In the first eleven months of 2019, the Company issued over 7 billion insurance policies, served over 400 million users and recorded over RMB12.8 billion in gross written premium (GWP). The monthly average of active users exceeded 20 million across all new scenarios-based platforms. During the Singles’ Day Festival, total insurance gross merchandise volume (GMV) even reached the RMB 1 billion mark.
Photo credit: ZhongAn
Mr. Xing JIANG, Chief Executive Officer of ZhongAn said, “Since the beginning of this year, ZhongAn has been focusing on developing new scenarios, retaining insurance customers and expanding the online customer base through a number of targeted interactive channels. We have adopted various innovation models this year, including live-streaming promotion through ‘TikTok’ and our own app, expanding the application of Alipay to more scenarios, as well as introducing innovative practices such as integrating critical illness insurance and accident insurance into online car booking platforms.”
To date, ZhongAn's new scenario platforms have over 20 million monthly active users. In particular, the Alipay mini-programs and Alipay Lifestyle platform have attracted over 34 million users.
Since this year, ZhongAn continues to seek business innovation around its five ecosystems. For example, around the lifestyle consumption ecosystem, ZhongAn has developed over 1,000 consumer protection products that have been integrated into ecommerce scenarios, and other innovative products such as pet medical insurance in new scenarios. For health ecosystem, ZhongAn’s internet hospital has started operating after obtaining the license in mid-2019. ZhongAn has also collaborated with Ant Financial to upgrade its Personal Clinic Policy and Healthcare Ecosystem (???) 2020. For consumer finance, the Alliance for Financial Inclusion spearheaded by ZhongAn has covered over 100 licensed financial institutions so far. The ZhongAn Microloan, on the other hand, attracted RMB 210 million of investment from China Telecom's Yizhifu. Finally, for auto ecosystem, Baobiao Auto Insurance policies became available on Alipay’s insurance platform in May. ZhongAn has also launched video claims service, reducing the processing time to 3 minutes and providing users with additional convenience.
ZhongAn adheres to its dual-engine strategy of “Insurance + Technology” and provides users with value-added services through advanced insurtech. Taking one of its key products, Personal Clinic Policy, as an example, the product has completed 14 rounds of iteration, making use of the big data technology that provides accurate data and a new perspective on product design. As a result, it is able to provide tailor-made medical insurance coverage worth millions of RMB to more patients, even including those who are chronically ill. The Personal Clinic Policy is also empowered by the AI-aided diagnosis function of ZhongAn ANswer, which enables it to cover a wide variety of diseases. Users of the policy can also pay via ZhongAn’s innovative medical expense advance payment service that has become available in 83 cities and more than 2,000 hospitals. What’s more, the automation rate of claim settlement of Personal Clinic Policy has reached 70%, thanks to the optical character recognition (OCR) technology and direct access to a pool of medical data, cutting the claim settlement time to 15 minutes.
Mr. JIANG added, “For the first eleven months this year, ZhongAn has served over 400 million users. The application of artificial intelligence, cloud computing and other technologies has boosted the overall automation rate of underwriting and claim settlement of ZhongAn to 99% and 95% respectively, while some 85% of online customer service is handled by intelligent robots.
Technology export: International expansion and great success in Southeast Asian market
In addition to ZhongAn’s core business, the Company exports technology products and industry solutions to other insurance companies. Since the beginning of 2019, the Company’s technology export business has further focused on insurtech sector and has upgraded its overall business roadmap. At the moment, ZhongAn exports technological products that are mainly related to business production, growth, protection products and solutions. This also includes two major insurtech products, namely Graphene, the digital core insurance system, and Fusion, the internet company insurance platform system.
In the first eleven months of 2019, ZhongAn Technology (International) Group Co., Ltd. (“ZhongAn International”), a subsidiary of ZhongAn Technology, expanded its business to Japan, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries. It has also established partnership with other players in the ecosystem, such as Sompo Japan Insurance Inc., Grab, which is a leading O2O platform in Southeast Asia, and NTUC, one of the largest general insurance companies in Singapore. This year, ZhongAn International and Grab have established a joint venture, GrabInsure, to explore the internet insurance distribution business in Southeast Asia. With the technical support provided by ZhongAn, GranInsure has issued over 4 million insurance policies from April to November this year, and is expected to issue more than 100 million insurance policies next year.
At the open day today, ZhongAn Technology has launched its latest product, Hongqiao, a middle-end insurance application, to facilitate digital transformation in the insurance industry. Without replacing the core system, users can quickly collect information from the front-end through shared services. That means the users will enjoy one-key connection with 1,000+ channels, complete product configuration within one to three days, and achieve a single peak value of 32,000 transactions per second.
Mr. JIANG concluded, “After accumulating years of insurtech capabilities and studying the overseas market for almost two years, we are glad to say that we have established a clear roadmap for ZhongAn’s technology export, and achieved remarkable success. We will set our eyes on Asia as the initial focus of our overseas technology export business, while keeping a close eye on the huge potential business opportunities arising from the Greater Bay Area and Belt and Road countries. We strive to be the ideal partner for digital transformation of the global insurance industry.”
Themed “New Insurance Era: Opening-up, Integration and Co-creation”, the Open Day held in Shanghai showcased ZhongAn's latest insurtech and products. The event consisted of a main conference in the morning, and four concurrent sub-conferences in the afternoon which included keynotes, panel discussions and product launches delivered by ZhongAn Online team, partners and industry experts. In the exhibition area, there were designated zones for each of the five ecosystems of ZhongAn: lifestyle consumption, consumer finance, auto and travel, health and technology. The exhibition focused on the application of four core technologies, namely artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing and big data.
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