Does the Development of the Insurance Industry Promote the Purchase of Rural Commercial Health Insurance?

Deepening the reform of insurance companies and strengthening the protective capacity of corporate insurance are becoming important topics of national strategy. This includes improving China's multi-tiered social security system to analyze the deep-seated reasons affecting the commercial health insurance purchasing behavior of China's rural residents. This paper uses the DEA-CCR model to evaluate the development of China's insurance industry, and based on data from a follow-up survey project from Chinese households, the impact of insurance industry development on local commercial health insurance purchasing behavior. Examine impact and empirical analysis. The survey results show that the development of the insurance industry has clearly promoted the purchasing behavior of commercial health insurance among rural residents. The research has important practical value in protecting and promoting the production and quality of life of rural residents, and can also serve as a reference for formulating and implementing future operational strategies for China's commercial health insurance companies. increase.

At present, China's economic development is shifting from export-led to domestic demand-led, and the key to expanding domestic demand lies in the effective improvement of household consumption. In 2019, China's per capita retail income growth rate reached 8.9%, while per capita consumption expenditure growth remained flat at 8.6% over the same period, while per capita savings growth increased to 8.7%. Decreased. ①This shows that while the income level of Chinese residents is rising rapidly and consumer initiative is improving, the traditional savings concept of residents is changing to some extent. At present, the coverage rate of Chinese social capital insurance and medical insurance has exceeded 90%, and the rural social insurance system has entered the normative development stage. It played a role in harmonizing rural households and caring for the elderly in rural areas. Social welfare of rural households is realized (1, 2). However, due to restraining factors such as low affordability levels, lack in policy coverage, and large regional differences in social security transfer payments, there are still some restrictions in the protection function of rural social insurance system toward rural residents and families (3, 4). It is not possible to realize 100% of loss compensation or 100% of income replacement by only relying on a social insurance system (5–7). Obviously, it is difficult helping rural residents and families to achieve more comprehensive and higher protection by only relying on social insurance system dominated by government (8, 9). The 14th Five-Year Plan clearly highlighted the reform and improvement of the social insurance system, the improvement of the insurance system, the promotion of social insurance transfer and continuation, and the improvement of a unified national social insurance public service platform. Therefore, building a multi-tiered security system is a necessary measure of “helping those most in need.” As an important supplementary form, commercial health insurance could play a part in risk protection, lever magnifying, credit financing, preventing and reducing damages, and main linkage, in order to satisfy the diversified protection needs among people, but with its increasing participation degree in ensuing people's livelihood, commercial health insurance has obviously become an important aspect of the multi-tiered security system (10–13).

It is necessary to emphasize that, on one hand, the acceleration of the popularization of commercial health insurance in rural areas will help improve the safeguard function of commercial health insurance in rural areas, which is significant in protecting rural residents' production and life. In recent years, the No. 1 central documents issued by the State Council all mentioned acceleration in development of rural insurance industry, establishment and improvement of rural medical insurance system, active implementation of protection measures in various insurance, and meeting the basic medical needs of rural residents (14, 15). As an important part of improving the social security system, the popularization of commercial health insurance combines safety security and risk investment, and protects life and property rights of the insured as far as possible. Therefore, as the areas with close attention in building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects, rural areas should facilitate the development of commercial health insurance business, and improve the relatively backward situation of insurance company service. On the other hand, in the 40 years since resumption of insurance business, China's insurance business has been flourishing②, and more and more residents tend to transfer traditional bank deposit properties into insurance assets, which brings more opportunity to the insurance companies. As of April 2020, there are 232 insurance companies ③ in various fields in China, of which 97 are life insurance companies, occupying an important position in the insurance industry. Especially at the beginning of 2020, when the epidemic was rampant, insurance services represented by life insurance companies actively responded to the China Banking Regulatory Authority's epidemic prevention work guidelines, simplified the insurance settlement channel, and improved customer service. Epidemic prevention was implemented in response to the needs of -Strong support for trendy work (16, 17).However, due to the double impact of the internal industry and the external environment, and some insurers placing too much emphasis on increasing market share, operational efficiency has tended to decline. It has had a serious impact on the operational management level of the enterprise. Purchase behavior of policyholders. Moreover, the prevalence of commercial health insurance among rural residents and families will further reduce the burden of caring for the elderly and increase consumption and risk-taking to further improve the quality of life of rural residents (18 , 19).

However, in the current economic situation in China, the degree of commercial health insurance coverage of Chinese rural residents is less optimistic than that of urban residents. One reason for this is the relatively low risk awareness of rural populations due to limited funding and education. In addition, promotion of insurance companies in rural areas is not sufficiently carried out, and it is conceivable that local residents have a poor understanding of the insurance business. As rural residents' incomes rise and demand for protection increases, the factors driving rural residents to purchase insurance will increase. Therefore, whether the development of the insurance industry influences the purchasing behavior of commercial health insurance among rural residents needs further investigation.