"It's the best of times, it's the worst of times;
This is the age of wisdom, this is the age of stupidity;
This is the period of faith, this is the period of doubt;
This is the season of light, this is the season of darkness. ”
These are the words of Dickens's Tale of Two Cities.
The 2021 year that has just passed has made people sigh and sigh, and it has made people feel excited.
What makes many people feel deeply is that having experienced such turbulent times should give us more courage to face the future of the ever-changing life insurance market.
Life insurance development faces many challenges
○ The tested Chinese life insurance industry, in January 2021, taking advantage of the new policy for serious illness and the suspension of the sale of old serious illness insurance, played a wave of different "opening reds" in full swing, and the business hit a new high;
○ Since February, many companies have played the "merit-based claim", that is, once the customer suffers from a serious illness, it will be claimed according to the looser definition of the old version of the definition of serious illness and the looser definition of the new version of the definition of serious illness, and there has also been a wave of business warm current.
From a certain point of view, the terms of the serious illness insurance under the old definition do have a more relaxed and more favorable place for customers, but such a way of playing (whether it is the suspension of the old version of the serious illness insurance, or the merit-based claim) will seriously overdraft the purchasing power of customers and enthusiasm for serious illness insurance. After the first quarter of 2021, whether it is the main company or the Internet insurance company, the sales of serious illness insurance have suffered a serious decline.
In this regard, the author believes that:
Marketing requires timing, topics, scenarios, and even hype, after all, people are often emotional when making purchase decisions, such as "double 11" and "double 12".
The super marketing in January 2021 allowed many insurance companies and many business teams to earn a very considerable wave of business, but as mentioned earlier, it was also a serious overdraft for customers.
The gradual popularization of Huimin Insurance and the upgrading that has begun have had a great impact on many low-end markets, especially the life insurance market in counties and townships, especially for many medical insurance and low-sum insured serious illness insurance business. Internet insurance, which has been developed for more than 6 years, also has a far-reaching impact on young people, especially in many central cities, first- and second-tier cities.
Huimin Insurance is a good supplement to medical insurance, but the protection is not comprehensive, not as good as professional commercial million medical insurance; and Internet insurance, in order to do a variety of gimmicks for marketing, publicize the so-called ultra-high cost performance, just sell well and ignore after-sales service, but also spread a lot of incorrect concepts, which for major insurance companies to carry out business, especially the head insurance companies that do not mainly promote Internet business also put forward great challenges.
Another point we need to see is that the overall new insurance business has declined, not only serious illness insurance, once famous annuity insurance + universal account products, and in the past two years (especially after the predetermined interest rate of life insurance was reduced to 3.5%), the increase in total life insurance has become popular, although major companies have tried to open a lot of value-added services (medical green pass, pension community, insurance fund trust, overseas high-end medical, etc.), but it is still difficult to completely make up for the lack of performance of serious illness insurance.
Why?
The downturn in the overall economic development has a serious impact on the development of the life insurance industry. According to the data of the website of the National Bureau of Statistics, from the perspective of GDP, the first quarter increased by 18.3% year-on-year, the second quarter increased by 7.9%, the third quarter increased by 4.9%, the fourth quarter increased by 4.0%, the whole year increased by 8.1%, and 2022 is still difficult to predict.
For this issue, there have been a lot of discussions, there are many different views, recently heard the "Actuarial Vision" Alex teacher sharing, his part of the view I still agree with - "although the economic downturn will make investors prefer more stable investment, but more people's attitude to 'expenditure' will become conservative, so it will reduce investment in various non-rigid aspects, including insurance."
Although insurance companies have a lot of wonderful and even tear-jerking words when training and marketing, we must soberly and objectively realize that insurance is a financial tool that can play a role in passing on financial risks, but it cannot really prevent the occurrence of risks after all, so it is not the "just need" of people's first or even second category.
At the same time, when marketing life insurance products, a lot of professional technology and human communication are required, and now the vast majority of business personnel of insurance companies do not have, which will continue to be elaborated later.
A fierce debate on the development of business teams
The business of insurance companies is not based on actuaries and market analysts, but on the business teams at all levels and lines. In the past market, because of the "sea of people tactics", many companies have achieved good results, but is the original method still applicable to the present? Some people shout "transformation", but their hearts are not firm or bottomless.
