In addition to the fierce competition in the new retail field among Internet giants, the insurance industry is also a big cake that is targeted by the giants. Why do giants care about insurance? This is because with the help of online traffic, giants can better integrate insurance with scenarios, allowing more users to conveniently purchase insurance online. It can be said that insurance has become a necessary business for Internet giants to build a financial ecosystem.
In order to flex their muscles in the insurance industry, the most important thing for Internet giants is to obtain complete insurance licenses. On November 2, JD.com announced that with the approval of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, Allianz Property Insurance (China) Co., Ltd. was approved to change its name to JD.com Allianz Property Insurance Company. This is also the third Internet giant to take the title after Alibaba and Tencent. Got the insurance license.
In addition to BATJ, Xiaomi, Meituan, Didi, Toutiao, Sina, Vipshop... have entered the insurance industry one after another, and the paths are also similar. The giants are crowding into the Internet insurance industry. Can it be able to welcome it in the short term? To grow explosively? What impact will Internet insurance have on traditional insurance in the future? For giants, can their Internet insurance find a distinctive path?
The Internet insurance market is gradually heating up. Various Internet giants are vying to seize the red ocean of insurance.
In the past few years, the scale of domestic Internet insurance premiums has been showing a continuous upward trend. The reason why Internet insurance can generate such a high growth rate in the consumer market is that it meets the insurance needs of users in different scenarios. At the same time, its cost-effectiveness is more advantageous than traditional insurance types. For example, Ant Financial launched mutual insurance some time ago. Although this model is not Alipay's first, it is still sought after by tens of millions of users. It can be seen that more and more users are increasingly recognizing the Internet insurance business.
What is the development prospect of the Internet insurance market? According to the "In-depth Research and Investment Prospects Forecast Report on China's Internet Insurance Industry 2017-2021" released by China Investment Consulting, it is estimated that the scale of my country's Internet insurance premiums will reach 280.1 billion yuan in 2017, with an average annual compound growth rate of 2017-2021. The rate is approximately 21.93%, and the premium scale will reach 619.1 billion yuan in 2021.
At present, Internet giants are facing a traffic dividend ceiling. They all need new businesses to inject new blood sources into the enterprise. Therefore, financial services have become an important part of their ecology. Whether it is Tencent or Alibaba, only having its own insurance company can compete with traditional comprehensive financial groups, not to mention China's future insurance industry with a market share of trillions. It is precisely because of the positive growth trend of the Internet insurance market that Internet giants have great ambitions to lay out the financial ecosystem. Insurance has also become an important business for Internet giants to lay out the financial ecosystem. With the help of insurance business, various types of insurance can be better formulated to suit the scenario.
In recent years, Tencent, Alibaba, Baidu, JD.com, etc. have been raising licenses through mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures and official applications. According to data from the "China Insurance Technology Industry Investment and Financing Report", as of the end of 2017, Internet giants BATJ, Sina, and Suning had invested in 12 companies with insurance-related licenses. Of course, only if giants hold insurance licenses can they have a better chance of making money in the insurance industry.
What does the complete insurance license that the giants are obsessed with mean? According to an interview by Zhu Junsheng, professor of the Institute of Finance and Deputy Director of the Insurance Research Office of the Development Research Center of the State Council, in an interview with a reporter from the International Finance News: "The company has various insurance licenses and can conduct integrated operations. Due to the influence of different natures of insurance businesses Factors are different, and insurance companies with complete licenses can alleviate the impact of more cyclical factors. "
Giants with insurance licenses will naturally have more development opportunities in the insurance industry, and they will naturally be able to serve online users faster. Launch more types of insurance. At present, there are a large number of Internet insurance companies in the domestic Internet insurance industry, such as Zhongan, Taikang Online , and Yi'an Insurance; there are also Internet giants investing in traditional insurance companies, such as Cathay Property & Casualty Insurance, Hetai Life Insurance, Xinmei Mutual Aid, etc. Users on the Internet work together to launch various types of insurance.Although the influx of giants has brought greater development opportunities to the Internet insurance industry, the mature and large-scale development of this market still faces many problems.
Although the development potential of Internet insurance is huge, giants face many challenges when exploring the road to commercialization.
According to statistics from Qinghui Think Tank, the scale of Internet insurance is expected to reach 10 trillion yuan in the next ten years, and the entire insurance industry market will also be in the future. Changes have occurred, and with the help of traffic advantages, the development prospects of the insurance industry will become more obvious. Although giants have high hopes for Internet insurance, the development of Internet insurance currently faces many challenges.
