Health insurance is undoubtedly one of the most popular types of insurance at present. In 2021, life insurance companies achieved an original premium income of 3.12 trillion yuan, of which the original premium income of health insurance business increased by 3.35% year-on-year. It is the only business type that has achieved positive growth in premium income among the three major businesses of life insurance, accident insurance and health insurance.
The health insurance market is hot. What is the performance of professional health insurance companies in the industry? Have you enjoyed the industry dividend? What kind of competition is it facing? With the disclosure of annual reports by professional health insurance companies, the development of the industry has also surfaced.
business scale is expanded but the profit is meager
At present, there are seven professional health insurance companies in the market, namely PICC Health, Ping An health, harmonious health, Kunlun Health, Taibao health, Fosun United Health and Ruihua health. On May 4, the reporter of Beijing business daily combed the annual report and found that at present, in addition to harmonious health, the other six professional health insurance companies have successively disclosed the annual report of 2021.
From the perspective of insurance business income, the six professional health insurance companies achieved a total insurance business income of 66.882 billion yuan in 2021, with a year-on-year increase of 7.31%, of which PICC Health achieved an insurance business income of 35.816 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 11%, which is the largest among the six companies.
Unlike the small growth of insurance business income, the profitability of Companies in 2021 is not bright, and most of them are in the state of low profit or loss. The six companies achieved a total net profit of - 68 million yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 105% compared with 1.24 billion yuan in 2020. Specifically, at the company level, Ruihua health and Kunlun Health lost money, and the other four companies achieved profits. Among them, Ping An Health's net profit was 883 million yuan, the first of the six companies, followed by PICC Health's net profit of 256 million yuan.
Professional health insurance companies are located in the upstream of the health insurance industry chain. Why haven't they formed obvious profit advantages? Yang Zeyun, a teacher in the Department of finance of Beijing Union University, pointed out that at present, most professional health insurance companies are in a state of low profit or loss, which is mainly affected by three aspects: first, the operation of health insurance is in a passive position in health risk management, and it is difficult for operators to integrate with hospitals, medical enterprises, health care and other institutions to build a complete closed loop of health risk management, so as to realize the control of medical expenditure. Second, the moral hazard of health insurance is more serious, which includes both adverse selection in advance and moral hazard after the event, that is, the excessive consumption of the insured and the excessive supply of medical institutions. Third, the homogenization of health insurance products is serious, and the product differentiation is insufficient. We can only rely on price competition, which has further reduced the profit space.
The person in charge of a branch of a life insurance company also holds a similar view. He said that at present, in addition to professional health insurance companies, general life insurance companies and property insurance companies can operate health insurance business. Professional health insurance companies have not formed their own unique advantages. When they compete for market share through price war, the profit space is compressed.
mainly focuses on serious illness insurance and medical insurance, and the product structure needs to be optimized
From the perspective of insurance structure, the products launched by professional health insurance companies are mainly major disease insurance and medical insurance.
From the perspective of combing, most of the top five premium income products of various companies are medical insurance and major disease insurance. For example, among the top five insurance products of Fosun United Health in 2021, four are major disease insurance and one is medical insurance. The person in charge of the above-mentioned branches of life insurance companies said that this confirms the serious homogenization of commercial health insurance products. In this regard, Yang Zeyun pointed out that commercial health insurance companies should make use of the talent and resource advantages of their large health industry to provide health insurance products with different life cycles, different health conditions and different income levels.
Beijing Business Daily reporter noted that, unlike other companies that mainly promote medical insurance and major disease insurance, two of Kunlun's top five insurance products are long-term care insurance, and the two products rank among the top two in premium income, and the other three products are major disease insurance. In this regard, the relevant person in charge of Kunlun Health said in an interview with the reporter of Beijing Business Daily that the company's focus on the development of commercial long-term care insurance and serious illness insurance products in recent years should be an objective result based on market demand and market choice. By the end of 2021, China's elderly population over the age of 60 had reached 267 million, including more than 40 million disabled and semi disabled elderly people. With the deepening of China's aging, people's demand for commercial nursing insurance is increasing.
Large insurance groups can form advantages through the coordinated development of different types of companies, which will also directly affect the business development mode of insurance companies. From the perspective of sales channels, Ping'an health, PICC Health and CPIC health relying on group companies are mainly personal insurance channels, group insurance channels and part-time agency channels, while Kunlun health and Fosun United Health rely more on intermediary channels and bancassurance channels.
how to take the lead in the industry competition
From the industry level, health insurance business can be operated not only by professional health insurance companies, but also by other life insurance companies and some property insurance companies. Therefore, the current market share of professional health insurance companies is not high, and the proportion of premium income in the total premium income of the industry is also relatively low. In 2021, the original premium income of health insurance business was 844.7 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.35%, but the total premium income of PICC Health, CPIC health and Ruihua health, which disclosed the premium data, was only 955 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.22%
For the slow growth of premium income of professional health insurance companies in 2021, senior actuary Xu Yuchen pointed out that the switching between old and new serious illness insurance products in February 2021 affected the sales of serious illness insurance products. At the same time, the medical insurance business of professional health insurance companies has also been squeezed by the outbreak of "Huimin insurance" business to a certain extent.
It can be seen that the current health insurance market is highly competitive. In addition to dealing with the competition from similar health insurance companies, professional health insurance companies are facing the whole industry competition from other life insurance companies and property insurance companies.
In this industry wide competition, where are the competitive advantages of professional health insurance companies? Yang Zeyun believes that in the past decade, the premium income of health insurance has not only increased rapidly, but also its proportion in the total life insurance premium income has increased significantly, from 8.5% in 2012 to 25.3% in 2021. Compared with other life insurance companies, its business model should be different from that of other life insurance companies in terms of professionals and services.
Insiders said that the current health insurance market is full of chaos, and the industry has fallen into a situation of "Canyon competition". The report on Problems and suggestions on the development of China's commercial health insurance issued by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission bluntly states that the business risks of commercial health insurance can not be ignored, and there are problems such as insufficient control ability of long-term medical insurance to deal with internal and external risks such as medical expense inflation, selective surrender and excessive medical treatment. In this competition involving the whole industry, how should professional health insurance companies in the upper reaches of the health insurance industry chain make efforts to move forward to the top of the industry?
Yang Zeyun suggested that in terms of products, first of all, health insurance companies need to combine their upstream and downstream advantages to provide health insurance products different from other companies; Secondly, the health insurance products of health insurance companies should be different from the pricing methods of insurance products of other life insurance companies: we can not only use big data to build an accurate pricing model, but also use the whole upstream and downstream industry chain to build a pricing model different from traditional health insurance products.
In terms of service, on the one hand, professional health insurance companies should make use of their upstream and downstream advantages to provide convenient claim settlement services to improve customer satisfaction; On the other hand, professional health insurance companies can take advantage of their upstream and downstream advantages to provide professional value-added services such as medical treatment and nursing, so as to improve customer satisfaction and stickiness and increase the source of profits of the company.
"Specifically, in terms of business model, professional health insurance companies should organically integrate with the upstream and downstream of the big health industry. First, build a closed loop of the big health industry to form a competitive advantage; second, provide value-added services to customers and improve customer stickiness; third, organically integrate upstream and downstream to alleviate moral hazard as much as possible." Yang Zeyun added.
