China saw an abrupt surge in companies seeking to join the online insurance sector in 2020, with authorities now stepping up efforts to tightly regulate the sector.
The China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) recently issued the “Online Insurance Operations Regulatory Measures” (互联网保险业务监管办法), which stipulate that institutional and individual participants in online insurance operations must be licensed.
Data from Qichacha indicates that China is currently host to over 20,000 companies involved with the online insurance sector. In 2020 alone a total of 7741 enterprises involved with online insurance registered with Chinese authorities, for a YoY rise of 93%. In the fourth quarter of last year alone 2061 new online insurance companies joined the sector.
China’s online insurance sector saw a gradual rise in growth last decade. The period from 2011 – 2013 saw the registration of just 643 companies in the sector, a figure which rose to 479 in 2014, 862 in 2016 and 2150 in 2017.
Guangdong province is host to the largest number of registered online insurance companies at 1999. Hunan province comes in second with 1726, Shandong third with 1571 and Jiangsu fourth with 1363.
