[Editor's Note] "Future" is based on time and the unknown. Take miracles as footnotes, and dare as a step.
As the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, in 2021 China will embark on a new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country and march towards the second centenary goal.
The "14th Five-Year Plan" plan and the outline of long-term goals put forward that we must adhere to the core position of innovation in the overall situation of modernization. It is necessary to strengthen the status of enterprise innovation as the main body and promote the agglomeration of various innovation elements to enterprises. It is foreseeable that the innovation drive in the next five years will be the main tone and power source of economic development.
In 2021, how will innovation drive development? At a time when new Internet technologies and various industries are rapidly integrating and changing, we focus on areas with deep influence such as manufacturing, life, energy, finance, space and oceans, and through mining the story of enterprise innovation, we look for the source of China's economic growth and give inspiration to the future.
Zhongxin Jingwei, September 26 (Wei Wei) On May 7 this year, 34-year-old Shen Peng led the water drop entrepreneurial team to complete the bell ringing ceremony on the New York Stock Exchange, and water drop also became the "first stock of China's insurance technology" on the New York Stock Exchange. From resigning to create Waterdrop to standing on the IPO bell platform, Shen Peng only took 5 years.
Before starting his business, Shen Peng was well known as the No. 10 employee of Meituan and the youngest executive of Meituan. When his career was going well, he made a decision that surprised everyone, leaving Meituan and founding Beijing Indulgence Forward Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "WaterDrop Company").
Using technology to promote inclusive insurance has always been his heart's thoughts. Different from traditional insurance intermediary companies, Waterdrop has taken Internet technology empowerment insurance as the most important strategy for the company's development from the beginning, and "using Internet technology to help the broad masses of people have insurance and medical treatment, and protecting hundreds of millions of families" has also become the vision of Waterdrop since its inception.
Recently, the relevant person in charge of the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission said that it is formulating guidelines for the digital transformation of China's banking and insurance industry, promoting insurance institutions to change their business philosophy, driving changes in financial production methods and governance methods with digital transformation, and supporting the high-quality development of the insurance industry. How can the future digitalization of the insurance industry be promoted? Zhongxin Jingwei interviewed Shen Peng, founder and CEO of Waterdrop Company.
Shen Peng, founder and CEO of Waterdrop Company Source: Provided by the interviewee
Provide a more cost-effective way to guarantee
Shen Peng has a deep relationship with the insurance industry. He was born in 1987 in the family home of Chinese Minmin Insurance Company. His father joined Chinese Insurance Company in 1985 and continued to work in the insurance industry until retirement. Since childhood, Shen Peng has witnessed his father selling insurance. In his opinion, insurance is a business with temperature, but it is difficult to do well.
In 2015, he saw the upward trend of China's insurance industry and germinated the idea of starting a business. At that time, the Internet insurance business model was just emerging, and Shen Peng, who had accumulated six years of Internet experience in Meituan, was also eager to try, and he wanted to use his Internet experience to help insurance companies better operate insurance business, so in the first half of 2016, he officially left Meituan and embarked on the road of entrepreneurship.
Shen Peng said that from the first day of its establishment, Waterdrop Company has clearly defined its mission - "using Internet technology to help the broad masses of people have a safe and medical treatment, and protect hundreds of millions of families", of which an important part of Internet technology is digitalization.
In the business layout of Waterdrop Company, Waterdrop Insurance is undoubtedly the most core piece of business. In May 2017, Waterdrop Insurance was officially launched, and its operating entity is Waterdrop Insurance Brokerage Company. In Shen Peng's view, the unique feature of water drop insurance lies in the scene and users, water drop company through water drop chip, water drop health to build a large number of user groups, and these involved in serious illness relief, pay attention to health users for insurance protection awareness and demand is relatively strong, which for the water drop insurance business laid an efficient scene and a solid user foundation.
