tend to choose products
with high cost-performance ratio. Changing
consumption habits will drive insurance com-
panies to further invest in online channels and
establish more efĶ cient and convenient online
services.
“We have seen some examples of Internet-
based short-term insurance products. As more
financial services are provided through the
Internet, financial technologies and insurance
technologies will also usher in new develop-
ment,” Zhou predicted. QAn insurance agent promotes products through WeChat
Moments amidst the outbreakLIU(^) YU
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