Compared with life insurance, property insurance has never been a big hit, until Tencent, Alibaba, and Ping An jointly invested in a professional Internet insurance company—Zhongan Online. In November 2013, ZhongAn Online was born and became the first Internet insurance company in China. ZhongAn Online does not set up any branches in the country, and has implemented all business processes such as underwriting and claims online, opening up the Internet insurance business New door.
Subsequently, traditional insurance companies have deployed. In 2014, 33 insurance companies launched Internet property insurance business.
After 6 years of development, as of 2020, 73 insurance companies have launched Internet property insurance business.
Simply put, the Internet property insurance business has two major segments: Internet auto insurance and non-auto insurance business. Recently, the Insurance Association of China disclosed data on the Internet property insurance market in the first half of 2021. The Internet property insurance market realized a total of 47.2 billion yuan in premium income. Among them, the Internet non-auto insurance achieved a cumulative premium income of 36.1 billion yuan, accounting for 76%. As a result, the Internet auto insurance business accounted for less than 30%, and in 2014 and 2015, the premium income of the Internet auto insurance business accounted for more than 95%.
The rapid decline of Internet auto insurance and Internet non-auto insurance business perfectly interprets the changes in the Internet property insurance market in the past 7 years. In this change, who is the real winner?
The loneliness of Internet auto insurance
Insurance for your car is the first rigid consumption after buying a car. For a long time, auto insurance has been an insurance type that focuses on offline services. With the advantages of offline services accumulated over the years, major traditional insurance companies occupy half of the auto insurance market. The auto insurance business has always been the main source of premiums for the property insurance business of traditional insurance companies.
In 2014, with the help of Internet channels, the auto insurance business also ushered in a bright moment. In that year, the premium income of the Internet auto insurance business was 48.339 billion yuan, accounting for 95.7% of the Internet property insurance business that year. It was also the peak of the development of the Internet auto insurance business in the past 7 years.
Since then, the Internet auto insurance business has entered a slow development channel, which stems from the continuous advancement of auto insurance reform. In the past seven years, two important reforms in the auto insurance reform have also affected the development of the Internet property insurance market. The first time was the “commercial car fee reform” (deepening the reform of the commercial car insurance clause rate management system) initiated in 2015. In the past 6 years, after several rounds of car insurance fee reforms, companies have gained a certain degree of autonomy in channel pricing strategies. The price advantage of e-commerce is no longer. At this time, the advantages of traditional insurance companies in offline services are highlighted, prompting the Internet auto insurance business to return to traditional channels again, and the scale of Internet auto insurance has been affected.
The second is the comprehensive reform of auto insurance. On September 2, 2020, the “Guiding Opinions on Implementing the Comprehensive Reform of Auto Insurance” came into effect, pushing the reform of auto insurance into the deep water zone. The direct change brought to the market was the decline in the growth rate of auto insurance premiums. It is shown that in 2020, Internet auto insurance will drop by 19.64% year-on-year, while the auto insurance market will increase by 0.7% year-on-year. It is not difficult to see that the comprehensive reform of auto insurance will have a greater impact on the Internet auto insurance market.
Not only that, but looking back at the development of the past 7 years, there are traces of the development of the Internet auto insurance business from the prosperous to the declining. Data shows that the proportion of Internet auto insurance premiums in Internet property insurance premium income has dropped from 95.7% in 2014 to 27.65% in 2020, a 70% drop.
According to data from the Insurance Association of China, from 2014 to 2020, Internet auto insurance data and Internet auto insurance business revenues were 48.339 billion yuan, 71.608 billion yuan, 39.894 billion yuan, 30.719 billion yuan, 36.873 billion yuan, 27.452 billion yuan, and 22.060 billion yuan. Correspondingly, the proportion of its business has been declining year by year. In particular, in 2019, the proportion of Internet auto insurance business dropped below 50% at the beginning of the year and then continued to decline. Until the first half of 2021, its business proportion fell to 23.5%.