Shen Peng said that in the business matrix of Waterdrop Company, the positioning of Waterdrop Insurance is an insurance technology platform, "We hope that Waterdrop Insurance can unite many insurance institutions and medical institutions to provide more cost-effective protection and medical methods for the broad masses of people." ”
The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation of the insurance industry
The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on the global insurance industry, while the pandemic has also accelerated the digital transformation and upgrading of the insurance industry.
Shen Peng believes that digitalization, networking and intelligence are the general trends in the development of all walks of life, including the insurance industry. Similar to the development of most industries, insurance digitalization will also face some challenges in the process of development. "For example, the impact on the offline system of traditional insurance companies will cause some insurance companies to encounter some resistance in changing the existing model and promoting digitalization."
He observed that the insurance industry as a whole was in a stage of sustained growth, and most insurance companies were in good operating condition, and the willingness of insurance companies to take the initiative to change at this time was relatively less strong. However, after the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic, the offline model of the insurance industry has encountered very big challenges, while the Internet insurance business has maintained rapid development, even faster than the growth rate of previous years, and the first-year premium generated by Waterdrop Insurance last year exceeded 14.4 billion yuan, more than double that of 2019. In the first half of this year, the first-year premium generated by Waterdrop Insurance was close to 10 billion yuan, which still maintained rapid growth.
"After the outbreak of the epidemic, the people pay more attention to their own health and related protection, the demand for purchasing commercial insurance has greatly increased, the offline model cannot provide good services for these consumers due to the epidemic, and consumers themselves are not inclined to communicate face-to-face, but buy insurance on mobile phones." Shen Peng said that after years of development, Internet insurance can fully meet the needs of consumers in terms of product cost performance, convenience of purchase, information security, reliability of claims settlement, etc., so the Internet insurance business has achieved rapid growth since 2020.
However, he also mentioned that at present, the domestic insurance industry is still dominated by offline models, so the performance of insurance companies during the epidemic has been affected, and it is necessary to pay attention to online business, increase investment in information construction, and accelerate the process of business digitization.
Upgrade from networking to intelligence
At present, technology has become the core force to promote the transformation of the insurance industry, and various insurance companies have increased their talent and financial support for digital investment. As an Internet insurtech company, Waterdrop is no exception. The company's just released second quarterly report shows that the company's R & D investment in a single quarter has exceeded 100 million, accounting for more than 10% of the operating income in the second quarter, and the investment is leading in the domestic insurance industry.
In addition, Shen Peng also attaches great importance to talent training. "The most critical thing in the digitalization of insurance is talent. To do a good job in insurance digitalization, it is necessary to understand both insurance and technology, and such talents, especially high-level talents, are very scarce in the industry. ”
According to reports, the team size of The R&D system of Waterdrop has exceeded 600 people, both from other large Internet companies and other relatively traditional insurance companies. Shen Peng said that after several years of development, Waterdrop Insurance has gradually developed an excellent team, the business team can accurately analyze and find places worth optimizing and improving the insurance industry chain, and the R&D team can accurately understand the needs of the business team, give reasonable and effective solutions, and create value for users and partners.
In Shen Peng's view, the digitalization of the insurance industry is a means rather than an end, and the core goal of digital transformation is to improve efficiency, so it is a long-term process.
"To achieve the goal of improving efficiency, the process of digital transformation can be roughly divided into informatization, networking, and intelligence, and the efficiency that can be improved at each stage is geometrically increasing." Shen Peng said that after several years of investment in big data, artificial intelligence and other technologies, Waterdrop has gradually upgraded from networking to intelligence and began to receive results.
Using the example of smart marketing, He said that Waterdrop intelligently matches the right target customer for each salesperson through algorithmic analysis. In the customer base of intelligent matching, the sales of single customers increased by 20%-45%; in advertising, big data modeling was carried out through artificial intelligence algorithms to estimate the probability of user clicks, conversions, renewals, and complaints during the delivery process, so as to guide RTA (real-time interface) to make accurate bids, obtain more high-quality traffic, and improve ROI (return on investment).
