How's the telemarketing of Dadi Insurance?

Kangxi radical 118

Financial World Weekly Ni Yuping

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Tian Yanlin (1938-), PRC computer scientist

Recently, the De Yun She comedian Sun Yue released a "troll" microblogging and insurance telemarketing back to the public eye.

Sun Yue, who received 20 calls from insurance companies almost every day for a week-long period, tweeted on Weibo that his car insurance expired at the end of July, but a month in advance, calls from PICC, Taiping and Ping An came pouring in. Unpleasantly disturbed, he said, "Whoever gives me no calls, I'll be insured at whoever's house."

Soon, this development attracted more attention from netizens. Among them, the discussion about PICC car insurance telemarketing is the most heated.

(Image source: Twitter screenshot)

Lin Qing, a staff member of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance, told Finance World Weekly that the company has mandatory rules for telemarketing's through-time and through-time, renewal rate, and insurance appraisal, and if these appraisals are not accomplished, wages will be deducted.

As an important channel for the development of the insurance industry, telemarketing once played an important role in the early development of the industry, helping major insurance companies to quickly capture the market, but the suspicion of nuisance and harassment also follows.

In the first half of this year, the CBIRC issued a document emphasizing that "banking and insurance institutions should regulate automated marketing practices, and carry out unified control of customer calls, mass mailing of information, and network push, etc., so as to avoid behaviors such as repeated calls and high-frequency sending of text messages to the same consumer within a short period of time." However, it is still very difficult to completely change the problem.

01 Auto insurance telemarketing advantage no longer

In the early days of the insurance industry, the telemarketing channel was an important aid to help insurers break new ground.

Looking back, in 2007, Ping An Insurance got a telemarketing license, set up a call center to carry out auto insurance telemarketing business. And it has also brought Ping An rich returns: according to past media reports, Ping An auto insurance premium income from the telemarketing channel increased from 670 million yuan in 2007 to 1.63 billion yuan in 2008. 2010, this data has exceeded tens of billions of yuan, realizing premium income of 12.65 billion yuan.

As the earliest entry into the insurance company, Ping An Insurance ate the telemarketing "dividend". After this, various insurance institutions have come down one after another, competing to set up telemarketing centers. Relevant reports and public data show that at the end of 2013, Tianping Auto Insurance, PICC Property & Casualty, Ping An Insurance, Sunshine Property & Casualty, Taibao Property & Casualty, Dadi Property & Casualty and other 15 property insurance companies have obtained the qualification of auto insurance telemarketing, and the size of the national auto insurance telemarketing market has exceeded one hundred billion yuan. With lower operating and intermediary costs, the e-sales channel has become an important means for property and casualty insurance companies to enhance profitability during this period.

"The main reason why the telemarketing channel has been able to grow is because the regulator used to give a 15% discount on rates to the car insurance channel. Customers have to buy car insurance in e-sales cheaper than other channels." Song Zhanjun, deputy secretary general of the Insurance Research Center of Beijing Technology and Business University, said. To a large extent, the favorable policy cast the prosperity of the e-sales market. And once the policy adjustment, the development of electronic marketing channel also turned.

Song Zhanjun introduced the market-oriented reform of commercial auto insurance rates that began in 2015, which eliminated the 15% discount rate preference for auto insurance telemarketing channels and kept rates consistent with other channels. "At present, large insurers still have some telemarketing channels, and more and more small and medium-sized insurers are no longer developing telemarketing channels or even canceling them."

(Source: Visual China)

On the other hand, the impact of the Internet auto insurance business is also a major influencing factor leading to the decline of telemarketing channels. "As both auto insurance telemarketing and Internet auto insurance business can enjoy the same autonomous channel benefits, and Internet auto insurance has a more convenient and convenient medium to communicate with customers such as mobile App, WeChat, etc., and even more convenient and convenient customer services such as on-line survey and on-line claim settlement can be realized, which greatly improves the customer experience. Internet auto insurance business has seized the vanguard of auto insurance telemarketing channels." Yang Zeyun, a teacher at Beijing Union University, pointed out.

Data from the CIRC shows that in the first half of 2018, auto insurance telemarketing realized premium income of 16.23 billion yuan, a year-on-year decline of 66.71 TP3T. nearly two years, the downward trend is still visible.

In the first 10 months of 2020, an industry exchange data cited by the media, auto insurance business revenue from e-marketing was 12.639 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 40.72%; during the same period, the share of e-marketing auto insurance in the revenue of net e-marketing business was 16.16%, a decrease of 7.03 percentage points compared with the same period in 2019.

02 Telemarketing, where to from here?

Overall, in the past ten years, auto insurance telemarketing business has experienced rapid development to a sharp decline in the process. What has remained unchanged is its "nuisance" attribute.

In 2013, the former CIRC issued a document to regulate property and casualty insurance and personal insurance telemarketing business, emphasizing that each insurance institution should establish and improve the telemarketing no-dialing management system, and that the insurance company or insurance agency should enter the no-dialing list for the customers who explicitly refuse to accept telemarketing again.

In May this year, the CBIRC reiterated the protection of consumers' personal information and the appropriate amount of marketing promotions in the Administrative Measures for the Protection of Consumers' Rights and Interests of Banking and Insurance Institutions (Draft for Public Comments). The Administrative Measures emphasize that "banking and insurance institutions that send marketing and promotional information to consumers by means of telephone calls, mass mailing of information, and Internet push should provide consumers with the option of rejecting or unsubscribing. If the consumer refuses to accept or unsubscribe, the marketing and promotional information shall not be sent in the same way again. And the banking and insurance institutions shall regulate the automatic marketing behavior, and carry out unified control of customer calls, information mass sending, network pushing, etc., to avoid behaviors such as repeated calls and high-frequency SMS sending to the same consumer within a short period of time."

In fact, in addition to the explicit provisions, the regulation has also issued fines for violations in the telemarketing business. Financial World Weekly roughly combed through and found that most of the insurers in the e-sales there are deceptive policyholders, preparation of false underwriting recording information, sales misleading and other violations.In 2017, there are media reports that the regulatory penalties for the e-sales channel is as high as tens of millions of yuan.

Under the current trend of overall industry transformation, how will the telemarketing channel develop?

Yang Zeyun said that if auto insurance telemarketing has no price advantage, it is difficult to compete with traditional channels such as 4S stores and agents. However, if there can be further development of insurance technology, telemarketing car insurance integration of UBI insurance, intelligent survey, intelligent claims and other insurance technology, perhaps car insurance telemarketing can usher in a new opportunity for development.

However, Song Zhanjun believes that the future development of the telemarketing channel depends on whether the telemarketing channel can have tilted rates. However, at present, the cost of telemarketing channel is very high, if there is no inclined rate support, it is difficult to regain the glory.