It is worth mentioning that in the first half of 2021, as the penetration rate of the Internet auto insurance business began to pick up, the year-on-year decline in the premium income of the Internet auto insurance business began to narrow to 1%, which was lower than the 8% decline of the overall auto insurance business of the property insurance industry in the same period. , But it is still difficult to change the general trend of decline.
In 2019, the proportion of Internet auto insurance business dropped below 50% at the beginning of the year and continued to fall. Until the first half of 2021, its business proportion fell to 23.5%.
At the same time, in the comprehensive reform of auto insurance, the scale effect and cost control capabilities of large insurance companies have begun to highlight. It can be seen that the market share of the top three insurance companies in the Internet auto insurance industry has not fallen but increased, reaching 48%. This means The comprehensive reform of auto insurance has reduced the premium income of the internet auto insurance market, but it has not changed the concentration of the main players in the internet auto insurance market.
In addition, the Internet auto insurance business is dominated by traditional insurance companies, and its channels are mainly self-operated channels such as traditional insurance companies’ official websites and mobile terminals. The decline in its business share also means that the flow of insurance companies’ self-operated channels has declined. Revenue from third-party intermediary channels is thriving and has laid a footnote.
Why did non-auto insurance break out?
The other part of Internet property insurance is non-auto insurance business. Unlike auto insurance, which focuses on channels and offline services, non-auto insurance businesses focus on scenarios and have the characteristics of small amounts, high frequency, and wide coverage, which are more in line with the development logic of the Internet platform.
Seeing that Internet auto insurance has lost its glory under the auto insurance reform, and there are signs of dragging down the Internet property insurance market, insurance companies have begun to shift to the Internet non-auto insurance business, and competition can be imagined.
However, unlike the Internet auto insurance market dominated by traditional insurance companies, in the Internet non-auto insurance market, professional Internet insurance companies such as ZhongAn Online, Taikang Online, Anxin Insurance, and Yi’an P&C Insurance rely on insurance technology and scenario-based insurance products. Innovative advantages, dominate.
Nowadays, Internet non-auto insurance products have also begun to penetrate into various scenes of public life. It can be seen that consumers buy a return freight insurance when shopping online, check the Air Italy Airlines Extension Insurance when buying air tickets, put an account security insurance on their mobile payment account, and buy themselves an Internet celebrity million medical insurance. Or Huiminbao, buying an insurance for your pets, has gradually become a daily consumption.
The epidemic has also accelerated the popularization of Internet non-auto insurance products. Starting from January 2020, Internet health insurance premium income has begun to exceed auto insurance, and the gap continues to widen. Data shows that in 2020, the cumulative premium income of Internet non-auto insurance is 57.735 billion yuan, an increase of 2.35% year-on-year, accounting for 72.35%. Compared with the business share of the Internet non-auto insurance business of less than 5% in 2014, it has increased by about 15 times.
Specifically, in the first half of 2021, accident health insurance, credit guarantee insurance, liability insurance, and property insurance accounted for 65% of total non-auto insurance. Among them, accident health insurance was the main body, with premium income of 20.3 billion yuan, accounting for Than 43%.
It can be said that Internet non-auto insurance business can take over auto insurance and become the main growth point of Internet property insurance. Ehealth Insurance has contributed a lot, and its market penetration rate has reached 15.5%.
However, as the non-auto insurance business has become the dominant force in the Internet property insurance market, the entire market has also undergone significant changes.
First, although the overall Internet property insurance market has picked up, the overall insurance premiums per item in the market have fallen year by year. The data shows that the average premium per item in the Internet property insurance market has dropped from RMB 25.18/order in 2014 to RMB 2.07/order in 2020. The root cause is that the penetration rate of the non-auto insurance market, which focuses on small premiums, has increased in the past. 10 times.
Second, with the wide coverage of Internet non-auto insurance products, the inclusiveness of Internet property insurance is increasing. In the first half of 2021 alone, the cumulative number of Internet non-auto insurance policies reached 10.9 billion, of which the cumulative number of other property and casualty insurance policies, mainly return freight insurance, reached 6.4 billion.
It can be seen that with the growth of Internet non-auto insurance premiums, in the first half of 2021, the cumulative premium income of four professional Internet insurance companies, ZhongAn Online, Taikang Online, Anxin Insurance, and Yi’an P&C Insurance, reached 15.7 billion yuan, with a total market share of 33. %.
