The Hangzhou Asian Games created a precedent for the first time in China for insurance companies to fully participate in the risk management of large-scale international comprehensive events, which also attracted a wave of "Asian Games fever" of popular sports insurance, and many insurance companies took advantage of the situation to launch the Asian Games version of accident insurance. However, in the face of a potential market of 10 billion yuan, sports insurance needs to continue to make efforts at both ends of "supply and demand" in order to move towards real maturity.
* |China Insurer magazine under Manager Media.
Reporter Zhang Li.
*** Public Gallery.
On the evening of September 23, 2023, the Hangzhou Asian Games kicked off with the ignition ceremony of the first "digital human" in the history of the Asian GamesFifteen days later, the Chinese delegation won 201 gold medals, ending successfully with the best gold medal in the history of the Asian Games.
The Hangzhou Asian Games is the first time in China that an insurance company has fully participated in the risk management of a large-scale international comprehensive event, and its partner, China Pacific Insurance, has provided a total insurance plan of more than 400 billion yuan for the event. At the same time, the insurance market has also ushered in a wave of "Asian Games fever", this magazine learned from the Ant Insurance platform that Ping An, Taibao, Zhong'an and other 8 insurance companies have launched the Asian Games version of "sports accident insurance".
**The National Fitness Plan (2021-2025) predicts that the total scale of the national sports industry will reach 5 trillion yuan in 2025.
Data shows that the size of China's sports insurance market in 2015 was only 5100 million yuan, about 12800 million yuan. Obviously, this is far from enough for the booming sports industry, and in order to make sports insurance truly mature, it is necessary to improve the refinement and customization of products on the supply sideOn the other hand, on the demand side, it is necessary to raise the risk awareness and insurance awareness of the sports community and the sports participation groups.
"Double role" to protect the Hangzhou Asian Games
With the increasing frequency and abundance of sports events, the risk protection of events has also become the top priority. In the new Sports Law, which came into effect on January 1, 2023, sports insurance has been written for the first time. Among them, it is clear that the establishment and improvement of athlete disability insurance, sports accident insurance and venue liability insurance systems are encouraged. At the same time, the Sports Law clarifies that the organizer of a large-scale sports event shall negotiate with the participants to purchase sports accident insurance.
This year's Hangzhou Asian Games set up 40 major events, 61 sub-events, and 481 small events, with more than 12,000 athletes participating. The organization of large-scale sports events has the characteristics of high logistics intensity, and a large number of logistics are gathered in a limited time and space, resulting in a high probability of risk occurrence in the process of event execution and management.
As a partner of the Hangzhou Asian Games, CPIC needs to assume the dual roles of "insurance service provider" and "risk management service provider".
How to understand this "dual role"?First of all, in terms of insurance services, the "package" insurance plan comprehensively covers six categories of property, financial loss, cargo transportation, cybersecurity, liability and personal insurance, of which more than 150,000 people such as family members, athletes, technical staff and staff of the Olympic Council of Asia are provided with life insuranceThen, in terms of risk management, due to the cyclical nature of large-scale sports event organization and planning, if the event is interrupted, delayed or even cancelled due to force majeure, the organizer's upfront investment will become a sunk cost and impact the financial security of the relevant entities.
In this regard, CPIC set up a risk management team, completed the survey of 56 competition venues and 8 non-competition venues before the start of the event, covering an area of more than 5.75 million square meters, issued 63 wind survey reports, and put forward more than 400 rectification suggestions, identifying potential risks in site exploration and event preparation, and further preventing crises.
Sports risk management is very necessary, and it is an important means to identify potential risks in advance. Guan Jing, assistant dean of the School of Economics of Beijing Technology and Business University, said that by identifying different types of sports risks, choosing appropriate risk response strategies is an important means to achieve the goals of the event. It is necessary to realize that sports insurance is only one of the methods of risk response under the series of sports risk management processes, that is, risk transfer, and to truly achieve that risks do not occur and occur less, it is necessary to apply the systematic sports risk management process to the practice of sports event organization and management.
The "Asian Games fever" of sports accident insurance
In addition to event insurance, popular sports insurance has also ushered in the "Asian Games fever". During the Hangzhou Asian Games, this magazine learned from the Internet insurance platform Ant Insurance that 8 well-known domestic insurance companies, including China Pacific Insurance, Zhongan Insurance, and Ping An Insurance, have launched nearly 20 sports accident insurance in Ant Insurance, covering a variety of ball games, track and field, water sports and other sports, and even the two sports of "e-sports" and "break dancing" added for the first time in the Asian Games, there are also exclusive insurance options to choose from.
CPIC, as a partner of the event, has launched three exclusive "Asian Games version" insurance on the Ant Insurance platform, including sports comprehensive accident insurance, running sports accident insurance, football and other ball accident insurance, covering liability for accidental death, accidental disability and accidental medical expenses. The biggest feature of these products is that users can choose flexibly, the protection period is 30 days, the premium ranges from 8 yuan to 46 yuan, and the total sum insured is also 100,000, 300,000 and 500,000 yuan to choose from.
It is worth noting that Zhongan Insurance is the company with the most abundant sports accident insurance product matrix on the Ant Insurance platform, and has launched more than 10 customized insurance products for a number of sports innovations, filling the gap of traditional accident insurance.
The relevant person in charge of Zhongan Insurance said that the newly launched sports insurance is a one-year product, which only costs a few yuan per month through monthly payment, and the maximum protection amount is 500,000 yuan. This product innovation not only considers the sports guarantee with high popularity, but also takes into account the niche "love". For example, e-sports sports are a combination of intelligence and physical strength, but mood swings, unpunctual eating, accidental wrist strain (tenosynovitis), and staying up late for training have also become common sports injuries in this type of sports.
