Visual China.
New energy vehicle insurance is about to usher in its second anniversary.
The portrayal of the current market is that car owners are shouting expensive, insurance companies are shouting losses, and the "new forces" of car manufacturing have come to an end. Consumers complained that "the fuel money saved has paid the premium";Insurance companies are confined by the high risk rate and high loss ratio of new energy vehicles, and are essentially facing relatively large underwriting loss pressure, and are engaged in "loss-making transactions".New energy vehicle companies are eager to seize the business link, build a closed loop of the car owner ecosystem, and become a competitive partner of traditional insurance companies.
There is no doubt that new energy vehicle insurance will face a long run-in period and maturity period in order to achieve a balance in the "three highs" of high insurance rate, high loss ratio and high premium. This process will inevitably involve the unremitting exploration and active innovation of all relevant parties in the new energy vehicle insurance ecosystem. All parties will work together to solve the dilemma. Recently, the Blue Whale financial reporter communicated with several leading insurance companies and industry insiders to restore a real and comprehensive new energy vehicle insurance market situation.
In response to the voice of "high premium" of new energy vehicle insurance, insurance company people introduced, "the voice exists, but it is not a common phenomenon, compared with before the comprehensive reform, the premium of new energy vehicle insurance is essentially decreasing, but the decline is relatively small compared with fuel vehicles, resulting in the impression that the premium of new energy vehicles is more expensive." ”
Although insurance companies have encountered some operating pressures in the new energy vehicle insurance sector, they have not adopted large-scale premium price increases to make up for losses, but hope to better match the risk premium with the risk characteristics through accurate pricing. From the perspective of industry observation, insurance companies are trying to reduce operating costs from digital transformation, conduct more accurate risk pricing for users, solve problems such as excessive costs on the claim side, and reshape the whole process from the business link.
In addition, intelligent driving technology will bring new challenges. From a long-term perspective, a reinvention of auto insurance is already underway around insurance terms, liability settlements, actuarial models, pricing, and more.
Accurate pricing, and strive to better match the risk premium with the risk characteristics
Before buying a new energy vehicle, I had heard of the high premium of new energy vehicles, but when I actually paid the premium, it still exceeded expectations", a consumer showed his electronic insurance policy to Blue Whale Finance, the total price of the new energy vehicle is less than 200,000 yuan, the total premium is close to 4,000 yuan, nearly 30% higher than the premium of the fuel car at the same price. The superposition of many consumer cases has formed a voice of "high premium" for new energy vehicle insurance in the market.
Voices about the high premiums of new energy vehicles may have been there for a long time, but they are not universal. A number of insurance company people expressed their views in interviews. Some car owners face some models due to different risk levels and differences in driving Xi, resulting in the most reasonable premiums, car owners can not only pay attention to the change of "price", but ignore the adjustment of "quantity". At present, the scope of protection and insurance services enjoyed by new energy vehicle owners is undoubtedly expanded.
An auto salesman also pointed out that most new energy vehicles enjoy subsidies, but when insurance companies calculate car damage insurance premiums, they will calculate them according to the ex-factory price rather than the actual price paid by consumers after enjoying subsidies, so car owners will feel that the premiums for new energy vehicles are higher.
Since the implementation of the comprehensive reform of auto insurance at the end of 2020, the average benchmark premium of the entire car insurance has decreased by about 35%, and the benchmark premium of new energy vehicles has also been reduced. The relevant person in charge of China Property Insurance said in an interview with Blue Whale Finance.
One of the main reasons why consumers think that new energy vehicle insurance is high is that the pricing is not accurate enough. For example, insurance institutions will price more prudently due to risk considerations;Another example is that the real owner of a private car is essentially "paying" for the owner of a private car in name but engaged in business operations.
There is a logic to the pricing of motor insurance premiums. The pricing of a policy includes the cost of compensation, marketing expenses, operating costs, taxes, etc., among which the cost of compensation is the largest cost. According to the data of China Banking and Insurance, the damage rate of the core power of household new energy vehicles is three times that of the engine accident rate of fuel vehicles. Due to the consideration of the risk ratio and loss ratio, the insurance company has to give a relatively prudent price.
Specifically, the relevant person in charge of China Property Insurance introduced that in terms of cost structure, the core power system (three-electric system) of new energy vehicles is composed of batteries, motors and electronic control, which replaces the engine, gearbox and other devices of fuel vehicles, accounting for about 50% of the cost of the whole vehicle, of which the battery accounts for about 76% of the cost of the three-electric system, and the maintenance system of the three-electric system is in a relatively closed state, and the insurance company has a small voice when making claims, and it is difficult to effectively reduce the claimIn addition, a large number of new energy vehicles adopt a body integrated casting structure, and the body is pre-installed with various sensing devices, resulting in higher maintenance costsAt the same time, the new energy vehicle models are updated too quickly, and the sales of a large number of models are low, which makes it difficult to mass produce spare parts and maintain high maintenance costs.
