How to understand the social and economic functions of insurance companies and their role in economic operation?

In the new stage of building a well-off society in an all-round way and accelerating modernization, the concept of coordinated social and economic development has been highlighted and strengthened in the development strategy formulated by the party and the state, and is becoming an important understanding of the whole society. As an economic booster and social stabilizer, insurance plays an important role in promoting the coordinated development of economy and society. In the new era and new situation, fully understanding the role of insurance in the coordinated development of social economy is conducive to broadening the space for insurance development, enabling the insurance industry to participate in the overall work of national economy and social development in a deeper and broader field and enhance its position in social economy.

First, the role of insurance in the coordinated development of social economy

Finance is the core of modern economy and plays an important role in national economy. As an important part of the financial system, the development level of the insurance industry and the whole social and economic development level are interrelated and mutually promoted. The prominent role of insurance in social and economic development lies in that it promotes economic development while maintaining social stability and people's life stability, thus promoting the coordinated development of social economy.

(A) to promote economic development

As an important part of the national economy, the development level of the insurance industry is restricted by the overall economic development level, but its healthy and stable development can promote economic development, which is mainly achieved through its economic compensation and financial intermediary functions:

One is to protect economic development, reform and innovation through risk distribution and economic compensation. First, help the affected enterprises to resume production in time to ensure the continuity and stability of social reproduction; The second is to transfer risks for commercial trade activities and promote commodity consumption and circulation; The third is to provide reliable risk protection for advanced productive forces and promote the transformation of science and technology into real productive forces, thus reducing economic fluctuations caused by risk factors and promoting economic development.

Secondly, through the scientific and efficient use of the huge insurance funds accumulated by collecting premiums, it can promote the transformation of residents' savings into investment, provide long-term financing channels for economic construction and optimize the allocation of financial resources; It can cultivate stable institutional investors and improve the structure of the capital market. The long-term, stable and large-scale characteristics of insurance funds make it the most stable force to promote the prosperity of the capital market, thus promoting the efficient and stable operation of the financial market and providing power support for the development of the national economy.

In addition, the insurance industry itself, as an important industry in the national economy, plays an important role in economic development in employment and taxation, and its healthy and stable development is an important aspect of the healthy and stable operation of economy and finance.

(2) maintaining social stability and the stability of people's lives.

From the basic guarantee function of insurance, insurance can help the affected families to restore their original living conditions; Reduce the impact of injury, disability, illness, old age and death on family life; It can meet people's diversified insurance needs and ensure the stability of people's life and social order in terms of personal injury or property loss caused by civil liability, safeguarding the economic interests of victims and reducing economic disputes. However, the high correlation and uncertainty of modern social and economic life put forward higher and broader requirements for insurance protection, requiring insurance to penetrate into all aspects of social life, share the functions of social management at a higher level and in a wider range, and maintain social stability and people's life stability. At this stage, the role of insurance in the field of social development should be highlighted in the following two aspects:

First, share the government's social security function and supplement and improve the social security system. With the acceleration of social transformation and system transition, as well as the trend of population aging and family miniaturization, establishing a social security system suitable for the level of economic development has become an important strategic measure to ensure people's lives and achieve coordinated social and economic development. According to China's national conditions and economic development level, the basic social security provided by the government can only be positioned at a low level of wide coverage, socialization and sustainable meeting people's basic living needs for a long time to come. Therefore, to improve China's social security level and build a strong social security network, commercial insurance must play a complementary role. As an important part of China's multi-pillar social security system, commercial insurance can even play a leading role as a substitute tool for social insurance among people who are not covered by basic social security, such as rural population and a large number of urban population without social insurance. Vigorously developing commercial pension and health insurance is conducive to reducing the burden of the government in the social security system, relieving the worries of the broad masses of the people, promoting consumption, stimulating economic growth, and achieving coordinated economic and social development. The insurance industry has the responsibility and ability to play a greater role in the social security system because of its advantages in product development, investment management, customer service, actuarial and sales.

The second is to share the responsibility of social risk management and improve the effectiveness of social disaster prevention and loss prevention and response to public crises. First, in daily disaster prevention and loss prevention, the insurer, as a professional risk manager, can not only provide risk management experience for enterprises, but also improve the disaster prevention and loss prevention ability of the whole society through measures such as risk investigation and analysis during underwriting and risk inspection and supervision during underwriting, and mobilize the enthusiasm of enterprises for disaster prevention and loss prevention with the price lever of insurance premium rate, so as to reduce the expenditure of insurance claims and the loss of social wealth as much as possible and realize the unity of economic and social benefits. The second is to construct the prevention system and guarantee mechanism of sudden catastrophe crisis. National public security incidents such as SARS, 9. 1 1 terrorist attacks, blackouts in the United States and Canada show that disasters and accidents faced by modern society will become increasingly complex and huge due to the variation of natural and human environment, which poses a severe challenge to the ability of human society to cope with sudden catastrophes. Although the government should undertake and be responsible for providing basic security supply for public safety, its investment is always limited due to financial resources and many macroeconomic goals. Therefore, it is of great significance to strengthen the functional construction of modern insurance industry, especially considering the comprehensive impact caused by various catastrophes and other crisis events. As a supplement to social insurance, commercial insurance can provide a variety of possible insurance protection, and maintain social stability and people's life stability in terms of personal injury, property loss, public liability, third-party liability, business interruption and profit loss caused by accidents or emergencies.

