Nowadays, the insurance market has obviously entered a period of deep adjustment, when the economy is in a period of slow recovery and climbing, and encounters strong industry supervision, the development of the entire industry is also facing many uncertainties. Especially in the last year, the life insurance market experienced an unprecedented shock, first the scheduled interest rate of the product was lowered, and then the bancassurance channel, individual insurance channel, and intermediary channel "newspaper and bank integration", obviously, this "crisis" has also been transmitted to the insurance intermediary market.
In fact, with the reduction of the predetermined interest rate of life insurance products and the implementation of the integration of newspaper and bank in the intermediary industry, the benefits and commission levels of insurance companies' intermediary business products have both declined, which has directly affected the revenue sources of intermediary channels, and the impact on them is self-evident.
Under the pressure of "integration of newspapers and banks," what is the current situation of insurance intermediaries, and how do major insurance intermediaries respond to the continuous evolution of policies? These are the focus of market attention.
With these questions, we recently connected with Zhou Yiwei, the head of the MGA business of Baolian Technology, in the live broadcast, Mr. Zhou discussed with us the current development of insurance intermediaries under the "integration of newspapers and banks", and at the same time put forward very constructive opinions on how insurance intermediaries will be affected under the implementation of regulatory policies, and how to make effective strategic adjustments to face the challenges of this problem, and the main content of this article also comes from the live broadcast.
01
Under the pressure of "integration of newspapers and banks", what is the current situation of insurance intermediaries?
Overall, due to the impact of the "integration of newspapers and banks", the total premium volume of the market has declined, and the focus of products in the market has also been relatively large after the switch of the 3.0 predetermined interest rate. These two major events overlapped and together had some impact on the market.
From the perspective of premiums, since July 31 last year, the entire product market has undergone a very big differentiation, with strong market competitiveness or cost competitiveness of insurance companies, their products occupy a relatively large share of the market, but compared with the previous period, there are also some insurance companies market share has declined greatly.
The overall volume of standard insurance in the fourth quarter of last year was 3.2 billion yuan, down nearly half (45%) from 5.8 billion yuan in the third quarter, down nearly 72% from 11.3 billion yuan in the second quarter, and about 22% lower than 4.1 billion yuan in the fourth quarter of 2022; Before the sale of the "newspaper and bank integration" landing products was stopped, the market was rushing to collect premiums, and to a certain extent, it was also in the overdraft market.
In this context, what impact will the "integration of newspapers and banks" have on intermediary companies and salesmen?
First of all, the impact on intermediary companies and the intermediary industry can be divided into two stages.
The first is the "blowing" stage, that is, when the regulatory level responds to the market feedback that relevant actions will be implemented, at this time, insurance intermediaries should be prepared for corresponding adjustments and psychological construction, and will implement cost reduction actions such as salary cuts, layoffs, and downsizing workplaces in advance.
The second is the "landing" stage, on February 1 this year, the State Administration of Financial Supervision issued a document to inform the situation of life insurance products in 2023, and then, some companies have also received guidance from the regulatory window, which also means that their own products will be discontinued, and the products currently on sale need to be adjusted and reduced. Therefore, in a period of more chaotic change, some product sales are facing removal or fee adjustment, and some products have been reported, but the entire market focus is still focused on the products that have not been adjusted, with the implementation of a series of actions, the supply of products in the market has definitely become less and less.
On the other hand, in the case of getting closer and closer to the "integration of newspapers and banks", the attitude of insurance intermediaries is very differentiated, some will consider how to do life insurance next, what kind of strategy is needed, and more and more insurance intermediaries have a wait-and-see attitude, of course, there are also a small number of intermediaries have begun to "lie flat", at this stage, each intermediary has its own choice.
At the level of impact on salesmen, Mr. Zhou said that the "integration of newspapers and banks" has a huge impact on salesmen, agents and brokers in the insurance intermediary industry, mainly because the intermediary industry mainly relies on the fee difference, and with the implementation of the policy, the fee difference may be close to halving, and the corresponding agent commission will also be greatly reduced, which may slowly fall off for those salesmen in first- and second-tier cities with high living costs and unstable performance.