In addition, for more confrontational sports, such as rock climbing, boxing, weightlifting, taekwondo, etc., in addition to accidental medical treatment and death liability, sports fracture coverage is also covered. In addition to the risk of high-frequency accidents, some small bumps** are also taken into account. In athletics, tennis, badminton (balls), swimming (water sports) and other sports accident insurance products, within the scope of liability, users can get quick compensation for self-purchased drugs, saving time and trouble.
Liu Xinli, deputy director of the Department of Risk Management and Insurance at Peking University, believes that insurance relies on the law of large numbers, which matches the risk. High-risk sports have a high probability of insurance and a high loss ratio, and if the ordinary accident insurance includes high-risk sports protection, it will increase the ** of the ordinary accident insurance. This is unfair to the vast majority of insured people who do not engage in high-risk sports. Therefore, it is necessary to develop exclusive insurance products for high-risk sports.
It should be noted that the sports accident insurance of the Ant Insurance platform states in the insurance notice that "accidents that occur during sports activities or performances as professional athletes are not covered", that is, the product is only for the field of popular sports, and professional athletes are excluded from liability.
Supply and demand are insufficient, and they need to be stimulated urgently
The breakthrough of large-scale event insurance and the innovation of mass sports insurance reflect that China's sports insurance is moving forward, but on the whole, the development of sports insurance is still in its infancy. How far is it from being truly mature, and how far is China's sports insurance?
By analyzing the case of Yao Ming, we can truly feel the gap between the development of sports insurance in China and developed countries, especially in terms of protection for professional athletes.
In 2007, Yao Ming became the first global image spokesperson of Chinese Life Insurance Company, and at the same time received 5 million yuan of personal accident insurance provided by Chinese Life. However, when Yao Ming was subsequently suspended due to a stress fracture of the fifth metatarsal, he could not receive compensation from the corresponding insurance. Because the personal accident insurance is given, that is, the claim process can only be triggered when the person suffers a personal accident, and the personal accident needs to have the four elements of external, sudden, unintentional and non-disease. Most sports injuries in athletes cannot be classified as such.
And also missed the game due to injury, Yao Ming got a completely different treatment in the NBA. According to public information, Yao Ming received as much as $11.24 million in insurance compensation for season reimbursement when he played for the Rockets.
Behind the huge difference in treatment is the gap between the supply side of sports insurance, which is reflected in the refinement and customization of product design.
Originally, NBA teams generally had to purchase "Temporary Disability Insurance" (referred to as "TTD Insurance") and "Significant Star Insurance" for their important players, which are specifically for injuries and off-court injuries. The NBA mandates that every team must have TTD insurance for the top five stars in terms of team salaries.
One of the most well-known regulations in TTD insurance is the "41-game rule", which means that when a player has been out of action due to injury for 41 games, the insurance company will cover 80% of his salary and the team will only need to pay 20% of his salary for every game from then until he returns (which can be counted across seasons).
Once a core player is suspended for a long time due to injury, TTD can not only ensure that the player's salary will not be affected, but also reduce the team's financial losses. Not only Yao Ming, but also many well-known stars, such as Kobe Bryant of the Lakers, have also benefited from TTD. In the 2013-2014 season, Kobe Bryant, who had an annual salary of 30 million in the season, only played 6 games and was reimbursed for the season, which triggered the TTD insurance compensation mechanism, and in the next two seasons, Kobe, who had a total annual salary of 2 years and 48.5 million US dollars, missed a total of 123 games, and the Lakers received more than 25 million salary compensation in Kobe's last two seasons.
In addition to the above-mentioned conventional injury insurance, in the NBA, there are also special customized insurance categories, such as "loss of value insurance" for stars who are worried that their next contract may be reduced due to injury, "draft loss insurance" for college star players who are worried that their draft pick is lower than expected, and "important parts insurance" for important body parts of starsThe collective bargaining agreement customizes retirement insurance for the players.
Even now, insurance companies involved in sports leagues are still mainly engaged in marketing purposes such as brand naming, Zhou Yanli, former vice chairman of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, said, "Compared with China's booming sports industry, sports insurance is still lagging behind and lacks commercial operations." Although more and more insurance companies have begun to get involved in the field of sports, they mainly stay at the level of primary protection and brand marketing, improve brand awareness through sponsorship of events, and have not yet established industry-wide insurance that fully covers the before, middle and late stages of the event, lack of exclusive event products and exclusive protection for professional athletes, and the 'sports insurance + health service' model has not yet matured the system."
On the demand side, the relevant person in charge of Zhong'an Financial Technology Research Institute said that the awareness of safety responsibility and risk protection on both sides of supply and demand (sports organizers and sports participants) is generally weak, and the enthusiasm for active insurance is not high.
However, with the growth of the sports industry, the broad development prospects of sports insurance are the general consensus of the industry. So how can sports insurance seize such market opportunities?
From the perspective of the supply side, insurance companies need to improve the "refinement" and "customization" of products, pay attention to the characteristics of scenarios, accelerate the integration of sports insurance development and technological innovation, and continuously improve the applicability of sports insurance products, the scientificity of pricing, the professionalism of underwriting claims, and the convenience of customer service. At the same time, we will explore the data sharing between sports insurance and health, continuously and systematically collect, analyze and interpret sports-related health data, and apply it to sports risk management and sports insurance operations. From the demand side, all walks of life should work together to improve the public's risk perception and demand for sports insurance, strengthen market promotion, and promote the balance of regional development.