After the craze for buying insurance in Hong Kong gradually subsided, AIA, which originated in the United States but also flourished in the mainland, began to diversify its insurance products.

However, do its expensive sales fees, bundled critical illness insurance, and product design have any advantages over state-owned insurance companies?

On January 10, AIA was named by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) for violating the regulatory regulations that prohibit floating rates for long-term health insurance products due to its reporting of fee floating management measures for many long-term health insurance products.

Prior to this, AIA was fined by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission for "agent deceiving policyholders." Insurance companies have many ways to design products.

Before 2019, AIA’s critical illness insurance was criticized for “even minor illnesses must be divided into groups.”

Expensive"?

AIA Group has a long history and originated in the United States.

It was once a wholly-owned subsidiary of American International Group (AIG), but was later sold by AIG and became an independent operating entity.

In 2010, AIA was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and has grown rapidly, expanding its subsidiaries in mainland China and setting up branches in Shanghai, Guangdong, Shenzhen, Beijing and Jiangsu.

AIA Group is a major life insurance group in the Asia-Pacific region, covering 18 markets in the Asia-Pacific region with a business of more than 32 million.

"Investor Network" researchers learned that the AIA insurance companies in Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan Province all belong to the AIA Group and are different subsidiaries of the AIA Group.

Due to different economic environments and investment channels, their insurance products and regulatory authorities are also very different.

In other words, AIA and AIA China in Hong Kong are actually different entities operating independently.

An insider revealed to a researcher at "Investor Network" that because the company names are not much different and the sales staff's exaggerated publicity, many customers who buy AIA in Guangzhou mistakenly think that they are buying AIA in Hong Kong.

In fact, the premiums, policy values, and product types of Hong Kong insurance products are different from those in the Mainland. Moreover, since the Mainland is regulated by the China Banking Regulatory Commission, there are also some differences in regulatory requirements.

A salesperson from China AIA told a researcher from Investor Network that the craze for buying insurance in Hong Kong has now been diluted.

Exchange controls have been tightened as regulations have become clearer.

After purchasing from AIA Hong Kong, the money from the claim settlement cannot be brought back to the country at once, which also brings certain difficulties to the claim settlement.

According to data disclosed by EAA, new policy premiums brought by mainland tourists in the first three quarters of 2018 were HK$34.1 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 15.8%.

Among many foreign insurance companies, AIA has obvious advantages and a long history. There is no need to worry too much about solvency. Insurance agents are generally highly educated, which is reassuring.

When mentioning AIA, most people's first reaction is "expensive", and the second reaction is "the sales staff are highly educated".

"Investor Network" compared the same type of products between AIA and state-owned insurance companies of similar size and found that the premiums for policies with the same insured amount were relatively high.

In AIA's critical illness insurance, the payment period can be 10 years, 19 years, or 25 years, and payment is calculated in 19 years.

For example, the "AIA Quanyou Zhizhen Ultimate Universal Insurance Plan" promoted by AIA can be purchased by an adult starting from the age of 30. The insured amount is 300,000 yuan and the payment period is 19 years, so the annual payment is 15,240 yuan.

The plan includes five types of insurance, namely critical illness insurance, D critical illness insurance, malignant neoplastic disease insurance and malignant tumor insurance.

Comparing the same type of product "Ping An Fu 2019" of the state-owned insurance leader Ping An Insurance, it is also calculated based on the age of 30, the payment period is 20 years, and the annual premium is 13,923 yuan.

"Hidden dangers" in claims Industry insiders told Investor Network that during the insurance process, out of the principle of utmost integrity, health surveys before insurance are now in the form of health notifications.

In other words, when purchasing critical illness insurance, there is no need for a physical examination. Consumers only need to ask if they have relevant diseases, and consumers can confirm whether they have been sick.

"But in fact, most insurance companies are connected to your medical insurance card for a long time. As long as you don't report your illness, you can defraud your insurance when making claims."

Researchers from "Investor Network" found that most insurance company agents stated that "consumers are not recommended to undergo physical examinations before and after taking out insurance" because "this will increase their illness records and lead to invalid bills."

Then, if consumers have related indicators such as "high blood pressure", they will forget this issue when applying for insurance.

Because it was impossible to self-check before applying for insurance, relevant issues were discovered after applying for insurance and the application was rejected.

Will this situation increase the number of invalid policies?

In this regard, 003010 researcher asked the practitioners, who said that if only a small part of the indicators in the case exceed the standard, it does not belong to "malicious insurance while sick", and the insurance company will settle the claim smoothly.

Most insurance companies adopt diversified sales channels, such as selling insurance through banks and the Internet.

Researcher "Investor Network" learned that AIA currently does not vigorously develop telephone sales channels. Most of them are offline salesmen, and some conventional accident insurance is sold on Taobao and other platforms.

Personal life insurance accounts for the largest proportion of AIA China’s business revenue.

In addition, its participating insurance, universal insurance, and investment-linked insurance also increased.

AIA China's 2017 annual report shows that surrender premiums have increased compared with 2016, mainly due to an increase in surrenders of personal health insurance and personal annuities, and a significant increase in employee expenses.

In 2017, employee salary and welfare expenses were 1.041 billion yuan, compared with 878 million yuan in 2016.