At present, the insurance industry in China is in a period of rapid development. In recent years, the premium income has increased by nearly 30%, and the total assets have also increased from 260.4 billion yuan in199 to 9 123 billion yuan in 2003. At the same time, China's insurance industry is also in the initial stage of development. In order to become bigger and stronger, major insurance companies are pursuing scale expansion and collectivization development, in order to occupy a place in China, a market with great potential. Some insurance companies not only engage in life insurance and property insurance, but also extend their reach to financial fields such as securities and investment. Moreover, with the development of the insurance market, the types of insurance are not limited to traditional guaranteed products, and investment products such as dividend insurance and investment linkage have begun to flood into the insurance market rapidly. In 2000, the national dividend insurance premium income only accounted for 3.7% of life insurance premium income. By 2002, this figure had soared to more than 40%, and continued to grow to more than 60% in 2003. The quality of dividend insurance sales directly determines the overall performance of a life insurance company. On the surface, dividend insurance is likely to replace the main position of traditional life insurance. Even property insurance companies are unwilling to be lonely and develop dividend-paying property insurance products. However, is this the business development direction of insurance companies? Or should the insurance company's main business be dividend insurance? My opinion is negative.

The so-called sickness and death, insurance must first solve the basic protection of people's pension, illness, medical care, accidents, and then explore how to improve the quality of life. Dividend insurance is to meet the needs of the latter. In the developed countries of insurance industry, product innovation is the main consideration in developing investment products such as dividends when per capita insurance coverage is relatively saturated and financial mixed operation becomes the mainstream. In China, the insurance density is 287.44 yuan, and the insurance depth is 3.33%. The per capita premium of more than 200 yuan can't even support the basic guarantee, let alone put the spare money of ordinary people into it. In order to seize market share and increase premium income, companies vigorously promote the sales of dividend insurance. However, domestic policyholders don't know enough about insurance and expect too much dividends, which leads to complaints when the market is depressed. When the market is optimistic, they blindly surrender their insurance and turn to the stock market. This similar abnormal market development process violates the normal track of the development of the insurance industry.

The difference between dividend insurance and traditional insurance is that the insured has a certain dividend distribution in addition to basic protection. The main sources of dividends are the dead interest, expense interest and spreads of insurance companies, and other profit sources. These three differences are all related to the insurance company's own operation, risk control and market operation, among which the spread is the main source of dividends, and the return on investment of insurance companies directly affects the size of dividends. It can be said that the investment environment is a barometer of dividend performance. 198, the average return on investment of domestic insurance companies was 7.5%, which dropped to 4.3% in 200 1 year, and only 2% to 3% in recent two years. The dividend insurance with high interest rate in the early period has been severely tested under the impact of continuous interest rate cuts. Recently, due to the poor investment environment, investment channels have not been fully liberalized, and dividends are generally low, even lower than bank savings, which leads to dissatisfaction among policyholders and instability of the insurance market to some extent.

Another feature of dividend insurance is substitution. That is to say, it can replace other financial products. This characteristic determines that people regard it as a way of investment and financial management to a great extent. Once the investment markets such as securities and funds improve, people will shift their money from dividend insurance to other investment projects. The decline in bank insurance premiums in the first quarter of this year was mainly caused by the hot market of securities and funds. From this point of view, at present, the premium scale bubble of insurance companies is too large, in fact, a large part of it is just custody funds. There are great hidden dangers in this situation. When the investment market is good and a large number of customers surrender, insurance companies will face huge cash flow risks.

In addition, from the perspective of the asset-liability management model of insurance companies, excessive sales of dividend insurance is also not conducive to the development of insurance companies. Life insurance companies pay attention to the continuity and stability of cash flow in asset and liability management. However, due to the weak protection function of dividend insurance, customers attach importance to its investment function, and a considerable number of policyholders choose the way of wholesale premium, which is particularly prominent in bank insurance. As a result, the proportion of wholesale premiums of insurance companies is too high, and the business structure is seriously affected, which is unfavorable to the long-term development of the company.

Of course, the contribution of dividend insurance to the development of China's insurance industry cannot be ignored, and it is an important part of the insurance product system. In order to realize the benign development of China's insurance industry and take the road of long-term development, at present, it is still necessary to return to the essence of insurance, take traditional insurance products as the core, enhance the protection function of insurance, consider the vital interests of customers, and develop insurance products that people really need. Take security as the guide, supplemented by investment dividends, and effectively improve the level of security. This is also in the long-term interests of insurance companies.

Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.