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Alibaba and Tencent, through affiliates, are already providing small-scale digital insurance such as drone accidents and flight delays. Now, they are eyeying a new, largely untapped opportunity: life insurance for the hundreds of millions of uninsured Chinese individuals.
The industry’s growth potential, especially among a younger generation of tech-savvy Chinese consumers, could be massive. China counted 330 million online-insurance customers last year, up 43% from a year earlier. About 80% of the individuals were born in the 1980s and 1990s, according to financial-data platform CBN. Most of them bought non-life insurance policies. Premiums written in China totaled $470 billion last year, with life insurance accounting for around 60% of the sum, according to Swiss Reinsurance Co. Online sales for life products made up just 6% of the segment, which was dominated by traditional insurers that have tie-ups with Chinese state-owned banks.
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