It is precisely because insurance has the functions of both economic booster and social stabilizer that insurance plays an important role in promoting the coordinated development of modern society and economy.

To study the role of insurance in the coordinated development of social economy, we must also understand two issues:

First, we should correctly understand the relationship between the insurance industry and economic and social development. Insurance can promote the coordinated development of social economy, and economic development and social progress are the basis for the survival and development of commercial insurance. The development of the insurance industry cannot stand out from the level of economic and social development for a long time. The coordinated development of social economy can lay a solid material foundation for the development of insurance industry and create a good social environment; If the two are not coordinated, it will not only hinder the further development of economy and affect social stability, but also inhibit the effective insurance demand and affect the normal operation and steady development of the insurance industry. Therefore, promoting the coordinated development of social economy conforms to the inherent requirements of the insurance industry's own development. Only when the business objectives of the insurance industry meet the needs of the times and social development, can the position and role of the insurance industry in national economic and social development be improved and strengthened in the effective play of insurance functions, and form a benign interaction with social and economic development.

Second, although the role of insurance in social and economic development mainly depends on the efforts of the insurance industry itself, it is also restricted by some economic and non-economic factors, among which government decision support is the key factor, which is reflected in two aspects: First, whether the government can straighten out the policy, legal system and institutional framework will affect the external environment for the development of the insurance industry; Second, whether the depth and breadth of basic social security are compatible with the level of economic development, financial affordability and social, cultural and institutional evolution is related to the space for commercial insurance to play its role. Due to market failure (such as externalities of public goods and services), market forces cannot automatically form the coordinated development of social economy. The government must assume more responsibilities in the field of social development, and create a good external environment by improving the policy, legal system and institutional environment, increasing investment in the public sphere. However, government intervention must have a clear definition of "degree". This is because the social management carried out by the government is inherently inefficient, and the public goods and services provided, such as basic social security, are "average" services that are not directly related to the individual's contribution to society, and have the characteristics of diminishing marginal utility. Insufficient supply will certainly affect social stability, but excessive supply will increase the financial burden, dampen employment enthusiasm, and have a crowding-out effect on market forces such as commercial insurance. Therefore, whether the government functions are clear and whether the decision-making support is in place will affect the external environment and business space for the insurance industry to play its role, and will ultimately affect the coordinated development of social economy.

Second, accelerate the development of the insurance industry and give full play to the role of insurance in the coordinated development of social economy.

Generally speaking, China's insurance industry is still in the primary stage of development, and the main contradiction it faces is that the development level of the insurance industry does not meet the needs of national economic and social development. Insurance products such as pension, medical care, education, housing and liability, which are closely related to people's lives, cannot meet a wide range of social needs, and insurance has not penetrated into all walks of life, social fields and all aspects of life. Underdevelopment is the main factor that restricts the insurance industry from playing its role in promoting social and economic development. Therefore, we must speed up the development of the insurance industry from the height of serving the overall situation of the national economy and make it bigger and stronger as soon as possible, so as to give full play to the role of the insurance industry in the coordinated development of the social economy and enhance its position in the overall situation of the national economy and social development.

(1) Establish a correct concept of development. The insurance industry must take the promotion of economic development and social progress as its own responsibility, change the extensive development road that has been taken for many years and the guiding ideology of unilaterally pursuing premium growth, establish and implement the unified development concept of "speed, structure, quality and benefit" and realize comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. Only in the process of building a well-off society in an all-round way can we effectively shoulder the responsibility of "promoting reform and ensuring security"

(2) Deepen reform and implement a proactive strategy. Under the condition that the insurance market in China is fully open, accelerate the reform and adjustment of the domestic insurance industry and solve the contradiction between the insurance system and structure in China; Multi-level-international insurance (financial) groups, "specialized, refined, special and innovative" professional insurance companies and intermediaries, part-time agencies-enrich the main structure of the insurance market, encourage fair and orderly competition, and create an efficient market environment; Carry out international capital operation in the form of mergers and acquisitions, and rapidly enhance its strength; Unify the opening of market field, the construction of market system, the innovation of insurance company system and the promotion of international competitiveness of insurance companies to achieve leap-forward development.

