Recently, the news of “new energy auto insurance online and Tesla premium doubled” has been widely spread.
On December 27, the exclusive product of commercial insurance for new energy vehicles was officially launched. According to the online information, the insurance cost of Tesla Model y long life version increased from 8278 yuan to 14900 yuan, an increase of 80%.
There are also suspected “prospective owners” who have published the insurance quotation of model 3 high-performance model. The picture shows that PICC Property Insurance, Ping An Property Insurance, Guoshou property insurance and other institutions have given a high quotation of 18000 yuan. According to the prospective owner, the original premium of the car he ordered was about 8000 yuan. After the “New Deal” on December 27, the premium soared by 1.25 times.
The 21st Century Business Herald reporter found in a Tesla riders’ forum that insurance has become a hot topic discussed by riders. From the feedback of many people, the premium of Tesla models has indeed increased. However, relatively speaking, the premium of models with high configuration and high price such as model 3 high-performance version and model y long-range version has increased more, For models such as model 3 standard endurance version, the premium increase is not large.
In fact, after the launch of new energy vehicle insurance, except Tesla, Weilai, Xiaopeng, ideal, Byd Company Limited(002594) and other new energy vehicle enterprises, the premium price has increased to a certain extent. The specific increase range is also different due to vehicle models, regions and other factors.
But at the same time, the premiums of many other models have not increased, and even decreased to a certain extent. On December 29, Jin Qi, general manager of SAIC Insurance Sales Co., Ltd., told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that according to their calculation, 80% of vehicle damage insurance did not rise according to vehicle models. Vehicle damage insurance is an insurance category with large premium in automobile commercial insurance. In the above Tesla case, vehicle damage insurance has increased greatly.
Sharp premium increases are not common
In a Tesla car forum, there are many Tucao make complaints about premium rise. A model 3 high-performance “prospective owner” in Chengdu said that his new car insurance (including commercial insurance and compulsory traffic insurance) had previously quoted more than 7000, but now it is 13000, nearly doubling.
However, the increase of about doubling is limited to some models. Some riders concluded that the premium of the standard endurance version of model 3 and model y did not increase significantly, and the premium of their high-performance version or long endurance version increased significantly.
A prospective car owner in Shenzhen posted his quotation for the continued version of model 3 standard, with a total premium of more than 9100 yuan, while another model 3 car owner in Shenzhen said that the premium of model 3 he purchased in mid December was about 7700 yuan. Compared with the two, as a reference for rough statistics of the premium rise of the continued version of model 3 standard, the increase is about 18%.
However, there are many factors affecting the premium. Apart from the relatively fixed traffic compulsory insurance, the selection of different types of commercial insurance and different amounts of insurance for the same types of insurance will affect the size of the premium. Moreover, the insurance premium rates vary from place to place, so the premium level is also related to the city.
Also ordered the model 3 standard endurance version, a prospective owner from Wuxi said that his total premium was more than 6300 yuan, only 200 yuan more than the previous quotation.
For other brands other than Tesla, the premium of its models has also increased to a certain extent. A Shaoxing car owner who just bought Xiaopeng P7 said that the quotation for all insurance of his car was about 7000, but now it has risen to more than 9000. It is said that the premium of Xiaopeng model has increased by about 50%, which is slightly exaggerated.
A new energy brand new car premium comparison table circulated on the Internet compares the old and new premiums of Tesla, Weilai, ideal, Xiaopeng, Byd Company Limited(002594) and other models. The information in the table shows that the premium increase of Weilai es8 has reached nearly 40%. On December 29, Lu Jianxiao, the person in charge of Weilai service operation, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the above information was not accurate after confirmation with cooperative insurance companies. Although the absolute values of premiums were high and low, they were not so exaggerated.
“The change of the overall premium is related to the user’s region, violation records, past accidents and other factors. At present, the local conditions are different. On the whole, the premium adjustment range of Weilai model is not large.” He said.
