On January 19, NIO Insurance Brokerage Company was formally established, which is 100% owned by NIO Holdings Co., Ltd. with a registered capital of 50 million yuan, and its business scope includes insurance brokerage business, insurance agency business, insurance concurrently operating agency business, insurance valuation business, etc. Of course, the company is still in the registration stage, and some businesses need to be approved by the relevant departments before they can operate.
Weilai's move is less than a month from the launch of the new energy vehicle exclusive insurance on December 27, 2021, and the shot can be said to be quite rapid. In this regard, Weilai officially said that the initiative is to prepare for providing users with a better service experience for a long time. It is not so much a preparation as it is a long-term "plan" for the insurance business to enter the market.
First to understand the car insurance, according to the insurance business category in China is divided into life insurance, health insurance, pension insurance and property insurance 4 kinds of licenses, the first 3 types of licenses Most of the business scope is actually overlapping, can be considered the same kind, that is, personal insurance license, the other is the property insurance license, insurance brokers belong to a type of insurance intermediary (insurance companies need more than 200 million yuan of registered capital, insurance intermediary companies need 50 million yuan). Car insurance is a type of property insurance. An insurance license is a financial license issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission that allows the license holder to operate insurance business in a legal and compliant manner, that is, only an institution holding a financial license can operate insurance business legally and compliantly.
In fact, as early as 2012, the CIRC issued the Notice on Matters Related to Supporting the Professional Operation of Insurance Business of Automobile Enterprises, encouraging and supporting automobile enterprises to fund the establishment of insurance agencies and insurance brokerage companies, or to cooperate with existing insurance agents and insurance brokerage companies to carry out automobile insurance business as a whole. That is to say, at the policy level, car companies have long been encouraged to do their own insurance business.
In recent years, with the continuous improvement of the penetration rate of new energy vehicles, new energy vehicle insurance undoubtedly has huge market potential, according to insurance industry data forecasts, it is expected that by 2035, the annual premium of new energy vehicle insurance will increase to about 200 billion yuan.
Obviously, it's not just Weilai who understands this.
1. They are all earlier than Wei Lai
In fact, before Weilai, there were CAR companies such as GAC, SAIC, Geely, and Xiaopeng who laid out auto insurance business.
Zhongcheng Auto Insurance, founded by GAC Group and other enterprises, was established in 2011 with a registered capital of 2.26875 million yuan, is the first professional automobile insurance company listed on the New Third Board in China, and its business scope is mainly automobile insurance, covering auto insurance, enterprise property insurance, engineering insurance, liability insurance and other property and casualty insurance businesses; Shanghai Automotive Group Insurance Sales Co., Ltd. was established in 2015 with a registered capital of 200 million yuan, which is a national insurance professional agency jointly established by SAIC Motor Group, SAIC-GM and SAIC Volkswagen. Focus on creating exclusive brand insurance for key models and innovative insurance products in related fields, give full play to the synergistic advantages of SAIC's financial sector, and provide auto insurance + car owner services.
In 2018, eBaoTech Insurance, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Geely Holdings, was approved to operate related insurance agency business, mainly for the owners of Geely's six major brands to build a car owner service system based on the "Car Friend Insurance" car networking platform, providing policy inquiry, reporting, product purchase and other services. In addition, geely held 133 million shares of United Property & Casualty insurance last year to deepen the auto insurance business (United P&C Insurance was established in 2015, accounting for more than 90% of the auto insurance business), holding 33.33% of the shares, and obtained a property insurance license.
Among the new forces of car manufacturing, Xiaopeng Automobile took the lead in establishing Guangzhou Xiaopeng Automobile Insurance Agency Co., Ltd. in 2018 and was allowed to carry out automobile insurance agency business.
It is worth noting that Tesla acquired Markel Corp in 2019 and obtained an insurance brokerage license; in 2020, it established an insurance brokerage company in Shanghai, which is 100% controlled by Tesla Motors Hong Kong Co., Ltd.; and in October last year, Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced that it would launch an exclusive car insurance service for drivers' real-time driving behavior, known as UBI (that is, user behavior-based insurance), in order to serve car owners. Data collection and other aspects form an advantage.
Guo Zhenhua, director of the Insurance Department of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, once said, "For automobile companies, with an insurance intermediary license or a property insurance company license, on the one hand, the two sides can consider how to operate through the automobile sales network to make the automobile insurance business bigger and stronger; on the other hand, for the future development direction of the automobile field, the two sides can explore and innovate new auto insurance fields." ”
Not only car companies have entered the auto insurance business, but also the new energy Ningde era with a market value of more than one trillion yuan is also laid out in this field. In July last year, Sino French Life Insurance officially changed its name to Xiaokang Life Insurance Co., Ltd., with a registered capital increased from 200 million yuan to 3 billion yuan, of which CATL held 30% of the shares, becoming the second largest shareholder. CATL has said that investment insurance companies are long-term funds of insurance funds to match the battery banking and energy storage operations that the company intends to promote, which is one of the ways for the company to build a foundation for business model innovation. Subsequently, in October, CATL reached a cooperation with Chinese Insurance Property & Casualty Insurance to focus on the aftermarket field of new energy vehicles, promote the sales of new energy vehicles, power batteries and related insurance products, and improve the service experience of new energy vehicle users.
2. Is the car insurance business "losing money and making money"?
Although car companies have entered the car insurance business in different forms, the profitability of these insurance companies does not seem to be optimistic.
As mentioned earlier, Zhongcheng Insurance, which was funded by GAC, had a revenue of only 20.48 million yuan and a loss of 40.13 million yuan in the year of its establishment; by 2017, the revenue reached 1.2 billion yuan, with a loss of 42.96 million yuan; in the first half of 2018, it was still in a state of loss, but the loss margin narrowed, and the net profit attributable to the shareholders of the listed company was a loss of 12.0651 million yuan. After losing 6 and a half years, Zhongcheng Insurance achieved profitability.
