With the increasing aging of China’s population, it has become a must for the insurance industry to better integrate commercial old-age insurance into the old-age security system and fulfill the “third pillar” responsibility of commercial old-age insurance. On December 24, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the notice on standardizing and promoting the development of pension insurance institutions (hereinafter referred to as the notice), which requires to delineate the “can and can’t” of pension insurance institutions. If it is clear that they should strengthen the pension attribute, it also requires to peel off the insurance asset management business irrelevant to the elderly and clean up the existing short-term personal pension security management products.
Experts pointed out that the promulgation of the notice is conducive to enriching the supply of old-age security products, creating a fair market competition environment for the commercial old-age insurance market and preventing financial risks.
pension surname “Lao”, focusing on pension attribute
Actively responding to population aging has become a national strategy. Commercial endowment insurance plays an increasingly important role in the “third pillar” endowment, and policies around commercial endowment insurance are also continuously implemented.
The notice aims to standardize and cultivate the development of professional pension financial institutions, and puts forward new requirements for pension insurance companies and pension management companies from five aspects: development orientation, business direction, risk isolation, getting to the bottom of the matter and strengthening supervision.
From the perspective of development orientation, the notice makes it clear that pension insurance institutions should be positioned as professional pension financial institutions, further highlight the characteristics of pension, optimize pension financial planning, fund management and risk guarantee services, improve long-term service capacity, and establish and improve the internal management system suitable for the characteristics and development requirements of pension financial business.
As for the business direction of pension insurance institutions, the notice proposes to promote pension insurance institutions to focus on the development of businesses reflecting pension attributes, such as commercial pension insurance, pension security management and enterprise (occupational) annuity fund management.
The reporter of Beijing Business Daily found that at present, there are 10 registered commercial pension insurance companies in China, including Guoshou pension, Taiping pension, Ping’an pension, PICC pension, Taikang pension, everyone pension, Xinhua pension, Changjiang pension, Heng’an standard pension and national pension that have not yet opened.
Li Wenzhong, deputy director of the insurance Department of Capital University of economics and trade, pointed out that the business “pension” characteristics of commercial pension insurance companies are not obvious, which will bring a series of problems to the market, including misleading consumers and unfair competition with other market subjects.
“The notice is intended to enable commercial pension insurance companies to return to their true identity and concentrate on pension business to deal with the pension pressure caused by population aging.” Li Wenzhong said.
In terms of product innovation, the notice supports qualified pension insurance institutions to carry out personal pension security management business transformation and product innovation. Innovate the product form and business model of old-age security management business, and standardize marketing management.
Li Wenzhong believes that this shows that the regulatory authorities encourage commercial pension insurance companies to actively carry out product innovation and engage in pension management business in addition to engaging in pension insurance business.
Meanwhile, the notice supports eligible pension insurance companies to participate in the pilot of exclusive commercial pension insurance. In fact, since June 1 this year, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , Taiping Life Insurance and other six family life insurance companies have carried out exclusive commercial endowment insurance pilot projects in Zhejiang Province and Chongqing. Encourage pilot insurance companies to develop exclusive commercial pension insurance products for Shenzhen New Industries Biomedical Engineering Co.Ltd(300832) , employees of new business types and various flexible employees.
Li Wenzhong said that the issuance of the notice means that commercial pension insurance companies can also engage in relevant pilot businesses in the future. In the long run, it is conducive to enrich the supply of old-age security products, give consumers more choices, and enhance the ability of society to deal with population aging.
divest the insurance asset management business, and the policy is inclined to “good children”
For businesses with insignificant pension characteristics and insurance asset management businesses unrelated to pension, the notice has carried out “straightening out the source” correction.
The notice proposes that in order to terminate or divest the insurance asset management business irrelevant to the pension, the existing pension insurance companies operating the insurance asset management business shall complete the rectification work such as terminating or divesting the relevant business in accordance with the law before the end of 2022; In order to clean up the existing short-term personal pension security management products, the notice requires that new customers of relevant products be stopped in due time before June 30, 2022, and in principle, the stock business shall be cleaned up before the end of 2023.
Li Wenzhong said that the regulatory authorities hope that pension insurance companies really engage in pension related businesses. One important feature of those serving the elderly is the long term of capital investment. Therefore, pension insurance companies should strengthen this business and no longer operate asset management businesses with obvious short-term financial characteristics.
Li Wenzhong pointed out that at present, other asset management businesses of some pension insurance companies are several times the scale of Pension Asset management businesses such as enterprise annuity; A large number of commercial pension insurance companies engaged in insurance asset management business will disperse the forces engaged in pension insurance business, which is not conducive to the development of pension insurance business, and it is difficult to achieve the purpose of these pension insurance companies approved by the regulatory authorities. Regulation requires commercial pension insurance companies to divest relevant businesses, which is conducive to creating a fair market competition environment and preventing financial risks.
In addition, the notice also strengthened the supervision of pension insurance institutions. For the standardized development of old-age insurance institutions, the notice will provide policy support for their business management model innovation, product and service innovation, and branch access; For pension insurance institutions that deviate from the main pension business, fail to clean up the business pressure drop, fail to establish an effective risk isolation mechanism and system, they will take regulatory interviews, order rectification and other measures, and will no longer support them to carry out relevant pension financial business innovation.
help the elderly, and regulatory policies continue to “add bricks and tiles”
The degree of population aging is deepening. According to the data of the seventh census, as of 0:00 on November 1, 2020, China has 264.02 million elderly people aged 60 and over, accounting for 18.7% of the total population; The population aged 65 and above is 190.64 million, accounting for 13.5% of the total population. It is expected that China will enter a moderately aging society during the 14th Five Year Plan period.
A series of policies on commercial endowment insurance are also continuously promoted. In 2017, several opinions on accelerating the development of commercial endowment insurance issued by the State Council stated that it would innovate commercial endowment insurance products and services and promote the safe and stable operation of commercial endowment insurance funds.
In May 2018, the pilot of individual tax deferred pension insurance was launched, and China began to explore the use of tax incentives to guide individuals to carry out pension accumulation. By the end of October this year, a total of 23 insurance companies had participated in the pilot, with a cumulative premium income of nearly 600 million yuan and more than 50000 participants.
The guiding opinions on further enriching the supply of life insurance products issued in October and the opinions on strengthening the aging work in the new era issued in November also encourage commercial insurance institutions to develop insurance products for the elderly.
In addition, in terms of the pilot of exclusive commercial endowment insurance, according to the cbcirc, as of the end of October this year, the cumulative premium income of exclusive commercial endowment insurance was about 200 million yuan, with more than 17000 insured people, including about 5600 online car Hailing drivers.
For the release of the notice, the relevant person in charge of the cbcirc said that it will help to promote the pension insurance institutions to further clarify their development positioning, deepen product and service innovation, become an important force to promote the high-quality development of the pension financial market, and effectively meet the diversified pension security needs of the people.
(Beijing business daily)