On some other new energy car enthusiasts’ forums, such as Byd Company Limited(002594) Qin EV, Euler good cat, Wuling Hongguang Mini EV, there are few discussions about premium increase. After the implementation of exclusive new energy car insurance, whether their premium increases or remains unchanged, or decreases, is unknown as of press time.
However, Jin Qi told the 21st Century Business Herald that according to the benchmark premium released this time, the overall premium of new energy vehicles is slightly lower than before. The premium of vehicle damage and third-party insurance for vehicle prices below 250000 yuan has not increased, and the premium of some vehicle types for vehicle prices above 250000 yuan has increased. On the whole, 80% of vehicle damage insurance has not increased.
“The core purpose of the comprehensive reform of automobile insurance is to protect the rights and interests of consumers, reduce fees, increase insurance and improve quality.” He said. For the premium rise of Tesla and other models, he analyzed that the premium pricing has a great relationship with the models. Some brands or models have high zero integer and high losses caused by a single accident. Previously, the premium was relatively low, and the insurance company has been in underwriting losses. From the insurance perspective, the previous pricing was unreasonable.
Will consumers be discouraged?
The rise of new energy vehicle insurance may affect consumers’ decision-making to a certain extent. Cui Dongshu, Secretary General of the Federation, told the 21st Century Business Herald that the price of new energy vehicle insurance is still high, which may affect the sales of new energy vehicles.
The “prospective owner” who ordered the high-performance version of model 3 in the above car friends forum said that only one day late, the premium would be thousands more, “and he didn’t even have the mood to pick up the car.” In addition, the intended users of the model y long-range version made it clear that they wanted to “unsubscribe”: “it’s mainly to apply for 17000 full insurance, which is a little unacceptable. 17000 is equipped with a million level car. I personally can’t play for the time being. It’s originally full insurance, and I don’t want to be under pressure.”
Jin Qi also analyzed the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that consumers will pay more attention to the vehicle cost in the whole vehicle life cycle. Many car owners choose new energy vehicles from the perspective of vehicle economy. If they save fuel but do not save premium, consumers are bound to reconsider – from this perspective, The increase of premium is bound to have a certain impact on sales.
Although the premium of new energy vehicles seems to have increased a lot, the vehicle damage insurance has not been increased based on 80% of the models. Jin Qi believes that the pricing is relatively reasonable. “At present, after the comprehensive reform, the whole auto insurance industry has faced great business pressure. This year, the comprehensive cost rate of the auto insurance industry once exceeded 100%.”
The characteristic services launched by some auto enterprises can give consumers a smooth transition. The “service worry free package” launched by Weilai covers the rights and interests of insurance, repair and maintenance. On December 29, Weilai issued a statement that the service worry free package has added three additional risks under the new terms. The existing service worry free users can get corresponding protection, and the price of the new service worry free package will remain unchanged. “Service worry free version 2022 is under intensive discussion and is planned to be launched in March 2022, the first anniversary of service worry free version 2021.”
However, another service of Weilai, “insurance worry free package”, users need to buy it from the insurance company cooperated by Weilai. The premium of these users will be determined by the latest quotation of the insurance company, which is the same as that of other models in the market.
Whether the increase of premium will reduce users’ willingness to buy vehicles, Lu Jianxiao told the 21st Century Business Herald that the current premium is not invariable, and insurance companies will adjust according to the loss ratio in the future. The implication is that the premium of new energy vehicles will eventually return to a reasonable level.
It is worth mentioning that Cui Dongshu believes that the rise in the premium of new energy vehicles will give birth to enterprises’ self promotion insurance. However, Jin Qi pointed out that at present, China’s insurance market is a highly regulated market and needs licensed operation. From the current policies and regulations, there is no saying that auto enterprises operate their own insurance.
Although Tesla has tried to run the insurance business in North America, it has not been launched in China. Jalan road consulting pointed out that Tesla’s better choice may be to deeply cooperate with one or two insurance companies, share accident data and adjust parts prices, so as to help insurance companies be willing to quickly reduce their premium and reduce the negative impact on the scale of automobile sales next year.
(21st Century Business Herald)