Since its inception, United Property & Casualty Insurance has not come out of the loss cycle, with a total loss of more than 200 million yuan from 2015 to 2019, and in 2020, there was a net loss of 50.81 million yuan again.
The situation of Xiaopeng is different, because the car insurance business of Xiaopeng cooperative institutions is not used, and the services that affect the OTA upgrade can only be claimed and exclusive renewal are complained by car owners.
It is understood that the Property Insurance Supervision Department of the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Notice on Matters Related to the Filing of Exclusive Products for New Energy Vehicles" to all banking and insurance regulatory bureaus and property insurance companies last year, requiring that the additional expense rate of exclusive products for commercial insurance of new energy vehicles should not be higher than 15%. That is to say, the cost space that insurance companies can use when underwriting new energy vehicles has become smaller, and cost compression has become the law of survival of insurance companies, followed by a reduction in the commission of auto insurance salesmen.
According to the sales staff of an insurance company, a policy with a premium of more than 2400 yuan, after the discount, the owner only needs to pay more than 1500 yuan, and the salesman extracts commissions of only a few tens of yuan.
Based on the above reasons, after the launch of the new energy exclusive car insurance launched on December 27 last year, consumers found that the premium of new energy vehicles has risen.
At present, commercial motor insurance premiums are mainly composed of two parts: commercial motor insurance premiums = benchmark premiums× rate adjustment coefficients. In terms of benchmark premiums, compared with traditional car insurance, overall, the benchmark premiums of new energy exclusive car insurance fell by 0.1%, the benchmark premiums of automobile damage insurance fell by 1.2%, and the combined premiums of the two decreased by about 0.8%.
Specifically, the benchmark premium for new energy vehicles with a vehicle price of less than 250,000 yuan does not increase in price; while the benchmark premium of the new car-making forces led by Tesla is more common, mainly because the maintenance costs, core components and parts prices are higher, and the compensation cost of such vehicles is higher.
This caused the insurance companies to not make money in the original car insurance business, and after the launch of the new energy vehicle exclusive insurance, due to the clarification of the insurance scope of the three-electric system, the number of insurance types increased, causing the insurance price to rise, and the owner felt that it was not cost-effective.
Cui Dongshu, secretary general of the Association, said in a document, "The introduction of new energy vehicle insurance is a very good thing, but the cost increase is high, and the fuel money saved by the use of new energy vehicles may have to be used to pay insurance, resulting in new energy vehicles that seem to be not cost-effective, forming a phenomenon of 'affordable to use', which is not conducive to the promotion of new energy vehicles." Therefore, car companies should establish their own insurance varieties, the industry should have more accurate insurance calculations, and the state should also support reasonable subsidies for insurance costs. ”
3. Why does WEILAI still do it?
In the view of analysts in the insurance industry, the adjustment of new energy exclusive car insurance premiums is not expected to have a negative impact on the sales of new energy vehicles, mainly because the maintenance costs and driving energy consumption costs of new energy vehicles have certain advantages over traditional cars, and the adjustment of premiums will not affect the comprehensive price advantage of new energy vehicles; secondly, the new energy exclusive car insurance achieves differentiated premiums, controls the insurance costs of price-sensitive car owners, and the premium adjustment will not affect the purchase choices of this part of consumers.
In addition, new energy exclusive car insurance solves the contradiction between insurance companies and new energy car owners in the definition of insurance liability to a certain extent, and can provide more comprehensive and high-quality protection services for car owners, and the improvement of new energy vehicle ownership rate will bring more insurance policies and form a virtuous circle.
If this is the case, then the new energy vehicle companies into the car insurance business, is bound to reduce the cost of car owners at the comprehensive level, under the premise of the same insurance project, which premium is cheaper, or in the case of the same premium, get more services, will attract users.
After the launch of the new energy exclusive car insurance, NIO plans to launch the service worry-free 2022 version in March this year: 1. The pricing of the new purchase service worry-free package remains unchanged, and it also includes the corresponding protection content of the three additional insurances (external grid fault loss insurance, self-use charging pile loss insurance and self-use charging pile liability insurance) added in the new terms 2. Users who are still in the service period of the 2021 version of the service do not need to purchase three additional insurances under the new terms, and the current service worry-free will include the corresponding protection content; 3. The pricing of the insurance worry-free is still the insurance fee + 1680 yuan Weilai exclusive service, which retains the most core services such as paint repair, basic maintenance, car delivery, door-to-door tire repair, transportation service and accident safety, etc. The overall premium changes are related to the user's region, illegal records, past insurance situations and other factors 4. Users who are still in the service period of the 2021 version of Insurance Worry-free, the rights and experience of accident claims are no different from the main insurance of the new terms; 5. The owner can choose the service worry-free or insurance worry-free product according to his own car use situation.
Selling insurance for car sales does not necessarily make money, but it can trap users. The auto insurance business can allow user-oriented enterprises such as WEILAI to directly connect with C-end users, extend the car service cycle of WEILAI car owners, and enhance the business growth space, thereby establishing an ecology around new energy vehicles.
Written in the end: auto insurance is the first service product that consumers come into contact with when buying a car, if the car company directly faces the end consumer with the car insurance direct sales model, then the vehicle delivery becomes the beginning of the car company in providing consumer car services, and the follow-up car insurance as the starting point of the service can develop more aftermarket, owner rights and interests and other new service models. In this way, it can not only improve consumer service satisfaction, but also bring more revenue to car companies, and at the same time have the blessing of encouragement policies, why not be happy?