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according to regulatory requirements, starting from september 1, the upper limit of the predetermined interest rate of ordinary insurance products will be reduced to 2.5%; from october 1, the upper limit of the predetermined interest rate of participating insurance products will be 2.0%. at present, the predetermined interest rate has entered the "2 era", the insurance market structure has quietly changed, and the sales strategies of various insurance products and the choices of banks have also been adjusted accordingly.

after the predetermined interest rate is reduced, which types of insurance products will become mainstream in the market and recommended by banks? on october 7, a beijing business daily reporter visited a number of bank outlets and found that in addition to traditional insurance products such as incremental whole life insurance, more and more participating insurance products with guaranteed minimum + floating income are on the shelves, especially dividend-increased whole life insurance, which takes into account both guarantees and dividends, is becoming a new product for banks.

increased whole life insurance remains popular

since the beginning of this year, savings insurance has continued to sell well. among them, incremental whole life insurance with a predetermined interest rate of 3.0% has become the most popular savings insurance product on the market due to its high return rate and flexible product design.

however, higher predetermined interest rates also increase the risk of spread losses in the insurance industry. to this end, the regulator issued the "notice on improving the pricing mechanism of personal insurance products" in august, which lowered the predetermined interest rates of ordinary, participating and universal insurance products. the sales of insurance products with predetermined interest rates exceeding the upper limit have been stopped.

what are the new changes in the insurance market after the scheduled interest rate cut? the reporter visited various bank branches on october 7.

a financial account manager of a state-owned bank told a beijing business daily reporter that although the income is not as good as before, incremental whole life insurance is still the most popular product recently. if it is a young customer, we generally recommend purchasing incremental whole life insurance products.

in fact, not only in bancassurance channels, but also in individual insurance channels and intermediary channels, incremental whole life insurance is also a popular product at the moment. the reporter noticed that many insurance agents are still "selling" incremental whole life insurance in their circle of friends.

"increased whole life insurance is still popular after the predetermined interest rate has been reduced, mainly because it has a higher guaranteed interest rate and higher flexibility, and you can surrender the policy and withdraw the cash value at any time." he jiyong, president of zhangru research institute, analyzed , under the current interest rate environment, incremental whole life insurance can provide relatively stable income. coupled with the prediction of downward interest rates in the medium and long term, the advantages of incremental whole life insurance are even more obvious.

increased importance of dividend-paying products

walking into the lobby of a certain city commercial bank, a beijing business daily reporter noticed an insurance product promotion board: "invest with me for five years, and i will protect you for life. please ask the lobby manager for details." the lobby account manager of the bank recommended to the reporter an insurance product that everyone participating whole life insurance under life insurance.

in the future, participating insurance products will become an important product sold by insurance companies. recently, a number of listed insurance companies made it clear at the 2024 interim results conference that their subsequent product strategies will focus on participating insurance. executives of large insurance companies such as ping an of china, china pacific insurance, and china taipei insurance company have all expressed plans to increase the proportion of participating insurance sales to 50%.

previously, participating insurance has been the main insurance type in my country’s personal insurance market. yang zeyun, a teacher at the department of finance at beijing union university school of business, said in an interview with reporters that from the current reality, in an environment where interest rates are declining and other investment products are fluctuating, participating insurance can not only obtain insurance protection, but also share insurance. the income from company operations is a good choice.

among various participating insurance products, participating incremental whole life insurance has attracted more attention. an account manager of another joint-stock bank told reporters that the bank's main product in the future will be dividend-increased whole life insurance. in addition to guaranteed returns of 2.0% predetermined interest rate, this type of product also provides dividends, and the combined returns are pretty good. however, the new product has not yet been fully launched and is expected to be completed after the holidays. recently, the bank has conducted unified sales training.

a reporter from beijing business daily learned that on the basis of retaining the predetermined interest rate of 2.0%, dividend-increased whole life insurance can also pay dividends to policy holders based on the actual operating conditions of the insurance company. however, it should be noted that the main factor affecting the level of policy dividends is the actual operating conditions of the participating insurance business. therefore, there is uncertainty in the annual dividend distribution.

xu yuchen, a senior actuary, said that the predetermined interest rate for the guaranteed part of participating incremental whole life insurance has dropped, and is now 2.0%, which is 0.5 percentage points lower than the 2.5% of traditional incremental whole life insurance. in addition to the guaranteed part, customers can enjoy dividend income, and policyholders can share the operating results of dividend products with the insurance company.

in the future personal insurance market, which type of product will be more popular, participating insurance products or traditional incremental whole life insurance? xu yuchen said that there is actually no contradiction between added whole life insurance and participating insurance. among added whole life insurance, there are both traditional products and participating products. as for which type of product will sell better, it actually depends on the income of the product itself. level.

xu yuchen gave a simple example and said that according to regulations, insurance companies should distribute at least 70% of the distributable surplus of participating insurance business to customers in the current year. if the investment return rate of an insurance company's participating insurance funds is 3.5%, minus the 2.0% guaranteed return, there will be 1.5% left. multiply this 1.5% by 70%, then the customer policy holder can get another 1.5%. dividend income of around %.

more attention should be paid to long-term value

for ordinary consumers, whether they are purchasing traditional insurance products or dividend-based products, they need to make a choice based on their own circumstances and pay attention to the risks involved.

xu yuchen reminded that traditional life insurance products pay more attention to medium and long-term value. consumers need to pay attention to the fact that surrendering the policy in the short term will cause financial losses. consumers should choose according to their own needs and pursue medium- and long-term stable returns rather than short-term high returns. income. it should also be noted that if you choose a participating product, when the investment return of the insurance company's participating account is not particularly good, the dividend part of the participating insurance may be 0.

the beijing financial supervision bureau also recently issued a consumer risk warning stating that before purchasing insurance products, consumers must carefully read the terms of the insurance contract, understand the product’s key information such as premium payment, coverage, claim conditions, exclusions, etc., and compare the advantages of different products. disadvantages, evaluate whether your own needs match product characteristics, and make rational choices that are consistent with your own reality.

beijing business daily reporter li xiumei