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securities times reporter liu jingyuan

on wednesday, the new "ten national policies" for the insurance industry were officially released, which mentioned "accelerating the reform of the marketing system." industry insiders believe that this has established an institutional foundation for the insurance industry to continue exploring the transformation of marketing personnel.

securities times reporter learned that in recent years, leading life insurance companies have been exploring the creation of professional planners: financial insurance planners, health and wealth planners, retirement planners, wealth and health insurance planners, and full life cycle planners...

industry insiders interviewed analyzed that the transition from insurance agents to various planners is a reform and upgrade of insurance companies from the supply side to meet customer needs, which also means that insurance has shifted from focusing on sales to focusing on customer needs. these new professions of planners not only place higher demands on the ability of agents, but also represent a competition of the comprehensive competitiveness of insurance companies.

various planners emerge

recently, xinhua insurance announced at the omni-channel summit that it is actively building a training system for life cycle planners (wlp). wlp is a new development track planned by the company for outstanding sales personnel under the framework of the "xin generation plan". its mission is to provide customers with life insurance, health, retirement, wealth management and children's education services based on an interdisciplinary and widely integrated knowledge structure, focusing on the insurance protection and financial needs of customers and their families throughout their life cycle, and providing high-net-worth individuals with solutions for the entire life cycle and the entire wealth cycle.

this is another large life insurance company that is pushing high-performing agents to advance to planners. several life insurance companies have already taken action before.

last year, china life announced the launch of a new marketing model called the "seed plan" to establish a new team with "financial insurance planners" as the main body to provide customers with diversified protection such as health, retirement, and wealth management. as of the end of june, the "seed plan" has been advancing in an orderly manner, with pilot projects launched in 24 cities and initial results achieved.

ping an life insurance has joined hands with tsinghua university and peking university to create the "ping an life insurance wealth and health insurance planner" training program, covering multiple fields including investment, law, taxation, medicine, and pension.

taikang insurance group has created the health wealth planner (hwp) to provide customers with consulting and planning services on insurance, health, retirement and financial management, and to help customers meet their planning needs that combine insurance and physical medical and retirement services.

taibao life insurance has created a "five-year four-certificate" professional competence certification system in its team transformation, which is a five-year professional training and professional certification program for insurance agents, including health managers, pension planners, financial and tax planners, and inheritance planners. dajia life insurance, which is exploring the independent agent model, has also launched a "three-year six-certificate" professional certification training program, including health and wealth planners, retirement planners, and family financial security planners.

similar to this are taiping life's "medical and health care manager", aia life's "retirement planner", picc life's "iwp insurance wealth planner", and caixin life's "plp personal life insurance planner".

in terms of form, some insurance companies’ planner projects are aimed at existing sales teams, such as ping an life insurance. others are to create a new team of planners, which will be different from the existing sales teams in terms of recruitment conditions and support policies, such as china life insurance and picc life insurance.

zhu junsheng, an insurance scholar and member of the expert committee of the china insurance and social security research center of peking university, analyzed to the securities times reporter that the differences between planners and agents in each company are different, but in general, various professional planners are an "upgraded version" of agents.

from focusing on sales

customer-centric

zhu junsheng believes that insurance companies create various professional planners to continuously upgrade the supply-side agent level and promote professional transformation; at the same time, it is also to better meet customer needs, especially the needs of high-net-worth individuals. people born in the 1980s and 1990s have become the main customer base of insurance companies. they have higher requirements for the professionalism of insurance agents and make more rational decisions. in recent years, high-net-worth individuals have been increasingly valued by insurance companies.

"the transformation from an insurance agent to a planner is actually a transformation from the original insurance service model that focuses on sales to a comprehensive insurance service model that is centered on the customer's full life cycle risk management and wealth management needs, and features professional value and long-term companionship." zhou jin, partner of pwc china's financial industry management consulting, analyzed to a securities times reporter that this is also an inevitable trend in line with the insurance industry's customer-centric transformation and high-quality development requirements.

zhou jin believes that this transformation has put forward higher requirements on the quality, ability and professional value of the agent team. the previous sales that simply relied on relationships and marketing tactics can obviously no longer meet the professional needs of customers. planners must have professional knowledge of economics, finance and risk management, and also need to make valuable professional suggestions on asset allocation and wealth planning, health management and retirement arrangements, as well as tax planning and family wealth inheritance that customers care about, in order to attract and retain customers, and achieve the win-win goal of satisfying customer needs and tapping customer value through accompanying professional services.

to enhance comprehensive strength

to encourage agents to become professional planners, insurance companies need to have supporting policies in place, which should not only empower agents’ professionalism but also connect various service resources such as the health care ecosystem to build a better resource platform for agents.

in zhou jin's view, for insurance companies, building a planner model requires changing their business model and philosophy, revising the basic law and assessment standards, improving the professional skills of the team, and equipping them with digital platform tools. for insurance companies with high-end strategies, they may also achieve differentiated competition through the shaping of independent brands and culture, the design of honor systems, and targeted product and service packages.

different from the existing team, china life's "seed plan" has new positioning, new structure, new system, new marketing, new empowerment, and new development. among them, the new structure refers to the transformation of the marketing organizational structure from multi-level to flat, and from one person with multiple positions to professional focus. the new system is to optimize the reform in six aspects: incentive orientation, assessment management, personnel access, capacity drive, business quality, and development demands.

in terms of ecological resources, ping an of china, for example, has continued to deepen its strategic layout of "comprehensive finance + medical care and elderly care". according to ping an of china's semi-annual report, as of the end of june 2024, more than 63% of ping an's 236 million individual customers also used the services provided by its medical care and elderly care ecosystem; home-based elderly care services covered 64 cities across the country, and more than 120,000 customers have obtained home-based elderly care service qualifications; high-quality health care community projects have been launched in 5 cities.

yang yucheng, chairman of xinhua insurance, mentioned at the mid-term performance conference that the business of insurance companies appears to be the agents of each company selling insurance products on the front line, but in fact it is a competition of the comprehensive competitive strength of each company behind the scenes. he said that the "customer-centric" strategy is not a simple sentence, but a comprehensive and systematic project, from the improvement of product competitiveness to the creation of a customer service ecosystem, and also involves technology, operations, compensation, etc. recently, the company released new plans in five dimensions: products, customer service, operational services, health care, and training to enable development.

in zhu junsheng's view, insurance companies' promotion of professional upgrading of agents is not only reflected in the creation of planners themselves, but also in the entire agent team, such as better distribution of benefits, upgrading the training system, and helping new talents entering the insurance industry to retain, so as to enter a virtuous circle of "professional improvement of the team, better customer service, and business development of insurance companies."