(3) Accelerate innovation and inject vitality into the full play of insurance. Earnestly study and learn from the advanced experience at home and abroad, and actively carry out system innovation, mechanism innovation, scientific and technological innovation, management innovation, product innovation and service innovation, such as: exploring the innovation of insurance investment and financing system and giving full play to the insurance financing function; Explore the feasibility of securitization of insurance risk assets, and seek to establish a financing and transfer mechanism to gather guarantee funds and disperse dangerous losses in a wider scope; Apply modern information technology and financial technology to realize the differentiation of business model and the refinement of management model, and promote the upgrading of insurance management; Pay close attention to hot issues closely related to social development and people's lives, develop insurance products with wide social needs, optimize product structure, and meet multi-level insurance needs; Improve service awareness, innovate service methods, enrich the connotation of insurance services, penetrate services into all aspects of insurance consumption, and enhance core competitiveness.

(four) to guard against risks and handle the relationship between reform, development and stability.

Reform is the driving force of development, development is the goal of reform, and stability is the premise of reform and development. As a new industry in the process of transition, China's insurance industry must speed up its development to shorten the gap with the international level, meet the challenge of China's entry into WTO, solve some problems and difficulties existing in the insurance industry itself, and better serve the needs of national economic development and social security system reform. To speed up the development, we must reform the backward factors in the macro-institutional arrangement and micro-operational mechanism of the existing insurance market, and clear the obstacles for the development of the insurance industry. At the same time, there are many hidden risks in the long-term development of the insurance industry, and with the acceleration of the reform and opening up process, new uncertain factors are constantly emerging. Therefore, while promoting the reform, we must strictly guard against and resolve risks, maintain the security and stability of the insurance system, and promote the long-term healthy development of the insurance industry. It should be pointed out that maintaining the stability of the insurance system cannot be at the expense of the efficiency of the insurance market and the interests of the insured, nor does it mean that institutions that fail to operate are not allowed to withdraw from the market.

In order to give consideration to the efficiency and stability of the insurance market, there is an urgent need to establish two institutional arrangements: first, to achieve scientific supervision with solvency supervision as the core, to safeguard the interests of the insured in the ultimate sense and to enhance the confidence of the insured. The second is to establish a market exit mechanism. The market exit mechanism focuses on unblocking the market exit channels, reducing the social impact and disposal cost caused by institutional exit, and safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of the insured as a whole, which is not only conducive to giving play to the role of the market mechanism in eliminating the fittest and optimizing resource allocation, but also promoting the steady operation of the company and urging the insured to make careful choices; It is also conducive to maintaining the stability of the insurance system and social and economic life and preventing regional and systemic financial risks caused by the collapse of individual institutions.

(5) Looking for the best point of convergence between interests and responsibilities. Interests and responsibilities are not always consistent, and sometimes even contradictory. Promoting economic development and social progress is the unshirkable responsibility of the insurance industry. However, due to the weak management foundation and risk management and control ability at this stage, the external system, policies, legal system and credit environment have not been straightened out, and the market competition is not standardized, some insurance products with strong social management functions, such as liability insurance, health insurance, automobile loan performance guarantee insurance, agricultural insurance, etc., are bound to face problems such as increased business risks and even unprofitable operations, and insurance companies are afraid to carry out or their business volume is shrinking or even shrinking. This phenomenon has objective factors, but insurance companies must fully realize their social responsibilities. They should not passively wait for the social environment and market environment to improve before they operate, but should take active actions to change passivity into initiative. On the one hand, they should strengthen communication, coordination and cooperation with relevant departments and other market operators, seek the best point of convergence of interests and responsibilities, and develop markets and businesses according to local conditions on the premise of complying with relevant policies and regulations. On the other hand, we should practice hard, and realize the unity of social and economic benefits through scientific design of products, strengthening risk management and providing quality services.

(6) Strive for policy support and straighten out the external environment. At present, the role of insurance in the coordinated development of social economy is restricted by many policy and institutional bottlenecks, such as the reform of medical care and pension system has not yet been put in place, and the conflict of interests between commercial insurance institutions and social security institutions has not yet been eliminated; Lack of preferential insurance tax policies; The legal system and credit environment are not perfect. From the experience of foreign countries, without policy support, commercial insurance can not play a role in social undertakings related to the national economy and people's livelihood, such as the social security system. The government should clarify the role and subject qualification of commercial insurance in the social security system by accelerating the reform of social security systems such as pension, medical care and unemployment. Broaden the channels for the use of insurance funds and promote the benign interaction between insurance market and capital market; Implement appropriate preferential tax policies; Improve the legal system, establish and improve the social credit system and other measures to create a good external environment for the development of the insurance industry.

Further reading: How to buy insurance, which is good, and teach you how to avoid these "pits" of insurance.