Electricity sales have become misleading and deceiving insurance sales. The chaos in the insurance sales market in the hardest hit areas has been frequently ＂red card＂ by the China Insurance Regulator
Planner’s language:Between consumers and market players, insurance supervision firmly stands on the side of consumers and adheres to the correct direction of "supervision for the people". This year, the regulatory authorities made great efforts to rectify the chaos in the industry, and made continuous heavy attacks on insurance company governance, life insurance product design and power grid sales channels, setting a "maximum" for the issuance of regulatory letters, and committed to creating a fair, legal, smooth and efficient consumption environment for insurance consumers. This issue of Insurance Weekly has specially planned a group of reports to discuss the damage to consumers’ rights and interests in the insurance industry.
I believe that many people have received sales calls such as bank wealth management products or insurance products in their lives, and they have also learned the skill of the salesperson at the other end of the phone. For the regulatory punishment of telemarketing fraud, most of the objections given by insurance companies focus on "the situation that telemarketing terms are not completely consistent with the actual situation is the behavior of individual sales personnel of the company, and there is no intention to deceive the insured and no additional improper benefits." However, this is not the case.
At the beginning of December, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission issued five administrative penalties, four of which were imposed on China Merchants Cigna Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Merchants Cigna"). The reasons for punishment are "illegal acts of deceiving the insured by telephone sales", which are mainly manifested in providing false market information to customers, exaggerating or misrepresenting the products of our company, etc. China Merchants Cigna and the relevant responsible persons of its three home appliance sales centers were fined 1.07 million yuan.
Zhu Yanxiang’s paintings
Telemarketing misleading once again sounded the alarm.
Among all the sales channels, the telephone sales channel belongs to the hardest hit area where insurance consumers cheat. Telephone sales channels are the key regulatory areas of the CIRC. The Interim Measures for the Retrospective Management of Insurance Sales Behavior, which was formally implemented on November 1, stipulates that when insurance companies and insurance intermediaries conduct telephone sales business, they should record and back up the whole process of telephone calls, and must not evade the telephone sales system to sell insurance products to policyholders. However, under the new regulations, it is not uncommon for enterprises to take risks. According to statistics, as of November 30th, among the 36 supervision letters issued by official website of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, 6 were aimed at punishing the illegal acts of insurance companies in the process of power grid sales.
When checking the telemarketing policy business signed by China Merchants Cigna in 2015, the CIRC randomly selected three telemarketing centers built by itself, and all of them found that there were illegal acts of telemarketing to deceive policyholders, and the proportion of illegal policies was relatively high. Specifically, these three telemarketing centers located in Wuhan, Shenzhen and Beijing all provide false market information to customers, exaggerate or falsely state our products, make false propaganda on laws, regulations and policies related to insurance business, make false propaganda on product sales threshold conditions and price changes, avoid customers’ problems or incorrectly explain the attributes of insurance products.
In fact, before that, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission issued seven administrative penalty decisions to Luen Thai Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Luen Thai"), claiming that it failed to effectively fulfill its responsibility of quality management of sales business and cheated the insured by telephone sales. As the Sino-American Luen Thai Corporation is responsible for the operation and development of telemarketing business, as well as the unified formulation of all kinds of product "words" and the establishment of a telemarketing quality inspection system, the CIRC has determined that the Sino-American Luen Thai Corporation is directly responsible for the widespread problem of deceiving policyholders in several telemarketing centers.
It is noteworthy that telemarketing fraud is not exclusive to small and medium-sized insurance companies, and large companies are not spared. Many large insurance companies such as PICC P&C Insurance, Ping An Life Insurance Company of China and China Life Insurance have also been held accountable for this.
Consumers need more protection under the innovative insurance format.
In addition to telemarketing, the traditional channel for consumers to cheat, the emerging Internet sales environment is also constantly breeding events that mislead consumers, which also makes online insurance purchase hidden risks.
Some products exaggerate the insurance liability and unilaterally pursue the explosion effect in publicity, which has caused consumers to misunderstand the insurance function and seriously damaged the vital interests of consumers. The reporter noticed that there was a "high temperature insurance" product sold online before, which really meant gambling with consumers. The premium standard of "high temperature insurance" is divided into 10 yuan, 50 yuan and 100 yuan. As long as the temperature exceeds the standard agreed between the insurance company and the customer, the customer can get the high temperature allowance. The insurance company will provide the high temperature allowance from 3 yuan to 5 yuan every day, and the guarantee period is generally from July 1 to August 31. Similar "Shantou" insurance seems to exist only for bloggers’ eyes, with little protection function.
