"This year's New Year, we don't urge marriage, birth, or urge children to run home..." The old Henan village chief who used a loudspeaker to preach epidemic prevention became hot again, and a few words ignited heated discussions among countless netizens.
The Xinchou Year of the Lunar New Year in 2021 may be a long and complicated Spring Festival holiday for all the young people who have drifted abroad and the elders in their hometowns looking forward to it.
Behind the rise of buzzwords of "Chinese New Year in situ", "Non-necessary no return home" and the old village chief’s shouts, it is not only the inevitable situation of epidemic prevention and control, but also the rapid transformation and upgrading of China’s social economy. There are many problems in the dual economic structure of urban and rural areas.
For example, in relatively backward third- and fourth-tier cities, the involution of economic development will overflow the most energetic young people to seek development in first- and second-tier cities with greater opportunities. In many uncompetitive cities and towns, the net population outflow has become the biggest hidden danger for the development of these areas.
In fact, in the sinking market below the third tier, the population structure and aging problems are much more severe than those in the first and second tier cities. The superimposition of the population size covered by them further highlights the imbalance of the dual structure of China's urban and rural areas.
This sounds like a grand development proposition, but it really affects the traditional family concept and intergenerational inheritance of this generation of Chinese. The floating large cities and empty nests of young people have become normal small towns, forming many social phenomena that are both fragmented and entangled.
In metropolises with modern economies, most of the younger generation depends on the back-feeding of their parents in their hometowns before they will struggle to save or repay their mortgages; in small towns in the county, the older generations are getting older and they need more care. Constrained by conditions such as staying away from children, ability to pay, and local medical and pension standards, there is nowhere for the old to rely on.
Whether it is young people working hard in the city or parents waiting for their old age, no one dares to get sick or get seriously ill. Even the urban middle class may return to poverty due to illness, not to mention that once a small town dweller suffers a serious illness, one can imagine what an ordinary family will end up with.
However, these conditions are not unchangeable. At the national level, a series of "precise poverty alleviation", "expansion of domestic demand", "rural revitalization" and the promotion of the construction of infrastructure such as roads, communications, health, and education are reducing the gap between urban and rural development. Gap.
In particular, digital infrastructure has brought huge changes to the sinking market represented by small towns in the county.
The rise of Pinduoduo has changed the appearance of e-commerce supply chains at both ends of the sinking market, and has improved the vitality of the county economy; the widespread popularity of Kuaishou has given young people in small towns a different existence value. A more interesting lifestyle of "hitting workers" in metropolises; Waterdrop Company drives the overall decline of Internet health insurance, protects ordinary people who need more protection, and reduces the risk of a heavy blow to families in small towns caused by illness and poverty. ...
As the "four kings of the sinking market," these companies are changing the vast third- and fourth-tier cities and the following markets in different ways.
The aging crisis in small towns
In the past 2020, "sinking the market" is a topic that has excited many industries.
This vast market encompassing 200 prefecture-level cities, 3,000 counties, and 40,000 townships in China, with a population of nearly 1 billion, was suddenly regarded as a gold rush by Internet giants.
Indeed, the sinking market with absolute population has also burst out with amazing consumption potential and growth. Regardless of the characteristics of the consumer population and the direction of demand, the county market dominated by small towns is very different from the consumer market in first- and second-tier cities.
The consumer market in small towns is by no means a "consumption downgraded version" of the first- and second-tier markets. Although the Internet has largely eliminated the dual development gap between urban and rural areas, from the demand side, the sinking market has more rigid needs than first- and second-tier cities in areas such as elderly care and medical security.
As small cities and towns are obviously "weak" in terms of population structure than first- and second-tier cities, as China gradually enters an aging society, the sinking market is more affected and impacted.
According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics, as of the end of 2019, my country's population of 65 years and over has reached 176 million, accounting for 12.6% of the total population. It is only 1.4 percentage points short of the "ageing society" of the new United Nations standard.
In fact, the demographic dividend disappears, the proportion of the working-age population peaks and falls, and even the population size will fall into a negative growth during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, and aging will definitely change the trend of economic growth. This is the consensus of many research institutions.
Especially in the context of the pension gap and the social security revenue and expenditure deficit account book, the challenge of the aging of the Chinese society is obvious. On the other hand, changes in the consumption structure caused by aging are also considered to be new market opportunities, such as the rapid increase in the proportion of health care consumption in household expenditure.
However, it is not difficult to see from the scale of the population movement during the Spring Festival travel over the years that the economic development of first-tier cities has shown the “siphon effect” of the working-age population, not to mention that in recent years, second-tier cities have also joined the ranks of “grabbing people”, exacerbating small towns. The withdrawal of young people.
This means that in the development of the sinking market, the problem of aging is a major crisis facing China's county economy. The size of the population also determines that in the realization of the "Healthy China 2030" plan and other national policies, changes in the sinking market are more important than first- and second-tier cities.
