The Dilemma of Foreign Insurers in China

摘要 : Insurance was one of industries that were opened very first after China’s accession to the WTO in 2001. During 2002 to 2005, there was a peak of the foreign insurers’entry, with the rapid growth of their market share. However, in recent years, the foreign insurers found themselves not able to grow as fast as they have expected, which was described as their “Seven Year Itch” in China. Several cases of equity transactions have taken place in 2009-2010, mainly involved with the foreign insurers reducing their shareholdings. This was regarded as the sign of foreign insurers changing their strategies in Chinese market. In this paper we found strong evidence to show that the current performance of foreign insurers in China was relatively worse than that in the other major insurance markets. From the comparison of the regulatory environment and market performance, we can say for sure that regulation restrictions should be at least one of the major reasons for the current situation. Also we found that the “50-50” shareholding structure which was adopted initially by many life foreign insurers could be blamed for the slow growth recently. And poor bancassurance business performance could explain the shareholding reductions recently for some of the foreign life insurers.