The remaining agents must have the characteristics of adhering to long-termism, a very high degree of professionalism, and a relatively stable income in the industry. However, with the adjustment of policies, whether there will be a large area of agents in the market will fall off, and it will take time to give an answer.
02
Under the many challenges, the operation of insurance intermediaries is clearly differentiated
Facts have also proved that a set of "combination punches" of national policies reflects the requirements of supervision for effectively resolving systemic risks in the industry and promoting the high-quality development of the industry. At the same time, this also sends a signal that behind the policy of "integration of newspapers and banks", it may mean that the entire domestic intermediary market will also face reshuffle and reconstruction.
In this context, how do insurance intermediaries cope with the impact of the "integration of newspapers and banks", and what preparations have been made in advance?
For some insurance intermediaries with a large business volume and a relatively stable platform, in order to adapt to the impact of the "integration of newspapers and banks" reform, it is more likely to adopt the response method of opening up sources and reducing expenditures In terms of how to effectively control costs, including some large intermediary companies have begun to lay off employees and reduce salaries, they will also take the initiative to reduce some system costs, control workplace rent expenses and so on.
On the contrary, those insurance intermediaries who do not have a stable business platform, or whose life insurance business has just started, do not have many effective ways to deal with this change, and can only start to wait and see, or change the track to the property line, or go to overseas markets to seek new growth poles.
It can be seen that the impact of the policy is still relatively far-reaching, and it will also increase a lot of pressure on the future development of insurance intermediaries.
First, this year's insurance intermediary market pattern will definitely change greatly, from the perspective of product supply, the previous head intermediary company has a great advantage in product and expense-driven premium growth, but after the implementation of the "integration of newspapers and banks", this pattern has been broken, and the original driving force to promote premium growth by piling up product fees will be greatly reduced, replaced by the company's brand, service driving force will become stronger.
Second, from the perspective of insurance intermediaries, some intermediaries with less mature models are still waiting and seeing, or giving up the life insurance business, and then the premiums will be concentrated in the intermediary companies with project advantages and lower costs. More importantly, in the current situation of the investment environment is not good, the "integration of newspapers and banks" is extremely rapid, and the market demand is invisibly overdrafted, and once the supply of products in the market stabilizes, the insurance volume will gradually stabilize.
Therefore, under the influence of the superposition of two factors, it is expected that the market will enter a period of stable product supply in April and May, and a recovery period in June, and the entire market is also expected to recover in the third quarter.
03
The market is ushering in a period of deep adjustment, is the intermediary track still worth looking forward to?
As we all know, there is a very big difference between the domestic and foreign insurance intermediary markets, and there are many opportunities in them, and under the continuous supervision of the domestic intermediary market, which insurance intermediaries will develop better? Will there be a top intermediary in China that is as powerful as foreign countries and highly recognized by the market?
First of all, since this policy adjustment is for the entire intermediary industry, large and small intermediaries will be affected. Large-scale intermediaries have had a lot of premium renewals in the past and have a strong foundation, so they can more calmly cope with the decrease in revenue after the "integration of newspapers and banks", but on the other hand, due to factors such as wide structure, many back-office offices, and high workplace costs, it will become a hindrance to profit growth. Therefore, it is imperative to reduce costs and increase efficiency, and many insurance intermediaries have indeed carried out in-depth reforms in this regard.
Of course, there are also some small and beautiful intermediaries, whose teams are very stable and the cost of customer acquisition and development path is very low, which means that the premium output is very stable, and the natural survival is relatively good.