From a micro-level observation, as the aging population increases, the number of people suffering from “senile diseases” such as cancer will also show a rapid increase. In the sinking market where the awareness of health prevention is weaker, the level of medical supply is more backward, and the ability to pay is less, this will be an unbearable pressure on the financial accounts of local governments and ordinary families.
The advancement of digital infrastructure and the changes in the primary medical system have given us hope to solve the dilemma of the county market. Under the acceleration brought by the new crown epidemic, Internet hospitals, medical consortia, and community medical services have quickly completed the landing of the sinking market, which has also catalyzed the transformation of the people's health consumption concept.
However, compared with the improvement of medical service coverage, the realization of multi-level insurance coverage has become the most urgent and necessary change in the current sinking market.
Insurance should sink the market more inclusively
In addition to the basic medical security of the "New Rural Cooperative Medical System", other types of medical security or health insurance are almost a blind spot in the sinking market.
Public data shows that the proportion of personal out-of-pocket payment for serious illness medical care in China is about 45% to 55%, and 10% of patients have to give up treatment due to insufficient ability to pay. There is no doubt that among the patients who abandon treatment, the proportion of the population in the economically underdeveloped counties must be high.
According to the data from the National Health Commission's floating population dynamic monitoring survey, 10.9% of China's 245 million or so floating population have not yet participated in any kind of medical insurance. Another data is the survey results of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences: the number of rural residents in my country who have commercial insurance accounts for less than 20%.
Although the health insurance business of major insurance companies has continued to increase in the consumption expenditure of residents in first- and second-tier cities in recent years, the overall level of development is not optimistic: from the perspective of national insurance coverage, the domestic commercial health insurance coverage rate is still less than 10% , The per capita premium of health insurance is only about 505 yuan.
The above data is not difficult to see that the lagging of insurance coverage for the population of the sinking market has already created a huge challenge. But the question is, is this insufficient demand or insufficient effective supply?
During the epidemic last year, a set of data from Waterdrop Insurance Mall showed that orders for health insurance in the third-tier and lower-tier markets have nearly doubled from the previous month, far exceeding the growth rate of the first- and second-tier cities.
Obviously, the insurance density is lower than the sinking market in the first- and second-tier cities, and there is no problem of insufficient demand, and its potential consumption willingness is even stronger than that in the first- and second-tier markets. Therefore, the problem on the supply side is the root cause of insufficient insurance coverage in the sinking market.
In fact, with the rapid economic growth in the past few decades, China's insurance industry has also made great progress. However, traditional insurance companies cover more group customers in large cities, high-net-worth individuals and middle-class families, so it is naturally difficult to cover weaker payment capabilities. Of sinking market users.
In addition, due to the high degree of professionalism of health insurance, especially the close integration of the back-end of compensation insurance and medical services, the continuous user education of insurance companies is relatively lacking. Driven by sales orientation, insurance agents are more accustomed to other products with higher unit prices. Therefore, the reach of health insurance products in the county market is obviously insufficient.
Although more and more insurance companies have realized the huge demand potential of the sinking market in the past two years, it is still true to study the just-needed pain points and market characteristics of the sinking market, and to develop health insurance products and services that can benefit the sinking market population. It is an action that is generally scarce.
However, this also gives the Internet insurance platform the best opportunity. Compared with traditional insurance companies, their marginal cost of acquiring users in the sinking market is lower and they can penetrate more quickly.
While quickly reaching the user population in low-tier cities, the Internet insurance platform can use technical means such as intelligent big data collection and analysis to capture user needs, and unite insurance companies to reverse custom insurance products to help users find the most suitable insurance products for them. Insurance Products.
In addition, with the rapid increase in the penetration rate of digital infrastructure and smart mobile terminals in the sinking market, on the one hand, online insurance education scenarios have reached more people; on the other hand, technological improvements have also reduced the cost of insurance protection products. The consumption threshold improves the consumption experience and provides conditions for establishing a new supply-demand relationship of insurance services.
More importantly, Internet insurance platforms, driven by new forms such as live broadcasts, can quickly "break the circle" and sink the market acquaintance society, and can further reduce the price of insurance products, making commercial insurance available in third- and fourth-tier cities and county markets. Has a stronger inclusiveness.
The sinking exploration of the water drop mode
Putting the inclusiveness of insurance protection products in the first place is also an important reason for the rapid rise of Water Drop Company in recent years.
Similar to the reason that Internet e-commerce platforms change product supply structure, increase consumer demand, and expand sinking markets, Waterdrop Company through the supply-side reform of insurance protection products, greatly satisfies the insurance of users in “edge markets” such as sinking markets. Guaranteeing demand has created a huge incremental market for insurance companies.
In recent years, by serving users in the sinking market, the e-commerce sector has created Pinduoduo. In the same way, Waterdrop has grown into another “Pinduoduo” in the insurance protection field by providing inclusive protection to meet the needs of users in the sinking market.
