Source: IT oranges
Wen | Lin Jing
Since last February, when the Hong Kong mainland fully resumed customs clearance, Hong Kong insurance has been bought again. In addition to shopping crazily in popular shopping areas such as Sheung Shui and Tsim Sha Tsui, insurance has also become a new "local specialty" that mainland tourists must buy in Hong Kong.
The data also further corroborated the popularity of insurance in Hong Kong. According to data from the Hong Kong Insurance Regulatory Authority, in 2023, the premium of new personal life insurance policies insured by mainland visitors in Hong Kong will be about HK $59 billion, 27 times higher than the 2.1 billion in 2022, surpassing the pre epidemic level in 2019, and only second to the historical peak of 72.7 billion in 2016.
At the same time, it is concerned that in the past two years, more and more Hong Kong graduates have also chosen the insurance industry. Maizi, who has worked and lived in Hong Kong for many years, said to Tech Planet that there are many excellent "Hong Kong drifters" around her. Many people graduated from famous universities in the mainland and came to Hong Kong to study for master's degree. They often found out in the circle of friends that they began to sell insurance.
On various social platforms, there are also many cases of "Hong Kong Masters, zero contacts, and insurance sales": they often earn millions of dollars a year, or even obtain permanent resident status in Hong Kong in a short time, which is very attractive.
Compared with famous schools, Xueba and other series of halos, the insurance industry has a low threshold, and because of its dependence on the circle of acquaintances, it has been labeled as "killing acquaintances", "breaking six parents" and other labels. Like wheat, people are even more curious about the fact that Hong Kong graduates who sell insurance in groups really make money?
01
From learning bully to selling insurance, Hong Kong graduates swarmed in
In August last year, after graduating from the University of Hong Kong with a master's degree, Julie finally chose to enter a Hong Kong head insurance company. Her goal was clear, and she judged that now is the right time to enter.
On the one hand, it is due to the endorsement of the case that the elder martial sister of the same school actually got millions of annual salary within a year or even half a year, which made Julie see the "money" scene of the industry. On the other hand, her current insurance team, Hong Kong Masters, is clustered together. The goal of the team is to serve the high net worth groups in the mainland, with an average age of about 35 years old. In particular, in recent years, some people have stepped into the wind of emerging industries such as live broadcasting, and achieved wealth explosion in a short period of time.
These target customers need highly educated young insurance brokers to serve them. Julie said, for example, some of her team members are connecting with mainland stars, online celebrities and other groups, and the commission is very high.
Tech Planet has communicated with many Hong Kong graduates engaged in the insurance industry and found that some graduates joined the insurance industry because of the acquaintance effect. We can see successful precedents from alumni groups or acquaintance circles. There are also some graduates who want to promote the renewal smoothly.
Like Julie, graduates can apply for IANG visa (non local graduates' stay in Hong Kong/return to Hong Kong for employment arrangements) to stay in Hong Kong, usually with a two-year window to find a job, and then apply for extension of the visa until they can get permanent residence status after 7 years in Hong Kong.
However, it usually meets the renewal needs, and the income of the job graduates find needs to meet certain standards. Insurance brokers have become the second choice for some graduates. Therefore, it is known that "the end of Hong Kong drift is to sell insurance".
In addition, Hong Kong has increased its efforts to attract talents in the past two years. Many talented people or talents who apply to Hong Kong have accumulated a certain circle of contacts in the mainland, and because of flexible working hours, they have chosen the insurance industry. These people also jointly promote the high educational level in the insurance industry.
According to the White Paper on the Ecology of China's Insurance Intermediary Market in 2023 released by Peking University, the proportion of highly educated insurance marketers increased significantly this year, with 26% of them having bachelor's degree or above, and the proportion of marketers over 35 years old increased significantly, accounting for 85% of the total, an increase of 30% over 2018.
The graduates of Hong Kong Masters are also desirable targets for some insurance companies. You should know that one source of income for insurance brokers is offline development. Each agent can earn a commission from offline income. If enough offline agents can be recruited, it means that their income will also increase.
Engaging in insurance brokerage requires qualification. The Insurance Intermediary Qualification Examination, commonly known as "Kaopai", is usually held in the VTC Tower. Julie said that after the examination, many insurance brokers will gather here to chat with candidates and invite them to join their insurance companies.
At the same time, in February last year, the mainland and Hong Kong resumed customs clearance, attracting more people to enter the "gold rush". According to the data of the Insurance Regulatory Bureau of Hong Kong, the number of licensed insurance intermediaries in Hong Kong increased from 114007 at the end of March 2023 to 116040 at the end of July, an increase of 2000 in four months.
Da Ting graduated from the Chinese University of Hong Kong and just entered the insurance industry full-time this year. What attracted her was the flexibility and freedom of this job. Just the first week after she got the practicing license issued by the Insurance Regulatory Bureau of Hong Kong, she successfully signed the insurance policy from angel customers in Beijing, laying confidence in the subsequent business development.
Da Ting told Tech Planet frankly that at the beginning, her family was more worried about her than they couldn't understand. "There is still some prejudice and stereotype in the outside world about insurance sales. They worry about my psychological gap when they sell insurance after graduating from famous schools and master's degrees. In addition, because they have no sales experience in the past, they also worry about my excessive anxiety due to poor development."
Fortunately, her subsequent mental state was adjusted. Da Ting said that her business development was also relatively stable, and her family's suspense was slowly eased.
02
Go to the core business district to sweep customers and strive to enter the "rich circle"
For many Hong Kong graduates, the core problem is the lack of connections. They must do everything possible to expand customers.
In Julie's opinion, the primary goal of entering the insurance industry is to "survive", which is also the most difficult stage. Generally, insurance newcomers will first announce their identity on social platforms such as the circle of friends, and naturally implant the identity of insurance brokers in various online and offline activities.
