Research On The Development Strategy Of Domestic Insurance Assessment

Insurance assessor is a unit, which is entrusted by the insurance parties and engaged in the evaluation, inspection, identification, assessment and adjustment of the loss of the insurance subject etc. Its appearance can be traced back to the Britain more 300 years ago --the construction fire insurance promoted by the London conflagration in 1666 gestated the insurance assessment business. Nowadays, this system in the Occident is improving and promotes insurance development greatly. According to the statistics, in today's market-oriented and labor-divided developed insurance market, the insurer is only responsible for underwriting, capital application and the correspondent management, which the agents and the assessors undertake the product distribution and the latter at the same time answers for over 80% of the risk assessment and the settlement of claims. It can be said that the appearance and development of the assessor is an important mark of the mature insurance market.With the development, opening and maturation of the domestic insurance market, market subjects get rational day by day. The increasing supply subjects result in drastic competition. The focus of completion has switched from price to service. In operation of the insurance business, the claim and settlement of claims is continuity of disaster mitigation and loss prevention, and meanwhile, the embodiment of the economic compensation function of insurance. It is significant for the insurer to get done well with the claim and settlement of claims, which will enhance the operation and management, and hoist the insurer's credit and economic benefit.The insurance assessor surveys, identifies and evaluates the damaged subject scientifically, justly and practically and timely, which avoids the disputation of the insurer and the insurant, and hence can be a coordinating body for the two parties. However, in domestic insurance market, compared to agents and brokers, as one of the three pillars of insurance intermediaries, the insurance assessor has appeared late, and developed slow. The first domestic modern insurance assessor is founded until 1990.From 2003, the insurance assessment business has been growing fast under the policy of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, while the policy lowers the entrance threshold--the registered capital reduced to RMB 500,000 from RMB 2,000,000, and the restriction of the employed becomes flexible, which results in the throng of numerous capital and the disorder of the competition. Without question, it is against the continuous, healthy and stable development of the insurance assessment business in the long run.That China joins in WTO brings great opportunities as well as serious challenges to the insurance assessment. It is urgent to realize the domestic status quo and the problems as well as the causations, and further explores the countermeasures. The writer of this paper has worked in Sichuan Hengxin Insurance assessor Co. Ltd., and engaged in disposal of cases. He understands deep the status quo and the problems and is interested in studying the assessor. This paper, based the relevant research and achievement, combined the experiences of the writer in his work, adopts methods of comparative analysis and non-experimental analysis, discusses deep the status quo and the problems of domestic insurance assessor, and then points out the approaches for development from the macro and micro angle.The paper is divided into three capitals. The main idea and framework are as follows:The first part (the Introduction) briefly introduces the background of the topic choice, the purpose and methods of research and the framework of the whole paper.The second part ( Chapterâ… )generates the insurance assessment. This part introduces the concepts of the insurance assessment and the insurance assessor, and their origins. Section three focuses on the inevitability of the appearance and development of the insurance assessment, and points out that the insurance assessment is the essential product with the social labor division and commodity exchange, as well as with the development of insurance. Finally, this part analyses the six basic characteristics: independent in status, neutral in standpoint, universal in business, technical in specialty, objective in conclusion and economically efficient in result.The third part( Chapterâ…¡)introduces the development , status quo and the causations of the domestic insurance assessment business. First, this part briefly analyses that the domestic insurance assessment appears late and develops slow. In the section two, it discusses the status quo from five aspects, i.e., institution amount, capital strength, business growth, business choice and construction, and assessment talents, and indicates that most domestic insurance assessors share limited business sources and is in hard situation. Until 2000, the whole assessment business got in the black for the first time. The development is uneven: according to the revenue, the top 10 insurance assessors account for over 50% of the whole market share, especially, the 10 assessors are all from the developed regions, such as Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Shanghai etc., while most of the others get lower revenue or even make a loss. Section three probes into the causations. With the traditional management model and ideas, most insurers own their department and members for settlement of claims and treat with most businesses that may be entrusted to the assessor. Besides, most people are not familiar with the assessment business, and won not ask the assessor for help. These lead to scant demand of the insurance assessment. From the supply part, the special assessor and the by-business assessor exist both in the market, while latter makes the market in disorder and leads to unfair competition. As for the assessor itself, problems like shortage of talents and capital, lower technology and so on are against the development of the insurance assessment. Furthermore, laws and policies need to be improved. Besides, without a uniform standard for the fee charge, the assessor makes their charge with freedom, leading to a hard situation.The fourth part (Chapterâ…¢) puts forward the countermeasures for the development of the insurance assessment business. Based on Chapterâ…¡, this part brings forward seven countermeasures to better and develop the domestic insurance assessment business. First, establish relevant laws and regulations; make definite the legal status of insurance assessment. It is suggested to add law about insurance assessment to the Insurance Law, so that its legal status can be clear, and that the assessment report is of legal effect. Second, reinforce the publicity of insurance; enhance the social cognition in insurance assessment. The government, the insurance regulatory bureau and the insurance association in all levels, as well as the insurer, the assessor should publicizes insurance and insurance assessment lawfully and let the public know the benefits that the assessor brings to the society with real cases. Here, the writer points out that the insurer and the insurant may note in the insurance contract that when the insured accident happens, any party has the right to employ the assessor to evaluate the accident, and that the names and telephones of at least three assessors in the local area. Third, deepen the operation system reform of the insurer and leave space of the assessor. The domestic insurer should shift the management idea and hand over the settlement of claims to the assessor. Fourth, the insurance assessor should enhance their quality. The assessor should regulate themselves, assimilate and cultivate qualified assessment talents, and better the talent structure and technology, and get done with the business fairly and efficiently. Fifth, strengthen the supervision and regulation of the insurance assessor. The country should build the government supervision system, the association supervision system and the social supervision system as soon as possible, especially the social supervision system. The writer considers that the insurance regulatory bureau or the association in all levels may set a complaint center, and open the complaint line, and at the same time, that the insurer must note the telephone number on the insurance contract, endowing the applicant and the insurant the right to complain. Then the complaint center, based on a series of indicators, establishes the credit rating system, and publicizes the results to the insurer and the public, who may choose the insurance assessor according to the results. Sixth, establish a uniform standard for fee charge. The writer, according to his experiences, provides that the fee charge should base on the claim sum, the adjusted sum and the assessment technology needed etc, rather than some uncertain factors like technology of the assessor or the time needed etc. Seventh, better the existing examination system for the insurance assessor. It should better add more title types, set up different levels of exams according to the business lines, so that the employees can pursue assistant assessor, assessor or the advanced assessor according to themselves.