At the heart of data security is compliance
The rapid development of mobile Internet has greatly changed the consumption behavior and way customers spend, and has also provided a large amount of data for the insurance industry. The use of big data technology has become an indispensable part of the transformation of insurance companies' business models and the innovation of marketing methods.
In Shen Peng's view, data is a new type of resource, how to make good use of data resources, the company's technology research and development, business analysis, business operations, network security and other aspects of the ability is a comprehensive test.
He analyzed that insurance is a relatively complex industry, and many of the products on the supply side are non-standard products, from reaching users to user insurance, claims and follow-up health management, which is a very long link. At the same time, insurance is strongly related to medical, pharmaceutical, health and other industries, and only insurance-related data is far from enough, and what can be done is relatively limited.
Shen Peng believes that only by accumulating enough data on the road of the insurance industry chain, plus the data of other related businesses for cross-verification, the insights and conclusions obtained through data analysis are likely to produce greater value.
In recent years, people have gradually recognized the value of data, but at the same time, the gap and contradiction between data value and data security have intensified.
For this topic, Shen Peng has repeatedly emphasized that the core of data security is compliance awareness. "Insurance is a relatively special industry, and various regulatory departments have very clear requirements for the data security and privacy security of insurance users, so in the process of operation, insurance institutions must have compliance awareness and carry out work according to the guidance and requirements of the regulatory authorities."
Shen Peng pointed out that Shuidi will take the initiative to improve the whole process of data security management system, combine the content of the management system to carry out data security training for the company's employees, and continue to take corresponding management measures and technical measures to carry out data security protection. The company's information system has passed the Ministry of Public Security information security level protection (level 3) certification, in line with the relevant security level requirements.
Powering digital transformation
Digitalization is a long-term, large-scale investment in systematic engineering. The relevant person in charge of the Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission previously said that although the insurance industry has increased investment in science and technology, there is still a gap between the ability of technology application, the level of digital operation and the requirements of its own transformation and development.
With the deepening of digital transformation, it is necessary for the industry to improve the overall ecological synergy capabilities. "The success of the insurance industry in the future is not only to rely on its own advantages, but more importantly, to find more partners and create new value." Shen Peng said.
Compared with traditional insurance brokerage institutions and other Internet insurance platforms, what are the advantages of Waterdrop Insurance? He pointed out that the business of water drop insurance covers the industrial chain of health insurance, while the other businesses of water drop company cover medical, pharmaceutical and other fields, which are very related to insurance, but have a strong professional threshold, so there are few insurance institutions in these areas at the same time, and Internet technology can often create new value in the cross-border integration of multiple industries.
"Waterdrop Insurance has been a digital platform and business model since its inception, and has been committed to uniting more traditional insurance companies to help them design products, sell products, serve customers in a more digital way, and promote the digitalization of the insurance industry." Shen Peng said that as of now, Shui Di Bao has built a number of intelligent business middle platforms, including smart insurance, intelligent marketing, intelligent customer service, intelligent underwriting and intelligent claims, etc., and has accumulated a large number of cases and experience in scene marketing, online customer acquisition, risk control, channel expansion, intelligent services and other aspects.
Shen Peng expects that with the continuous improvement of the online degree of insurance business, new requirements have been put forward for insurtech infrastructure, which is bound to lead to a new round of infrastructure upgrading and reconstruction. "Through these business middle offices, we hope to help partners in the insurance industry improve service capabilities, traffic conversion, and premium output, while reducing customer acquisition costs, operation and maintenance costs, and manpower investment."
Talking about the development trend of the insurance industry in the future, he believes that the insurance industry will present four major trends of online products, young users, marketing scenarios, and intelligent services.
"The two keywords of Waterdrop Protection are openness and assistance, and we want to export more digital capabilities to partners to help partners develop from informatization to networking and intelligence, so as to promote the digitalization of the industry." Shen Peng said. (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)
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