Just like the aforementioned analysis, the characteristics of county economic development and consumer population structure are very different from those of first- and second-tier cities, and they are also very different in issues such as market pain points, product forms, consumption decisions, and service paths.
Therefore, this requires the Internet insurance platform to form a set of supply strategies that are more in line with the characteristics of the sinking market. Looking back on the development of the past four or five years, we have observed that in terms of sinking market exploration and model innovation, Water Drop Company has indeed brought groundbreaking value to the entire Internet insurance industry.
Since its inception, Waterdrop has regarded the sinking market as a test field for practicing "inclusive protection", and improved from the four dimensions of "buy with some", "buy with", "affordable" and "buy with confidence". On the supply side of insurance products, it quickly seizes users in the sinking market.
The company's previously published data show that 72% of donation users come from third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities, and 77% of mutual aid users also come from third-, fourth- and fifth-tier cities.
Shen Peng, the founder and CEO of Waterdrop, once said in an interview with the media that the sinking of Waterdrop is a result of extending its strategy. It is not "sinking the market for the sake of sinking the market." Compared with the head market, the sinking market has a window period opportunity of user base and preferential mechanism.
Shen Peng said that Waterdrop's choice to sink the market also caters to a theory-marginal innovation. At that time, Waterdrop saw that the real core users of China's insurance giants were group customers, high-net-worth individuals, and the middle class. Young Internet users and users in the more sinking market were not covered, so they made some changes in their products. Cater to the needs of young Internet users, lower the customer unit price, and improve the cost performance.
In fact, in addition to meeting the needs of users in the sinking market, Waterdrop also continues to meet the insurance protection needs of the elderly, sick people, and young people born in the 80s and 90s.
Because the problem of population aging is more prominent than that of first- and second-tier cities, with the increase of the aging population, the number of people suffering from “age-related diseases” and “chronic diseases” such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, and diabetes has increased rapidly.
In the real scene, countless cases of poverty caused by illness have repeatedly occurred in the countryside. The people's awareness and demand for insurance are self-evident, but the embarrassing thing is that the elderly people who need insurance most are almost uninsured. This is the biggest pain point on the supply side of the sinking market.
There are no critical illness insurance products for the elderly over 60 years old, hospitalization medical insurance products for people without illness, let alone the personalized insurance product of "Thousands of People and Thousands of Insurance", and what needs to be covered if "not sold" What?
In solving the problem of "buying something", Waterdrop's joint insurance company launched a pilot product for elderly medical insurance and chronically ill patients to be insured with illness, which can be described as a pain point. And through user big data, Waterdrop has continuously transformed the people's insurance needs into "something to buy" products.
For consumers in the sinking market with weak awareness of disease prevention and limited ability to pay, "buying" only solves half of the problem. "Affordability" is the more critical factor for most people to make insurance consumption decisions. Price sensitivity is still the most significant feature of a sinking market.
In this regard, water drop company's slight changes in the payment method and other service details (such as monthly payment) can greatly reduce the user's purchase threshold, making it easier to make consumer decisions. After all, people who buy insurance will still choose products according to the criteria of low price and high quality.
Compared with the first- and second-tier markets, consumer groups in the sinking market have more significant social characteristics of acquaintances. Therefore, the trust relationship brought about by strong social connections is the key to occupying the "user's mind".
How to establish a trust relationship with users in the sinking market? The insurance purchase process must be concise, the terms are popular and easy to understand, the user's purchase is very convenient, and the transaction is free, even if they are not satisfied after the purchase, they can surrender the insurance at any time, so that users can "buy with confidence".
The core of Waterdrop's approach is actually to change the transaction behavior of insurance products into a high-frequency behavior of serving users. From insurance, underwriting, claims and even surrender to the whole process of services, it continues to increase the trust points of contact with users. This is also a key part of the rapid penetration of water droplets into the sinking market where low- and middle-income households are widely distributed.
As Shen Peng said, “Water Drop Company essentially hopes to become a commercial security system outside of my country’s medical insurance, in the form of inclusive protection, and through Internet technology, the broad masses of people can enjoy the most appropriate insurance protection.”
Conclusion
Judging from the results of Waterdrop's exploration in the sinking market, the company's Waterdrop Insurance Mall users currently cover more than 97.6% of cities and counties across the country, and more than 71% of users come from third-tier and lower-tier cities; 72% of the donation users of Waterdrop Chip, Waterdrop Mutual Assistance 77% of mutual aid users also come from the sinking market.
After nearly five years of development, Waterdrop has built a multi-level insurance protection system through "Waterdrop Chip + Water Drop Insurance Mall + Water Drop Mutual Assistance", which has become a powerful supplement to the social security system.
It can be said that in the process of the booming of the entire Internet insurance industry, the five-year-old Waterdrop Company is based on supplementing and boosting the development of the insurance industry with the Internet business format, and growing insurance protection in the inclusive sinking market is an excellent one. Development templates and industry miniatures.
Its value lies in meeting the insurance protection needs of the 1 billion population sinking market, opening a window and finding a way.