Rejection is normal. Julie said that only two out of ten people who added friends from her alumni group would pass. More important than the sense of loss after rejection, it is to focus on the target customers who passed.
In addition to alumni groups, various offline social activities such as fitness and reading are all ways for Julie to find target customers. However, she admitted that there were times when it was difficult to overcome the psychological barriers. "Many colleagues had more simple and crude channels to get customers. They insisted on going to each core shopping mall every day, in the name of questionnaires, plus the contact information of mainland tourists who came to travel, and took the opportunity to show that they were insurance brokers, and constantly transformed target customers through massive casting nets."
Indeed, some people are lucky enough to "pick up" two or three big customers and earn millions of commission income. Julie said that although she thinks she has enough "e" people (Internet catchphrase, referring to extroverted people), she still cannot suddenly initiate a conversation with a stranger.
After surviving the initial stage, the next goal of many insurance brokers is usually to find ways to squeeze into the circle of high net worth people and improve customer quality.
The so-called high net worth customers usually refer to the personal investable cash flow of more than 10 million Hong Kong dollars. Julie said that compared with small and medium-sized customers, these customer groups are easy to sign bills, and have fewer questions and requirements. After all, insurance investment only accounts for a small part of their assets. Even according to the convention, these high net worth customers will be invited to five-star restaurants for dinner, and they will struggle to pay the bill. In their view, insurance brokers provide professional services in asset management, and do not need to pay other additional fees or services from insurance brokers.
But how to get a "ticket" is the first challenge. In the early stage, insurance brokers need to invest a certain amount of money and pay a certain cost of silence to enter the high-end circle. Among Julie's colleagues, some learned to play the whip to enter major chambers of commerce, and some spent more than 100000 yuan to get an MBA to meet more target customers.
"Once you can harvest one or two high net worth customers, you can continuously transform into more high net worth customers", said Julie, who is learning golf recently and hopes to enter more offline social activities in the future.
In addition, in Hong Kong, when the commission of insurance agents reaches a certain scale, they can join the Million Round Table Conference (MDRT), which is further divided into "ordinary members", "cabinet members", "top members" and other different echelons. In a sense, having these titles is not only the strength that insurance brokers want to show customers, but also help them to attract more customers.
In addition to networking circles, some people also compete for certificates. After graduating from the University of Hong Kong with a master's degree, Zhang Lu has entered the insurance industry for four years. Over the years, Zhang Lu has rolled up her certificates. She has successively obtained a series of certificates such as certified public accountant and financial and tax manager. Customers will think that the threshold for insurance industry is low. She hopes she can provide more differentiated services and stand out from them.
03
High income and high elimination rate coexist
The "28 law" that many industries follow is no exception in the insurance industry. In particular, in the insurance industry, which mainly relies on commission, if there is no certain human resources as the basis for successful signing in the initial stage, insurance brokers are likely to fall into anxiety. There are 60% people in Julie's team who give up after half a year.
Insurance companies will develop certain incentive measures, but usually high benefits and challenges coexist. Da Ting introduced to Tech Planet that her insurance company, without a team, has a basic salary consisting of "financial advance+product commission+year-end bonus". Among them, the financial advance can be understood as the base salary. A higher base salary corresponds to a higher policy performance requirement. The entire salary system is completely result oriented, encouraging "more work, more pay".
Mai Zi, who has worked and lived in Hong Kong for many years, said that compared with the so-called case stories of millions of people and freedom of wealth on the Internet, she observed that the current situation of some Hong Kong graduate students is that it is more difficult to sign bills after they have collected their relatives and friends.
Zhang Lu also said that most of the salary levels with an annual salary of more than one million yuan belong to insurance brokers at the top of the company's pyramid. In her opinion, many talented people and talents have accumulated certain network resources in the mainland, while many Hong Kong graduate students, who are from wealthy families, and whose relatives and friends around are more familiar with or accept Hong Kong Insurance, do not need them to do much more science popularization and user education. Therefore, the influx of most top students into the insurance industry is essentially a process of reallocating their own network resources.
In Julie's view, insurance brokers are a spiral growth process. For example, if you want to serve customers with assets of more than 10 million yuan, your wealth accumulation and expertise must reach a certain level to better understand the potential insurance needs and pain points of these customers. Short term implosion orders are among the lucky few.
Although joking about "the end of Hong Kong Drift is selling insurance", Tech Planet emphasized that when choosing to enter the industry, it is better to have a certain amount of contacts and evaluate that they are really suitable for the insurance industry, rather than blindly following the trend.
A Hong Kong graduate who just joined the insurance industry this year said to Tech Planet that after two months in the industry, he struggled between fighting chicken blood and self doubt every day. He was introverted, and it was really difficult at the beginning. Without performance, he would sometimes doubt whether he could do well in the end.
Zhang Lu is going to enter the insurance industry, which is called a process of entrepreneurship. Compared with working in a job after graduation, Zhang Lu feels that insurance can provide more possibilities, which is the biggest attraction of this career to her. "It's the feeling that fate is in her own hands."
She told Tech Planet that after surviving the epidemic for three years, she could clearly feel the popularity of Hong Kong insurance in the past year. Her team and many experienced colleagues had recovered to an annual salary of one million yuan. Some signed many large orders, and some signed more than ten small orders a day.
"After stepping on high-heeled shoes for a day, after meeting customers for a day, his feet were worn and his mouth was dry", Zhang Lu, who had been busy for a day, said to Tech Planet that for current Hong Kong insurance practitioners, they must seize the market dividend period after the mainland and Hong Kong resumed customs clearance.
(Note: All the names in the text are pseudonyms.)