In terms of risk characteristics, there are differences between NEVs and traditional fuel vehicles in terms of the nature of use, energy type and region. In terms of the nature of use, at present, new energy vehicles are mostly used in taxi and online car-hailing scenarios, and they appear as non-business vehicles at the time of insurance, and the adequacy of premiums is seriously insufficient, which has become an important factor in raising the cost of compensationAt the same time, the specific risk factors faced by new energy vehicles, including battery failure, charging failure, spontaneous combustion liability, etc., increase the presumed total loss probability.
In terms of drivers, the owners of new energy vehicles are mainly young people, with relatively short driving experience and relatively immature driving technology.
In addition, according to the statistics of China Re Property Insurance, from the perspective of vehicle damage insurance, the frequency of new energy vehicles of various use properties is almost higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles. Among them, the accident rate of family cars, which accounts for the highest proportion of new energy vehicles, is as high as 30%, which is significantly higher than the data of 19% of fuel vehicles. The average compensation for new energy vehicles is also higher than that of traditional fuel vehicles, with family cars reaching 7,201 yuan, nearly 600 yuan higher than fuel vehicles.
Judging from the actual situation, the overall operating loss of new energy vehicles in the industry is difficult, and all insurance companies are struggling in the new energy vehicle sector. However, in line with the concept of serving consumers, various entities did not adopt a large-scale premium increase to make up for losses. The person in charge of the auto insurance business of another leading property insurance company said frankly, "We always believe that through accurate pricing, we can better match the risk premium with the risk characteristics, so as to build a fairer and more efficient market and better serve consumers." ”
Data and pricing models are the future engine of NEV insurance
What is certain is that the emergence of new energy vehicles has subverted the logic of traditional auto insurance products of insurance companies.
The development of new energy vehicle insurance is considerable, and the cost is under certain pressure. Zeng Yi, general manager of CPIC Property & Casualty, said at CPIC's 2023 interim results briefing.
Losses can be temporary, but they cannot be sustainable. From the perspective of insurance institutions, the overall logic of cost reduction and efficiency increase of new energy vehicles is not fundamentally different from that of fuel vehicles: internal institutions need to optimize management capabilities, improve efficiency and reduce operating costs;Externally, car companies need to optimize the maintenance plan of the vehicle itself to reduce maintenance costs.
From the perspective of industry observation, various institutions are trying to reduce operating costs from digital transformation, race to be the first, conduct more accurate risk pricing for user data, solve problems such as excessive costs on the claim side, optimize the business link of new energy vehicle insurance, and reshape the whole process.
In order to implement the people-centered concept and enhance consumers' sense of gain, happiness and security, for example, on the insurance side, China Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd. and Shanghai Insurance Exchange jointly modeled and developed a new energy vehicle pricing model with independent intellectual property rights.
On the service side, PICC P&C focuses on the actual scenarios of new energy vehicle owners on the health and safety of power batteries, accident maintenance, etc., combined with user car behavior, vehicle conditions, etc., to create a "battery cloud intelligent inspection platform" to provide car owners with full life cycle services for new energy power batteries such as in-warranty safety inspection, post-warranty accident inspection, battery repair, and battery **.
On the claims side, leading insurance companies have established exclusive new energy claims teams to achieve more reasonable loss verification and pricingEstablish a professional service system in the "three electricity" links;Focus on squeezing out the water of claims, carry out anti-fraud through big data and Internet of Vehicles, and reduce the cost of claims.
It should be noted that a number of interviewees told Blue Whale Finance that data and pricing models are still a problem faced by insurance institutions at present and in the future. Based on the law of large numbers, the pricing of traditional auto insurance is mainly based on a large amount of historical data, and statistical model methods are used to make actuarial estimates of vehicle risk. However, the risk factors of new energy vehicles, especially intelligent networked vehicles, have changed, and it is difficult for traditional auto insurance pricing models to identify the risks of new energy vehicles, and unlike traditional fuel vehicles that have accumulated long-term and stable data, the data accumulation of new energy vehicles is relatively small and fluctuates greatly between different types, and the format caliber and content are different, making it difficult to unify standards.
The data of traditional fuel vehicles is stable, the frequency of actuarial model updates is relatively low, and new energy vehicles are constantly "innovating", and the risks brought by emerging technologies are difficult to quickly control. According to the data, there will be more than 70 new energy vehicles on the market in 2023 (excluding facelifts, replacements, and version update models).
