突发公共卫生事件、普惠型保障与保险科技——基于城市月度医疗互助数据的实证分析

COVID-19,Inclusive Healthcare,and InsurTech:Evidence from Monthly City-Level Mutual Aid Data

互联网医疗互助采用了一系列保险科技手段以实现普惠型保障,其科技与普惠特征可为传统保险业所借鉴。本文基于全国100个城市2019年1月至2020年5月的城市月度数据,对比传统商业保险与互联网医疗互助在突发公共卫生事件中的保障作用差异。研究发现:在保险科技的支持下,互联网医疗互助参与人数与互助金额随当地确诊人数增加而增长,而传统商业保险消费量无显著变化;互联网医疗互助对数字普惠金融覆盖更广的地区、在社会信任度更高的人群能够发挥更强的作用,且对受冲击更大的流动人口和女性群体的保障作用更明显。以上结论在更换变量口径与模型设定、剔除湖北子样本后依然稳健。本文结论说明了保险科技与普惠型保障的重要作用。出于行业秩序考虑,互联网医疗互助已全面关停,但医疗互助的线上流程、算法模型对于我国持牌保险机构具有一定的适用性,这对于补充普惠型保障供给具有参考价值。因此,本文建议在有效防范风险的前提下,加速推动传统保险业的科技转型,以完善我国的保障体系。

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed challenges to medical security and healthcare systems,intensifying the urgency for residents'demand for medical security.In theory,unavoidable risks influence residents'demand for different insurance types.According to risk temperance theory,individuals encountering unavoidable risks also tend to reduce their exposure to irrelevant risks.Studies have demonstrated that Chinese residents experienced a significant increase in healthcare demand during the pandemic.However,traditional commercial insurance,which is an integral component of healthcare,did not experience a proportional increase in sales.In the context of pandemic prevention efforts,the effective provision of inclusive healthcare for residents has become an urgent issue that cannot be overlooked.In recent years,China has witnessed the emergence of a new inclusive healthcare type,known as mutual aid,driven by the rapid development of insurance technology(InsurTech).Mutual aid incorporates InsurTech techniques,such as big data,artificial intelligence,and blockchain,to optimize risk management,underwriting,and claims settlement processes.Thus,it significantly reduces the manual costs associated with medical security and possesses certain inclusive characteristics.Given the impact of the pandemic,mutual aid,with its inclusive traits,may play a more prominent role than traditional commercial insurance.First,mutual aid operates entirely online,leveraging InsurTech,and is thus more resilient to disruptions caused by the pandemic compared with offline institutions.Second,mutual aid offers comparable coverage at lower premiums than traditional commercial insurance,making it particularly suitable for underdeveloped areas and individuals with low income.This expands mutual aid's reach and enables responsive protection for underdeveloped regions.Moreover,based on blockchain technology,mutual aid functions in a decentralized manner,utilizing the retrospective sharing of coverage amounts among participants instead of upfront premium collection.This design also alleviates liquidity pressure on participants'payments and offers advantages amid pandemic-induced economic impacts.Thus,we hypothesize that mutual aid and traditional commercial insurance will exhibit different performance patterns under the influence of the pandemic.Investigating the underlying mechanisms of mutual aid is an important academic endeavor for comprehending the application of InsurTech in China and facilitating the transformation of the traditional insurance industry.Over the past few years,mutual aid has experienced rapid growth in China,reaching a peak membership of 200 million.Despite the regulatory authorities suspending such programs to maintain industry order and manage risks,the role of InsurTech and mutual aid in enhancing medical security in the post-pandemic era remains significant.Using monthly data collected from 100 cities between January 2019 and May 2020,covering the period from one year prior to the pandemic outbreak until the end of its initial wave,this study compares the development of traditional commercial insurance and online mutual aid during the COVID-19 pandemic.The empirical findings are as fllows.First,the scale of mutual aid correlates positively with the number of local cumulative cases.Specifically,for every increase of 100 confirmed cases during the sample period,the average number of participants in mutual aid increases by 7,446 and the compensation paid grows by 4.27%.However,traditional insurance exhibits no significant changes in sales.Second,mutual aid plays a more significant role in regions with better digital financial inclusion and among populations with a higher level of social trust.Third,mutual aid has a more pronounced effect on migrants and females who are disproportionately affected during the pandemic.These results have crucial implications for the development of insurance and social security systems.First,this study provides empirical evidence highlighting the positive response of InsurTech during the pandemic,which is highly relevant for policymaking.In particular,in the context of normalized pandemic prevention and control,mutual aid empowered by InsurTech effectively overcomes the limitations of traditional commercial insurance in terms of accessibility and inclusiveness,thus becoming a vital supplement to traditional commercial insurance.Second,this study indicates the necessity for digital transformation in the traditional commercial insurance industry.Although mutual aid has been completely discontinued,the InsurTech mechanism underlying it offers vital insights for reforming traditional commercial insurance.This is the first study to empirically examines how mutual aid functions within China's medical security system and provides specific guidance for healthcare system reform following the discontinuation of mutual aid.