At the same time, it also reveals the mixed quality of some third-party Internet platforms. The real third-party internet insurance platform will consider the actual situation of consumers, their family income and risks, and choose the most suitable and cost-effective insurance products for consumers. However, some existing platforms use internet technology to optimize the insurance process, and the packaging and marketing are still products with extremely low risk protection ability for consumers, and the real protection demands of consumers cannot be met.
In addition, some insurances sold on the Internet only provide links to exemption clauses and exclusions, and consumers only need to tick, and they are not required to click on the links to read. Some insurance companies even weaken the word "insurance product", emphasize the high expected rate of return and the characteristics of "guaranteed capital", and take vague treatment on the uncertainty of income, expense deduction and surrender loss, which greatly increases the possibility of misleading sales.
According to the information disclosed by the CIRC, Internet insurance complaints mainly focus on sales and claims. The former has the problems of insurance companies exaggerating insurance liability or income, concealing payment period and false propaganda; The latter has disputes over the amount of claims, too long time for claims, and unclear responsibility. While the growth rate of Internet insurance is considerable, the "disharmony" factor should be targeted by the regulatory authorities, and online insurance institutions should also pay attention to product innovation under the premise of compliance.
Strengthen the supervision of credit system construction and prevent the left and right from opening the bow
To put an end to consumer deception, we should start with the establishment of the integrity of enterprises and sales personnel, and the construction of a country’s credit system is very important for honest management and the creation of a good consumption environment. At the beginning of this year, Lu Zhou, director of the Consumer Protection Bureau of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, suggested that it is an urgent need to accelerate the construction of the insurance credit system to protect the legitimate rights and interests of insurance consumers. Strengthening the construction of insurance credit system will help to run honesty through the whole process of insurance management and provide all-round and high-quality insurance services for consumers.
According to the requirements of China Insurance Credit System Construction Plan (2015-2020) promulgated in 2015, the construction of insurance credit system and standard system is being comprehensively promoted. The expected goal is to standardize the recording, storage, processing, management and use of credit information in 2018, and the coverage rate of credit records will reach 80%. The construction of various credit information databases and sharing platforms in the insurance industry has basically been completed, and the interconnection, exchange and sharing of credit information in the industry have basically been realized.
Since the China Insurance Regulatory Commission launched the "Bright Sword Action" in 2015, it has achieved numerous results. "A total of 925 inspection teams were sent across the country, and 2,871 people inspected 923 branches of insurance companies and banking institutions, involving 42 legal entities. A total of 157 insurance institutions and 254 individuals were punished." This is a set of data recently given by Luo Qing, deputy director of the Consumer Protection Bureau of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.
In fact, when studying the construction of insurance credit system in foreign developed countries, the reporter also found a lot to learn from. For example, the National Association of Insurance Supervisors (NAIC) has established the world’s largest insurance database to support the centralized information disclosure system. This database collects the financial information of all insurance companies in the country and is connected with the network system of insurance regulators in various States. When consumers’ rights and interests are infringed, they can choose negotiation, mediation, arbitration or litigation to solve disputes. These litigation and non-litigation have their own defects, which ultimately leads to the unequal state of rights protection between consumers and enterprises. The financial complaint examiner system in Britain is a model to solve this problem, and it also plays an important role in the settlement of insurance consumption disputes.
On the one hand, the protection of consumers’ rights and interests requires regulators to perform their supervisory duties on financial institutions, and on the other hand, consumers’ awareness of prevention can also minimize the damage to their rights and interests. Among financial consumers, the education of insurance consumers is more urgent. Because the protection of insurance consumers’ rights and interests is a fundamental guarantee for personal life and property safety. Rational insurance consumers should establish their own judgment when evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of insurance products, and should not aim at pure investment income, but should focus on whether the protection function provided by them is suitable.
Among financial consumers, the education of insurance consumers is more urgent. Because the protection of insurance consumers’ rights and interests is a fundamental guarantee for personal life and property safety. Rational insurance consumers should establish their own judgment when evaluating the advantages and disadvantages of insurance products, and should not aim at pure investment income, but should focus on whether the protection function provided by them is suitable.