For China's insurance intermediary market, the HSBC Risk Management and Insurance Research Center of Peking University has released the "White Paper on the Ecology of China's Insurance Intermediary Market" for four consecutive years since 2018, and in the 2021 report, in addition to the analysis of the age, education, performance and income of traditional intermediary market practitioners, a part of the content has been added - the IDA elite development analysis model (the International Dragon Award IDA is an honorary award for Chinese insurance practitioners in the world), of which there are several data that the author is very interested in:
Achieve IDA's personal key qualities
Expertise and ability to rank first, followed by professional image, followed by action execution and friendly affinity.
This also reaffirms the important role of professionalism, action and personal brand in the elite development of insurance marketers.
Important matters that consume a high percentage of time on average each week
The three most important items with a high proportion of average weekly time consumption are customer service, business development, and self-improvement and learning. In terms of professionalism, more than half of IDA elites spend more than 90 hours of training per year on average.
The most important aspect of the pursuit of IDA (Life Insurance Elite).
Most IDA elites believe that professional training, a clear description of the future of the industry, and a belief in the industry are the most important aspects of the pursuit of IDA. This also shows that the company needs to do a good job as a provider of external support and support, to actively and effectively help the elite development of insurance marketers, to continuously provide assistance in professional training, product support and other aspects, to match the resources required for the personal promotion of high-performing insurance marketers, and to strengthen their belief and persistence in future development.
It is not difficult to see from the above data that "professional ability" is now in an increasingly core position.
In the past, in some traditional development concepts, life insurance companies pay more attention to new people, believing that they are the freshest source of business, but also the most aggressive and aggressive group, so they constantly recruit new people, which is the so-called sea of people tactics, and many life insurance companies have maintained the development model for many years, relying on natural selection, and finally leaving a group of old business teams in the big wave.
But now, the industry is more and more aware that excellent insurance marketers are indispensable high-quality human capital for insurance companies; and realizing the preservation and appreciation of human capital is the key to enhancing the competitiveness of insurance companies! This is also a core idea in the 2021 White Paper on the Ecology of China's Insurance Intermediary Market.
In 2021, for the development of the entire industry, in addition to the implementation of the new regulations on serious illness insurance mentioned earlier, what can really cause an uproar is the two documents released in the fourth quarter:
○ "Notice on Further Regulating the Matters Related to the Internet Life Insurance Business of Insurance Institutions", referred to as the "New Rules on Internet Life Insurance", which has a huge impact on the Internet marketing channels and bancassurance channels of many small and medium-sized companies, and this article does not focus on the Internet and the economic channel (a choice after the loss of the Internet and bancassurance channels), and this part is not described in detail.
○ The Measures for the Administration of Life Insurance Sales (Draft for Solicitation of Comments), which reveals major signals of stricter industry supervision, such as the grading system of sales personnel, which is linked to the level of commissions and sellable products; the assessment of insurance needs and risk tolerance (for customers); the self-insured and mutual insurance parts must not be allowed to participate in any form of performance appraisal and business competition; and the proportion of the first commission and the minimum number of commissions are restricted.
Many self-media such as industry development bottlenecks, surrender black production, and vibrato use the "guide to buy insurance to avoid pits" as a gimmick, and there are industry employees who expose themselves to the black curtain, and all kinds of bad deeds make insurance companies bitter. Of course, there are many malicious slanders from black-hearted merchants or sellers, but insurance companies should ask themselves, flies do not sting seamless eggs!
Therefore, whether to continue the old way, or to take the development path of professional, honest and compliant operation, the answer is obvious!
New Year's "core" thinking
Chip, is a general term for semiconductor component products, the state advocates that capital flow to the real economy, and semiconductors are the most important links in the real economy with the highest gold content. The chip problem has been used by the U.S. government to jam the throat of Chinese high-tech companies.
What is the "chip" of the development of the life insurance industry? This should be a matter of opinion, and we will try to explore it in several ways:
Macro breadth
There are two popular words in 2021, one is that at the tenth meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Committee in August, the focus was on "solidly promoting common prosperity"; the other is the Central Economic Work Conference held in December, which proposed that the New Year's economic work should be "steady and steady".
