Internet celebrities rely on marketing, and “Changhong” depends on products. The insurance industry is no exception.
Since 2015, short-term health insurance with the “million insured amount” as the gimmick has emerged. Traditional life insurance companies such as Pacific Life, PICC Health, and Taiping Pension have successively launched multiple products. This “< / span> Millions of medical insurance online “, you can enjoy a medical insurance coverage of RMB 56 million every day for only one subway ticket.
Compared with long-term insurance, these online celebrity products have a low saving nature. What’s more important is that the renewal conditions and exemption clauses are often “trap”: deliberately use “continuous insurance” on the promotional materials. Words such as “guarantee” that are easily confused with long-term health insurance, to achieve regulatory arbitrage and facilitate dumping at any time.
Aiming at the endless shortage of short-term health insurance products on the market and the subsequent insurance disputes and industry chaos, the CBRC has recently issued the “Notice on Regulating the Issues Related to the Regulation of Short-term Health Insurance Business (Consultation Draft)” (hereinafter referred to as “Opinions” draft”). The opinion draft regulates the suspension and renewal conditions of the short-term health insurance industry that is gaining traction in the industry, that is, “Millions of Cyber Red Medical Insurance”.
It is reported that the opinion draft clarifies the definition of short-term health insurance, “a health insurance product that is sold to an individual with an insurance period of one year or less and does not contain a guarantee renewal clause”, stipulating that short-term health insurance products should be clear Clear, unambiguous expressions; terms such as “continuous insurance”, “automatic renewal”, “commitment renewal”, and “lifetime limit” in short-term health insurance product terms and promotional materials must not be used in confusion with long-term health insurance.
According to the first financial survey, the provisions of the industry’s millions of medical insurance products do not meet the requirements of the consultation draft in terms of renewal and surrender of current prices. According to the current draft of comments, all existing one-year million medical insurance records will be discontinued before June 1, 2020, and replaced with updated products that meet the specifications.
Behind the rise and fall of the million medical insurance tide, why do small and medium-sized insurance companies flock to a race track?
Because health insurance is a long industry chain involving multiplayer players such as insurance compensation, medical services, and health management, insurers on the pay side have little bargaining advantage before medical institutions that master patient flows and data. Lack of medical data support, the risk of long-term product development has increased sharply.
This is also the origin of the same dysfunction in health insurance products on the market: Behind the imbalance of supply and demand, there are millions of medical insurances for young people on the one hand, and the other is for the elderly people who really have disability care and chronic disease management needs. Products, almost no company dares to ask.
Unlike property and life insurance, the unique long-term nature of health insurance and the high requirements for solvency make large insurance companies have a natural brand advantage. 1% of insurance companies account for 1/3 of health insurance premiums, similar Insurance premiums of Ping An and Life InsuranceThe magnitude is often between 10 billion yuan and 100 billion yuan; for many small and medium players, the premium scale is less than one tenth or even one percent.
Second, health insurance not only has a long industrial chain, but also has more complex product forms. High operating and risk control costs make technology betting particularly important. This is even more difficult for small and medium-sized companies whose living space has been squashed. They can’t make money. How can they bet on emerging technologies such as AI, big data, blockchain, and cloud computing?
Product homogeneity has intensified, and irrational price wars have become the mainstream competition model. However, even after repeatedly reducing rates, reducing deductibles, and making high sums, short-term health insurance has not been able to make a profit for it. According to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, health insurance premium income in the first eight months of 2019 increased by 31.5% year-on-year, much higher than other insurance types. However, during the same period, the payment of compensation increased by 37.6% year-on-year. It even exceeded the growth rate of premiums. In any case, a high policy wall has been built, and innovation in products and services may be the direction of breakthrough.