Analysis And Comparison Of China & Developed Countries' Insurance Intermediary Market

Insurance intermediary has become an indispensable andimportant component in developed countries. It works between thetwo parts of insurance, being a communication of information supplyand demand for both sides of insurance, providing professional andtechnical support of insurance to produce the successful sale ofinsurance and helping resolve insurance disputes. And it is composedof insurance brokers, assessors and insurance agents. They occupydifferent status in the insurance market, and play an important role.With the development of China's insurance market, it showsdiversified trends, and the insurance market gradually turned from aseller's to a buyer's market, the domestic insurance industry and theinternational insurance market are closely related and finally theinsurance intermediary plays a more and more important role inimproving the structure of China's insurance market. Its developmentis not only conducive to the balance of supply and demand ininsurance market, but also helpful to raise the professional skills of thedomestic insurance industry, thus improving the quality of services.However, at present China's intermediary insurance market is still notperfect. Most of them are small and incomplete, and lack of internalregulations and face the problems of chaotic management, creditissues. Therefore, in order to further improve and develop China'sinsurance intermediary market, we must base on our own conditions,studying and learning from the developed countries (regions),comparing and analyzing the gap of China's insurance intermediary,and then identifying solutions. This paper will study from this problemincluding the following three aspects.Part I: Discuss the basic theory of insurance intermediary.First, define the concept of insurance intermediary. Insuranceintermediary, also known as insurance agent or insurance middleman,refers to the middle service between the two sides of insurance,namely providing counsel for insurance transactions, specializing inthe recruitment and advisory business, and risk managementarrangements, the value of measurement and assessment, identifyingthe loss of intermediary service activities, and to commission or feesto access corporate body or natural person. Narrowly speaking, theinsurance intermediary is composed of insurance agents, insurancebrokers and assessors.Secondly, analyze from the nature of insurance products, thenature of being intangible, "non-officer", trying, beginning with thecredit and checking the need of insurance intermediary in theinsurance transaction.Finally, analyzing from a qualitative and quantitative analysis ofthe advantages of insurance intermediary, draw from the qualitativeanalysis: insurance intermediary is good for communication ofinformation, lowering transaction costs, and increasing market efficiency;conducive to safeguarding fair competition in the market, and promotethe smooth progress of transactions;conducive to the insuranceindustry to enhance the level of professionalism, change theiroperational mechanism, enhance economic efficiency;conducive tothe establishment of the credibility of insurance companies.Part II: Comprehensively study the status and characteristics ofdeveloped countries' insurance intermediary market.First, this paper studies the insurance intermediary market ofBritain, Japan, and the United States.Britain is the birthplace of modern insurance, the most developed,oldest and competitive international insurance and reinsurance center.For historical and legal reasons, it forms a insurance intermediarymodel of the insurance broker for the main, the main subsidiaryinsurance agents for the less. This unique personal insuranceorganization — Lloyd's and its agents in the technical and operationallevels enjoy a higher reputation in the world. And it is worthy of ourstudy.Japan is the world's second largest insurance market. TheJapanese general insurance industry has taken insurance agentsintermediary model. And the main agent of development is fullyformed and forms the unique organizational structure. Thischaracteristic plays an important role in developing and popularizingthe Japanese insurance industry and insurance.America's insurance industry started about 200 years later thanthe British, and its emergence is introduced from British to NorthAmerica, but the United States insurance industry develops veryrapidly, and has become one of the world's largest insurance marketnow. American Insurance developed with their marketing approachclosely.Secondly, the paper also studies the insurance intermediarymarket of South Korea, China's Taiwan and Hong Kong.Currently, Korea ranks the seventh in the world insuranceindustry, only second to Japan in Asia. Taiwan, Hong Kong region ismainly represented by insurance agents, insurance brokers addingmode. The insurance intermediary market in the developed countriesplayed an important role in the development of the insurance industry.Through the analysis of developed countries (regions) of theinsurance intermediary market, it is clear that foreign insuranceintermediary market develops mature, and it is characterized by:insurance intermediary in the insurance market has an irreplaceablerole;healthy market system is the basis for the development ofinsurance intermediary;access review is to ensure the basic quality ofpractitioners in the insurance intermediary effective mechanisms;payattention to the insurance intermediary industry self-regulation andcontrol of behavior. This is worthy of our study at the initial stage ofdevelopment of China's insurance industry.Part Ⅲ: Compare and analyze foreign insurance intermediarymarket and propose the solution to the development of China'sinsurance intermediary.From the current status of China's insurance intermediary market,it has made a great progress after 10 years' development. It is mainlycharacterized by the following four aspects: first, the insuranceintermediary market has begun to take shape;second, the insuranceintermediary market development policy environment is getting better;third, foreign insurance intermediary has landed;fourth, establish thebasic laws and regulations pertaining of the insurance intermediary.Compared with the developed countries, China's insuranceintermediary development is still lagging behind, far from meeting therapid growth and development of the insurance industry. Thedevelopment process also revealed some questions: first, smallmarkets, low performance;second, the low level of professionalism,the credibility issue;third, intermediaries and the insurance companyhas not formed a strategic cooperation;fourth, operate is moreextensive.From the above discussion, it is clear that China's insuranceintermediary market is still in a preliminary stage. Therefore, thefollowing five areas are supposed to improve: first, based on thenational conditions, enlarge the existing scale and the expansion ofinsurance brokers;secondly, establish the credit system insuranceintermediaries;third, cultivate talent insurance intermediary insuranceintermediary practitioners while enhancing quality;fourth, deepen theinsurance companies' reform, and realize the insurance companies"sub-industry";fifth, strengthen the supervision of intermediaries, andperfect the regulatory system. So that China's insurance intermediarycan develop orderly and further promote the sustainable developmentto mature, and be recognized throughout the community.It is reasonable to believe that under the promotion of economicpower, insurance companies, and intermediaries as well as othereconomic factors will be able to create a combination of organic andclose cooperation, being mutually beneficial to the long-term stabilityand promote the prosperity of insurance market.