First of all, talking about common prosperity, the meeting mentioned expanding the proportion of middle-income groups, increasing the income of low-income groups, rationally adjusting high incomes, banning illegal income, and forming an olive-shaped distribution structure with large middle and small ends. What is said here is the problem of wealth distribution, of which primary distribution refers to the distribution of factors and stimulates market vitality, which is what the state calls "making the cake bigger"; secondary distribution refers to taxation, social security, government transfer payments, etc., that is, the so-called "good cake"; three distributions refer to public welfare, charity, donation, since 2021, two companies in BAT have made hundreds of billions of huge donations, the reasons behind it are difficult to elaborate, but at least one point is in line with the national trend. Some people in the insurance industry are hyping up the "active promotion of the pilot real estate tax" and "the inheritance tax that has not yet been seen", and I have my own opinion on this.
First of all, real estate tax is a local tax that is used to supplement local fiscal revenue. This should be the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress to pass legislation, and then formulate the basic framework (it seems that it should be relatively gentle at present), and then give local governments considerable space to formulate specific rules and standards on their own, while the situation in first-tier, second-tier cities, third- and fourth-tier cities, townships and towns is certainly not the same, and there will be no general package of rules, so it still takes some time. The national real estate tax pilot was launched under the background of shouting "housing is not speculation" for many years, and the fundamental purpose is to curb the sharp rise in house prices (but also do not want house prices to fall sharply), reduce the investment attributes of real estate, and thus return to the most fundamental residential attributes. The trend of converting physical assets into financial assets has begun, but as a practitioner, there is no need to catch the wind and sell anxiety.
Second, with regard to the inheritance tax, in the early years, the so-called "draft inheritance tax" had been dispelled many times by the State Administration of Taxation, but now the mainland does not have the conditions for levying it. In the past two years, the state's focus on entertainment stars and Internet celebrity anchors has evaded taxes, but it is the real focus, expressing the state's firm determination to resolutely crack down on all kinds of tax-related illegal crimes and increase tax supervision for high-income groups. Cracking down on tax evasion by high-income people is what needs to be done most in the context of the current national "common prosperity". From another point of view, China really came to the day of the introduction of inheritance tax, which life insurance products can be exempted from inheritance tax will have strict legal provisions, and now it seems that the current popular universal life insurance and incremental whole life insurance are more controversial, because they have a strong investment function, and leveraged life insurance may meet the conditions. Referring to the IRC 7702 Act of the United States, the definition of life insurance contracts set by the federal government for tax purposes is mainly used to distinguish between real life insurance contracts and investment instruments to ensure that only real life insurance contracts can enjoy tax benefits.
And "common prosperity" is by no means simple egalitarianism or robbing the rich to help the poor, but to crack down on illegal wealth accumulation or unreasonable sudden wealth, so as to give everyone more opportunities to develop and get rich.
Next, let's talk about "steady words and steady progress", we must see that the mainland's economic development is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock, and weak expectations. The most important policies, in addition to the macro-control of the real estate market, another very important is the monetary policy, the overall orientation is still moderately loose, that is to say, in the first half of 2022 is likely to have another RRR cut or interest rate cut, and the long-term low growth, low interest rate environment is bound to be the trend of the times. When the economic environment is good, there are many opportunities to make money, investment in fixed income (debt) or equity financial products, there are many profit opportunities; when the environment is not good, in order to stimulate the economic monetary policy will be more relaxed (in the absence of high inflation), interest rates will continue to decline, business operations are weak, whether it is interest rate bonds or corporate credit bonds as the underlying assets of wealth management products, the income will be reduced, risks will increase, and the "new asset management regulations" transition period has ended at the end of 2021, wealth management products enter In the stage of "breaking rigid payment", investors need to bear the consequences themselves, and they also need to be more rational and improve professionalism. In this context, some life insurance products (such as incremental whole life insurance) can be used as a reserve for investors to maintain and increase value steadily in the medium and long term after sacrificing short-term liquidity (during the payment period).
In summary, from a macro point of view, the public is very much in need of commercial insurance.