Secondly, Mr. Zhou believes that the opportunity for top intermediaries in China is still very large. On the one hand, the current business volume of life insurance intermediaries in mainland China is still relatively small, although after nearly 10 years of continuous growth, it is indeed continuing to rise, but this volume is obviously very small for the key market of trillions of dollars in the mainland, and the proportion of foreign markets can basically reach more than 60%, or even higher. Therefore, the insurance intermediary business in mainland China is still in the initial stage of development, which also means that there is huge room for development.
On the other hand, the development time of the mainland insurance intermediary industry is relatively short, and the order of the entire industry is still being standardized and improved, especially the commercial order with Chinese characteristics, which continues to change under the trend of more re-regulation at the national regulatory level, and the current density and depth of domestic insurance are still far behind those of foreign markets, but to produce top foreign insurance intermediaries, it still needs the joint efforts of many parties, which is embodied in the following five aspects.
First, with the great changes in customer perception and cognition, it has become a thing of the past to rely on agents to visit customers to judge their needs, and the rapid development of the Internet has obviously brought the industry the opportunity to obtain more customers at a lower cost.
Second, the industry needs the support of supervision to strengthen the public's in-depth understanding of insurance, especially in the necessity of insurance configuration, and supervision needs to be guided and popularized from the top-level design.
Third, due to the short development time of domestic intermediary business, there are barriers to life insurance and property insurance, and the sales logic is also different, and the future trend will definitely be that the two businesses will be more closely integrated with each other, forming a joint force, and empowering cross-selling together, and the development space will be more and more large.
Fourth, the entire intermediary industry has been inseparable from the discussion of the topic of separation of production and marketing, but now the degree of practice of separation of production and marketing is still very low, and when the volume of insurance intermediaries in the future gradually becomes stronger, the quality of business becomes better, the right to speak will become stronger, and the content and scope of bargaining with insurance companies will also become larger, such as product customization rights, pricing rights, etc., as the separation of production and marketing continues to deepen, it will also bring a wave of new opportunities.
Fifth, agents not only need to solve the problem of customer insurance asset allocation, but also need to play more roles and functions, which also means that the professionalism and specialization of the entire intermediary industry need to be improved and sublimated again.
Finally, Mr. Zhou also gave some pertinent suggestions on the ways and methods of insurance intermediaries to better cope with the challenges brought about by the "integration of newspapers and banks" and thus enter a new stage of development.
First, in the current environment of "integration of newspapers and banks" with relatively intensive window guidance or product fee reduction and removal from the shelves, the most important thing for insurance intermediaries is to reduce costs and increase efficiency and make careful calculations under the premise of ensuring the only source of revenue.
Second, insurance intermediaries should consider their own life insurance positioning model clearly in combination with the advent of the current "integration of newspapers and banks", and should be deeply cultivated in which customer areas they are better at, and they also need to do deeper penetration and replication and extension in familiar fields, and at the same time, they need to cooperate with the transformation and upgrading under the "integration of newspapers and banks".
Third, insurance intermediaries should embrace the Internet, new media and some new technologies. Especially at a time when relying on crowd tactics can no longer bring huge premiums, insurance intermediaries need to grasp the new media traffic password and do more in-depth exploration and innovation. For example, on platforms such as Xiaohongshu, Baidu, Official Account, and Doukuai, insurance intermediaries can continue to invest in order to bring more revenue. For example, AI technology is used to calculate a more customer-recognized allocation scheme for insurance intermediaries to improve their professionalism and customer trust.
Fourth, looking at today's changes from the perspective of the next five years or even longer, whether it is the "integration of newspapers and banks", or the reduction of predetermined interest rates, or the limitation of the demonstration income of products such as dividend insurance, these are just a small episode in the torrent of historical development, and more importantly, the entire industry order is improving and developing in a healthy direction. In addition, through the industry reshuffle, it can also promote the reasonable flow and precipitation of industry talents.
Therefore, under the new challenges, insurance intermediaries should stick to the good field, open up from the field where the industry order has become better and the entire talent precipitation has been developed, and "stay in the road and wait for the time" before the industry change comes, and also "wait for the flowers to bloom" in the whole process of change.