However, behind the explosive growth of Internet non-auto insurance businesses such as Ehealth Insurance, many problems have also been exposed. Consumers have the deepest feelings about product homogeneity and insurance fraud. It is not easy for consumers to find a suitable one among the dazzling array of millions of medical insurance products, and they must be careful to fall into the marketing trap of “1 yuan in the first month”.
However, referring to the development of foreign Internet property insurance, the current Internet non-auto insurance field is still in the early stages of development, and many needs around e-commerce, digital home appliances, smart technology, pet ecology, travel ecology and other scenarios are still to be developed. As ZhongAn Online exits The pet insurance of China quickly went out of the circle. It is foreseeable that a new business battle is already on the way.
Third-party channels lie to win?
Different from the development of traditional insurance business, in addition to following the business logic of insurance, it is also necessary to understand the underlying logic of the Internet-traffic operation. Specific to the insurance field, it depends on the channels and scenarios, which is particularly important for the development of Internet property insurance.
Currently, Internet property insurance channels mainly include insurance companies’ PC official websites, insurance companies’ self-operated mobile terminals, and third-party platforms. The third-party platforms include Internet platforms such as Taobao and JD.com, as well as professional insurance intermediaries.
Specifically, the main channels of Internet auto insurance are the official PC websites of insurance companies and the self-operated mobile terminals of insurance companies. With the desolation of Internet auto insurance, the proportion of self-operated platforms of insurance companies has continued to decline, and it has been surpassed by a third party for the first time since April 2018. Later, in the first half of 2021, the cumulative premium income of insurance companies’ self-operated platforms will account for 22%.
Internet non-auto insurance channels are dominated by third-party platforms. In 2020, in the Internet property insurance business, the total premium income of third-party platforms will be 59.323 billion yuan, accounting for 74.34%. In the first half of 2021, this proportion reached 77%.
It is not easy for consumers to find a suitable one among the dazzling array of millions of medical insurance products, and they must be careful to fall into the marketing trap of “1 yuan in the first month”.
Combing the development of Internet property insurance in the past 7 years, it is not difficult to see that in the market changes of the two major business sectors of Internet property insurance, the business capabilities of third-party channels have been strengthened, and the proportion of insurance premium income is in an absolute leading position. Be the winner behind the scenes in this change.
It is worth mentioning that there are also games within third-party channels, and the proportion of premium income from professional insurance intermediaries and third-party Internet platforms has undergone major changes.
Data shows that from 2018 to the first half of 2021, the proportion of premium income of professional insurance intermediaries has increased steadily from 19% to 45%. In the process, even listed insurance intermediary platforms such as Huize and Water Drop have appeared. . The proportion of third-party Internet platforms experienced a first increase and then a decline, and the overall decline was 2 percentage points.
This is related to the continued tightening of Internet insurance supervision. Especially as the “Internet Insurance Business Supervision Measures” officially landed at the end of 2020, the licensed operation of Internet insurance business is required. It can be seen that since the implementation of this measure in February this year, compared with the end of last year, the proportion of professional insurance intermediaries’ business has increased by 13 percentage points to 45%, while in the same period, third-party Internet platforms have dropped by 10 percentage points. Is 32%.
However, it is worth noting that even though professional insurance intermediaries currently rank first in terms of premium income, their operation and development still depend on the traffic and scenarios of the Internet platform. At the same time, for traditional insurance companies, their self-operated platform premiums The continued decline in the proportion of revenue means that the reliance on third-party channel platforms is increasing, and its sales expenses are also rising. Therefore, this battle for traffic has just begun.
Therefore, at present, both traditional insurance companies and professional insurance intermediaries are building their own private domain traffic pools through APP, short videos, live broadcasts, etc., in an attempt to increase retention. According to a reporter from Nanfengchuang, a certain waist internet insurance technology intermediary platform has about 50 people in its video content operation team alone. According to the person in charge, it plans to expand the team to 80 people in the next two years.
Obviously, the story has just begun