Professional depth
The discussion of "professionalism" has a long history in the industry, such as NBS demand-oriented sales, asset allocation, legal commerce, tax planning, insurance trusts, directors mutual insurance, inheritance planning (and even probate management), such dazzling and well-packaged concepts emerge in an endless stream, of course, many of which are adapted to the needs of the development of the times.
But it comes down to a question, what is a "demand"? What we can make clear is that it is not what the customer says that they "want", those are more preferences than needs, and the real needs are objective laws and need professional analysis. And insurance companies in many cases, some angles of demand analysis, basically are designed in advance of the script, nothing more than "life and old illness and death" plus "marriage, inheritance risk", as well as "asset preservation, tax planning" and other aspects, the use of various cases, videos, animations, voice and emotion elaboration, to infect, urge customers to experience the necessity of insurance, coupled with the planning of the marketing atmosphere and the incentive of various sales gifts (although not compliant, but are tacit rules in the industry), These are the marketing methods that insurance companies have always used.
There will be a series of problems, first of all, customers at different levels and different backgrounds, the needs are definitely different. For the most obvious risk of health diseases, some people consider the compensation of medical expenses, some people further consider the loss of income and rehabilitation costs after illness, some people need more convenient expert surgery and ward appointment channels on the basis of the front, and some people need the world's top medical resources and special personnel to accompany the whole process, which will require different types and grades of products and services to match customer needs. In addition to health risks, there are also personal risks, as well as wealth planning, including savings appreciation, pension planning and future inheritance needs, etc., which are based on customer needs, matching product solutions are very different, requiring a high degree of professionalism.
So is specialization elitist? Is it necessary to be young, highly educated, and highly qualified talents to do insurance? For these issues, there have been many discussions in the industry, and the author agrees with the view that the "professional" is determined according to the positioning of the target market:
The protection needs of the low-end market are basically solved by medical insurance (including rural cooperative medical care), Huimin Insurance and some simple products of Internet insurance.
The mid-tier market, the new middle class, needs a richer insurance offering, they like to "shop around", they will make their own choices, and of course, they will encounter unclear places.
In the high-end market, there are richer needs, in addition to basic protection, more demand for family health, wealth management and some top resources, of course, there will be more in-depth and more professional service demands.
Therefore, to serve different target markets, it is necessary to communicate with business personnel with different qualities, different expressions and different cultural accomplishments. The author believes that insurance business personnel should need to be similar in age or slightly younger than the customer group in the target market, and the overall cultural level is the same or slightly higher, which is the most appropriate, so that in front of the customer, it can show enough professionalism and cultivation, and can find the appropriate communication expression to contact.
In summary, "professional" is not a full-fledged and rigid endorsement, but a targeted, heart-touching communication, which is also a very important part of the NBS - KYC (Know Your Customer) to understand your customers - the meaning of the statement.
Human temperature
Just to continue with the topic of kyc in the previous paragraph, insurance is to deal with people, people are very complex emotional animals, no matter what kind of personality people, are a combination of sensibility and rationality. Professional demand analysis, to a certain extent, can solve the customer's rational understanding and cognition of insurance, but even in the case of sufficient funds, it is not necessarily enough to prompt the customer to immediately make a decision to buy.
This involves more human thinking, such as whether the customer really has an urgent empathy for the insurance needs we have explained (because in marketing, many cases we can't take the customer himself as an example), and how much trust the customer has in front of the business person and the insurance company behind it. The latter takes time, requires a more comprehensive understanding, "the road is far away, the day is long", and most customers decide whether to trust the company and the solution through the business personnel. What about the former? Is it not concentrated once or twice to instill the concept, and the customer can immediately improve the cognition and "think it through"? After all, what we are talking about is still far away from them, and sometimes there are risk accidents with people close to and known around customers, which is definitely much more impactful than the media reports or insurance company cases, but for business personnel, such an opportunity is unattainable. Therefore, we can't expect "customers to want to buy insurance as soon as they see it", and what we can pursue is "customers come to us as soon as they have the idea of buying insurance", which requires long-term emotional maintenance.