When insurance companies estimate the risk cost of motor insurance products in actuarial pricing, the common factors considered are the slave vehicle, slave person and part of the driving factor. Among them, the vehicle factor will mostly consider the characteristics of different models, and conduct risk analysis for independent models based on vehicle driving data. New energy vehicles are in the initial and vigorous development stage, a large number of emerging technologies and brands are pouring into the market, these new models are numerous and influential, but due to the short time to market and insufficient data accumulation, insurance companies lack the most powerful data support when analyzing pricing factors, which significantly increases the difficulty of property insurance companies to estimate the risk cost of each model in a timely and accurate manner. The relevant person in charge of China Property Insurance further introduced to Blue Whale Finance.
It is understood that at present, all insurance companies in the industry are trying to obtain data from vehicles, people, driving behavior and other parties to carry out pricing, and gradually strengthen the identification and pricing of risks of new energy vehicles, and the ability to accurately price has been greatly improved. However, objectively speaking, the data is still limited, and most of the car companies and big data monitoring platforms with sufficient data do not have insurance qualifications and operational capabilities, especially whether the data of car companies can be directly used for auto insurance pricing involves customer privacy and data security, which needs to be further regulated by the first department.
New technologies will reshape new car insurance
Electrification, networking, and intelligence are the development trends and trends of the automotive industry. The widespread use of new energy vehicles has brought great changes to the auto insurance industry, and intelligent driving technology is expected to bring new disruptions. From a long-term perspective, a reinvention of auto insurance is taking place around insurance terms, defined liability claims, actuarial models, pricing, and more.
In 2022, the penetration rate of new L2 passenger cars with combined driver assistance functions reached 345%, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology predicts that the penetration rate of L2 and above intelligent driving in passenger cars will reach 70% by 2025.
The intelligent and unmanned driving technology of automobiles is developing rapidly, and the autonomous driving level of mass-produced passenger cars is gradually transitioning to L3. In the future, it has become a consensus in the industry to develop exclusive products and introduce exclusive terms in the industry. The relevant person in charge of Ping An Property Insurance said in an interview with Blue Whale Finance.
As connected cars introduce machine driving modes, so do risks related to the machines themselves. Some of the risks of traditional cars come from the natural environment, and some are man-made risks, but the introduction of autonomous driving has brought new risks, such as functional safety, expected functional safety, etc.
Zhang Lei, founder and CEO of Cheche Technology, also proposed in an exclusive interview with the Blue Whale Financial Reporter that the widespread promotion and use of intelligent assisted driving technology will leverage the great changes in the auto insurance industry, "I think with the rapid development of new energy vehicles, in the next step, about 80% of new energy vehicles will be equipped with intelligent assisted driving, then what will follow is intelligent assisted driving liability insurance, and the attributes of car insurance will also change, from car insurance to liability insurance, and the policyholder will also change from the owner to the car company." ”
As an early form of autonomous driving, the problem of determining blame for assisted driving is becoming more and more prominent, and the traditional pricing model needs to be adjusted accordingly, and the actuarial modeling and pricing update iteration of auto insurance products also need to be adjusted accordingly. In order to cope with the new risks brought about by new technologies, insurance institutions have taken precautions and explored ways to solve problems.
Blue Whale Finance has learned from the industry that there have been many accidents involving autonomous driving, and there have been more or less disputes in the determination of responsibility, which has brought trouble to the insurance company's claim processing.
Compared with traditional auto insurance, which has a clear liability party, the liability subject of intelligent networked vehicles will be more complex, including the vehicle user, the owner, and the main engine manufacturer. At present, there is no real clause for intelligent networked car insurance products in the industry, resulting in a lack of basis for liability determination. At the same time, due to the opacity of information and data, multiple entities face accidents and moral hazards, which makes it more difficult to determine insurance liability.
In addition, with the development of autonomous vehicles, actuarial modeling and pricing updates and iterations of related auto insurance products require more detailed and richer data, but the problem of data ownership confirmation is still unresolved, and the insurance industry needs to actively explore more possibilities for acquiring, using, and analyzing data.
The industry is gradually incorporating some risk research on autonomous driving into the existing pricing framework," said the relevant person in charge of Ping An Property & Casualty, adding that the traditional actuarial method can gradually adapt to the changes brought about by technological updates through its own optimization and iteration, including the inclusion of finer granularity data.
The acquisition, use, and analysis of data is key in this process. For example, when pricing is carried out in the early stage, you can obtain industry-side data, including test data, and you can get more accurate results in a more timely mannerAnother example is to obtain vehicle dynamic driving data, which can make it more convenient for insurance companies to determine liability and settle claims effectively and quickly.
It should be noted that China's data rights confirmation is still in the process of development. It is not clear who owns the right to use and own the data. Therefore, before the issue of data rights confirmation is resolved, insurance companies need to explore supporting data sharing and collaboration mechanisms if they want to design and implement exclusive products for intelligent networked vehicles. (Blue Whale Finance, Li Danping, lidanping@lanjinger.)com）