Study On The Product Development Of Commercial Health Insurance In China

The development of commercial health insurance started late, along with China’s rapid economic development, commercial health insurance has made rapid development, the premium of commercial health insurance developed from 65.5 billion in 2000 to 574 billion in 2009, the average growth rate reached 27.3%. Currently, there are thousands of health insurance products on sold, business entities are growing, and foreign insurance companies continue to enter the Chinese health insurance market, so the competitive is more diversity. Demand of commercial health insurance is very strong, but the effective supply is not enough, the products are higher homogeneity, and can’t meet consumers’demand.At present, the demand for commercial health insurance is larger, but the effective supply is lack, the main reason is that the market position of different insurance companies is unclear, do not make market segmentation for the health insurance, and lack of awareness of consumer demand; so the products have strong homogeneity, and cannot meet consumers’different demand. In the new historical turning point, the commercial insurance sectors to seize this rare opportunity for development, they must recognize the problems in product development, pay more attention to the health insurance market segmentation research, and increase understanding of the needs of consumers, then, According to the company’s market position, they should find the right product development strategy, develop more health insurance products which can meet consumers’ different demands.Based on a realistic background, this paper attempts through our commercial health insurance market in both demand-side and supply-side analysis of the situation, find out the product development problems, at last, I think the right way to solve this problem is doing health insurance market segments and more understanding of consumer demand, finding good product development strategy. The whole thesis consists of 5 chapters, and the framework goes as below: The first chapter is titled as’Introduction’. This chapter first points out the purpose and significance of this research. Second, described the research ideas and research methods, thirdly examined a large amount of literatures, organized literature review and described the theoretical basis of this article. Finally, pointed out the innovations of this article and shortcomings.The second chapter is titled as’demand and supply analysis of commercial health insurance product’. At first, we introduce the study on demand by domestic scholars and institutions and make conclusions:the demand for commercial health insurance is very strong. Then, we analysis the supply of commercial health insurance status and problems in product development:product is variety, but with strong homogeneity; the supply of health insurance products which needed more is less; products cannot meet consumers’different demand. The insurance companies do not know enough about consumers’demand, resulting in lack of innovation in developing products, the products cannot meet consumers’different demand, and the effective supply of products is not enough. Finally we find the way to solve the problem:making health insurance market segments, increasing the understanding of the needs of consumers, according to the position of the company, to find the right product development strategy.The third chapter describes as’the commercial health insurance market segments’, health insurance product development which based on target audiences is to develop targeted products. To determine the target audience, the segmentation must be carried out. In this chapter, the author makes the individual health insurance market segmentation and the group health insurance market segmentation separately. In the individual health insurance market segmentation, the author use single variable method and multivariate cluster analysis method to segment the market; age, education, household income, the city level, region, buying property are common single variables; financial concepts/risk attitude, age/education, career/family income, marital status/stage of life, with the insurance/plan to buy the insurance, the premium level of affordable are common multi-variables. Through the market segmentation, you can understand the different market segments Features and value. Group health insurance market segment mainly using group size, nature, industry, regional and other organizations segment characteristics. Consumers in the same market segment usually have certain homogeneity of the risk, and have different risk when in different market segments; the analysis provide a theoretical basis for product development.The chapter four discusses the’An empirical analysis of consumer preferences on demand, in Sichuan province health insurance market as an example’,2009, the "new health care reform, " provides a new development ideas for the health insurance, in this chapter, the author considered the social security factors,conducted an investigation on Health insurance market in Sichuan province, and used the research data to analysis health insurance market demand characteristics and consumer preferences in Sichuan.The last chapter is about’different types of insurance company’s market positioning and product development strategy research’. In China, the business entities of commercial health insurance is diverse, different types of Insurance companies should first conduct market position, then develop product. In China, life insurance companies and professional health insurance companies can operate all the health insurance business, professional health insurance companies should reflect the professional character, and property insurance company can only operate short-term health insurance, therefore, different types of insurance companies have different market position, for the different development strategy, the same type of insurance companies may have different market position and want to occupy different market segments. After the "new medical reform", the health insurance product development strategy should be more flexible, including: product innovation, product mix, and health management integration, participation in social basic medical insurance, different insurance company should consider its own characteristics, select the appropriate development strategy to develop product.The possible innovations of this article are as followings:1. Most of the commercial health insurance product research is before the new health care reform, the research in this article considers the new health care reform," has a high degree discussion about the existing problems in the product development, and put forward recommendations for product development.2. In this article, the author uses the theory of market positioning and market segmentation in the product development. 3. Besides the theatrical analysis, this paper also makes empirical analysis based on the Sichuan health insurance market research data, and analysis the different types of consumers’buying preferences.This inadequacy exists:1. This article uses the data of Sichuan Province, without taking into account the uneven economic development in China, the selected samples only reflect the situation in a region, but cannot represent the situation throughout the country.2. As the author’s theoretical knowledge is limited, and the lack of practical experience, the theoretical analysis may not be enough, I will issue further in future research.