First, it is an industry phenomenon for Internet insurance companies to expand their business scale but continue to lose money.
The inflow of Internet blood will indeed bring countless possibilities to a traditional insurance company. However, some people in the industry said that the influx of Internet giants into traditional insurance companies will definitely increase the volume of premiums of an insurance company. However, high channel costs and improvement of profit models are still problems they must face. Although many Internet insurance companies have increased their premiums, at the same time, as premium costs increase, a large number of companies are facing income imbalances. For example, Zhongan Insurance , which has been listed, is the first Internet insurance stock, but it also faces the problem of increasing losses year by year.
Second, the policy has strict supervision over Internet insurance, and the development of the Internet insurance industry will still be restricted in the short term.
The liberalization of Internet insurance sales channels has given Internet giants more opportunities to launch new types of insurance, but the policy does not regulate it. The intensity has not yet relaxed. At present, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission has issued a "Draft for Comments" on the Internet insurance business to all departments and bureaus of the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission, strengthening regulatory requirements for the qualifications and creditworthiness of third-party platforms. Although Internet insurance is convenient and fast, it still leads to misleading sales and ignores the essence and professionalism of insurance. At the same time, Internet insurance is also facing a decline in online auto insurance sales due to the reform of commercial auto premiums, a sharp contraction in Internet financial management business due to new regulations on short- and medium-duration products, and changes in Internet insurance regulatory policy orientation.
Thirdly, compared with the traditional insurance industry, Internet insurance’s offline after-sales service has not been recognized by users.
The advantages of traditional insurance companies cannot be ignored. They have also tried to promote insurance online. At the same time, Internet insurance’s offline after-sales service has not yet been recognized. There are many questions. Especially for auto insurance, health insurance, and property insurance, which involve large sums of insurance and long-term protection, users prefer traditional insurance. At the same time, although Internet insurance companies have strong front-end sales capabilities, their back-end service capabilities and experience are relatively insufficient, and their professionalism is low, resulting in users' distrust of its after-sales situation. Therefore, the Internet insurance industry still has a long way to go in terms of after-sales service.
With the emergence of Internet insurance companies, as a business model, it seems to be self-evident. However, the emergence of Internet insurance companies does not mean the maturity of the Internet insurance business model. How can the giants find a path with their own characteristics?
The input of Internet blood brings opportunities to insurance. It is particularly important for giants to find a unique insurance path.
As Internet insurance continues to heat up, the first half of the giants' competition for speed and funds has ended, and the second half of Internet insurance has entered. The focus of the second half of the competition is reflected in: the status of insurance technology is becoming increasingly prominent, the quality and processing capabilities of the data itself will become the core competitiveness, and Internet insurance companies will enter the stage of competing for technology, content and ecology. What should the giants do to improve their competitiveness?
First, Internet insurance companies must increase research on technology, make in-depth application of big data, artificial intelligence, blockchain and other technologies, and change the insurance value chain through technology. This will also help solve the problem of backward system architecture and information problems of insurance companies. problems such as low level of culturalization. Technology-empowered insurance has also reached a consensus in the insurance industry. For example, Ping An of China will invest at least 100 billion in technology in the next ten years to build "finance + technology" into a new engine for the development of Ping An of China.In the future, Internet insurance should further tap into the power of technology to better empower the insurance industry.
Second, build its own after-sales insurance protection system to gain the support and trust of more users. At present, it is difficult for each insurance company to compete with greater differentiation in insurance types. After all, insurance types are highly homogeneous, but insurance after-sales services can make a big difference. Since the Internet insurance industry has Internet genes, although it can save a large number of fixed operating costs of branches, its weakness is that the Internet lacks offline service entities, making it easily distrusted by consumers. In the future, companies should pay more attention to how to improve insurance after-sales services for users and how to integrate online and offline resources to better serve users.
Third, we need to challenge the product structure and use big data to analyze the insurance consumption characteristics of users, so as to develop insurance products that better serve users. At present, all Internet giants have huge user traffic. How to better develop more practical and feasible insurance types according to the habits of these users, so that users can have insurance options and truly satisfy users? The diverse needs still require enterprises to spend more time on research and formulation.
As BATJ’s penetration into the insurance industry continues to grow, this is bound to have more positive impacts on the Internet insurance industry. It must be admitted that the insurance thinking of the Internet model has greatly promoted the upgrading of the business model of the insurance industry. The future development prospects of the Internet insurance industry are indeed unlimited, but who can become an industry unicorn and sit on the Internet insurance industry? Market industries still rely on insurance products to speak for themselves.
