The Current Situation Of Our Insurance Intermediary Market And The Study On Its Development

In China, since reform and opening up, along with rapid economic development, people's insurance needs have been increasing, but usually consumers are not so clear about the time and types of insurance products which they really need. They easily underestimate the risk. Therefore, the status and role of insurance intermediaries are becoming more and more important.In a mature insurance market, insurance intermediaries, as one of the main indispensable identities, are mutually interdependent and improvement with insurance companies. The emergence of insurance intermediary is the needs of the division of labor and the inevitable result of insurance industry, the prosperity of insurance intermediary is the major symbol of perfection arid maturity of insurance industry chain. From the perspective of the theory of industrial economics, as the "horizontal collaboration chain" which connects the whole insurance supply chain, the insurance intermediary is the key chain; from the perspective of the theory of insurance market, the insurance intermediary is one of the main identities in insurance market. It is sub-market which is compatible with the industrialization of insurance; from the perspective of information economics, the existence of the insurance intermediary market plays a positive role in reducing the information asymmetry of both sides in insurance needs and improving market efficiency.In China, the development of insurance intermediary starts late, and the foundation is weak, but as the process of the industrialization of insurance, the number of insurance intermediaries has been more impressive, business scale and market share grow rapidly, the cooperation with the insurance company deepens gradually, operation level has increased, and the capacity of innovation is increased. Of course, as we made series of achievements, we must also clearly find the problems exist in the development process, such as small scale, uneven development, unclear position, lack of professional personnel, weak internal control and lack of competitiveness for professional intermediaries; in terms of part time-agents, the operation management and market behavior are not standardized, the embedded value of agency business is not high and the supervision is lack; for individual agents, there exists poor professional quality, inadequate management, instable practitioners team. compared with the developed insurance intermediaries of Britain, Japan, the United States and other overseas markets, our intermediary market still has large gaps, for example, the scale is small, the market share is low, professional level is low, business is not standardized and they don't form deep and strategic cooperation between intermediaries and insurance companies.As for these problems exist in insurance market, we should actively explore the corresponding countermeasures. I will discuss these from the supply identity, the need identity and the external regulation of intermediary service. First, we should clearly understand the development direction of China's insurance intermediary market and chose the appropriate operational mode according to the reality of specific development. Second, comprehensively improve the self-requirements of intermediaries, on the one hand, strengthen the overall quality, including upgrading the quality of agency employees, defining market position, taking the road of professionalism, strengthening the integrity, system construction and industry self-regulation, etc; on the one hand, actively innovate on products, services, sales channels and organization. Third, improve the external environment for the development of insurance intermediaries. For example, insurance intermediary should increase the publicity of themselves and guide consumers to increase the insurance awareness; the insurance companies should actively participate in industry reform, transform the development mode, achieve a reasonable division of labor of the insurance industry chain and take intensive development path, simultaneously, the insurance companies should strengthen the management responsibilities to their agencies and marketing personnel. The regulatory authorities should help to exert the flexibility and initiative of market competition mechanism, improve the quality of market identities, and actively promote the industry restructuring and perfect the relevant laws and regulations; at the same time, forces from self-discipline and social supervision should actively play its constraint role for intermediary market behavior.What we can expect is:with the joint efforts of all parties, as the refining division of insurance industry, the improvement of the intermediary operations and service capabilities, the insurance intermediaries will have closer cooperation with the insurance companies and their importance and influence will be further highlighted.