Many people have studied social psychology, but also have a lot of learning and discussion about such as "Enneagram", "personality colorology" and other aspects, the author believes that it is very reasonable, and the form and name are not important, what is important is to truly realize that the communication style that varies from person to person, only by respecting human nature, can we better play professional.
The final conclusion of business and the long-term maintenance of the relationship require the organic combination of "professional trust" and "human trust", or "professional depth and human temperature".
Regulatory attitude
Supervision has always profoundly affected the development of the industry, take some events in recent years:
The cancellation of the agent qualification examination in 2015 led to a surge in the number of agents in the industry, and the overall business also rose significantly, while also creating some problems.
In 2017, "Circular No. 134" "Notice on Regulating the Product Development and Design Behavior of Life Insurance Companies" made strict provisions on the product form of annuity insurance, "no refund within 5 years, and the annual return amount after 5 years cannot exceed 20% of the premiums paid, and cannot attach universal accounts", etc. People who have experienced that stage will have this impact deeply engraved in their hearts.
The implementation of the new regulations on serious illness in 2021, the Interim Measures for the Retrospective Management of Insurance Sales Behavior (commonly known as "Double Records"), the new regulations on Internet personal insurance and the Measures for the Administration of Life Insurance Sales (Draft for Solicitation of Comments) as elaborated above, as well as the most core and key life insurance predetermined interest rates (there is a voice in the industry, 3.5% are almost unable to bear), each of which is a stone stirring up thousands of waves.
Some people feel that the supervision is becoming more and more stringent, the development of the industry is becoming more and more difficult, and some people even say that "the temple is high but does not know the distance of the rivers and lakes.". This mood is understandable, but as a practitioner, we need to fully realize that the starting point of supervision is based on compliance and long-term consideration, so as to guide the healthy development of the industry, which is the so-called "insurance surname insurance, supervision surname supervision". The extensive business development model of the past has created many problems that regulators do not want to see and that are unacceptable to growing and rational customers.
And industry supervision is not entirely strict enough to disregard reality and not be close to human feelings. For example, on the last day of 2021, the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued a memorandum "Notice on Matters Related to the Rectification of Bank Agency Insurance Business", the core content is very critical: give the bank insurance business a rectification period, online sales or telemarketing follow the previous regulations, can not be restricted by "1 + 3" physical outlets, must be "double recording", but qualified institutions can remotely "double recording", on the basis of safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of consumers, to support the stable development of the industry. In this context, the word "stable" is the first word, and the bancassurance channel can be regrouped. In the Measures for the Retrospective Management of Insurance Sales Behavior (Draft for Comments), ordinary life insurance (including term life insurance, leveraged whole life insurance, and incremental whole life insurance) does not need to be "double recorded", which has to be said to leave a very good space for business. In the Administrative Measures for the Sales of Life Insurance (Draft for Solicitation of Comments), it also mentions the bancassurance exclusive cooperation network system and reopens the bancassurance stationing model, which is the so-called "single-generation outlet", which is also a big positive for the development of bancassurance.
The general trend of the world will be divided for a long time. The industry supervision is also stricter after the problem is found, and the industry will be moderately relaxed when it is cold, and the overall development is also for the industry to develop more healthily and steadily.
Author's perspective
2022 will be even tougher, but the ideals of the future are always indelible. Overall, the outlook for the life insurance industry is the same as that of the mainland economy – overall. Under the background of common prosperity, more and more people will truly understand the meaning of steady economic development, hard work and good thinking, and the understanding of wealth accumulation will be more rational, at this time, the demand for life insurance will truly usher in a round of explosive growth. At that time, the customer demand is greater, the requirements will be higher, only by mastering the depth of professionalism and the temperature of human nature, can we communicate with customers and serve at a deep level.
At this moment, lying flat or going with the flow will eventually become the past along with this era.
The real love lies in the gradual fading of the dividends of the development of the industry, and it can still adhere to the original intention and move forward firmly.
The real deep cultivation lies in not being blinded by the temporary difficulties in front of us, deeply studying and understanding the underlying logic of the development of the market and the industry, and using the vision of crossing this era to seek the true meaning of the development of life insurance marketing.
The right answer is not the only one, we work together to pursue, together to the future!