Ping An Insurance Co, one of the country's largest insurers, is pinning its hopes on its "holiday insurance" which it is promoting to individuals for the first time.

Travellers only need to pay a 10 yuan (US$1.2) premium for a 40,000 yuan (US$4,800) indemnity policy during the coming holiday, which runs from May 1 to 7.

The new "holiday insurance" is targeted at individual tourists, said Liu Huizhi, an official with Ping An's Beijing branch.

"More and more people choose to travel during the three major holidays every year - the Spring Festival holiday, the May Day holiday and the National Day holiday," Liu said, "but China's travel insurance lags far behind the growing number of individual tourists."

The National Tourism Administration expects the number of domestic travellers to reach 810 million this year, with tourism revenue hitting 380 billion yuan (US$45.8 billion).

Liu said few insurance companies currently provide short-term travel insurance plans for individual tourists, mainly due to low profits and high risks.

"We believe it is a big potential market in the coming few years, as people's insurance consciousness is growing rapidly," said Liu.

People travelling with tour parties usually are covered by travel insurance provided by travel service agencies. China Life Insurance Co for example raked in 8.55 million yuan (US$1 million) from premiums during the last May Day holiday, most of which came from group package insurance, said Li Hong, director of the public relations department of China Life.

However, tourists travelling in groups account for less than 30 percent of the total number of travellers during holidays, statistics indicate.

Most individual tourists are not covered by travel insurance, leaving a vast market for insurers to develop, Liu said.

Since most people are unfamiliar with holiday insurance,, time will be needed to promote the new product throughout the country, according to Liu.

Zhou Jiancheng, manager of the party insurance department under Taikang Life Insurance Co, said promoting this kind of insurance is a good idea, and that Taikang's travel insurance plans rival those of Ping An.

Despite its price advantage over Ping An, Taikang has failed to gain a dominant share of the market because of its incomplete sales network and limited offering of the coverage, he said.

In addition, since holiday insurance generates low profits, companies are reluctant to spend large amounts on promotions and advertisements.

In order to solve the problem, Taikang is experimenting with a new way to popularize the product: online service, which is expected to provide customers easier access. The company is also actively seeking other channels, such as setting up sales branches in airports and railway stations.

Li Jiangang, an insurance broker with the Beijing branch of China Pacific Insurance Co Ltd, another large insurer in China, said his company also offers short-term travel insurance programmes to individual tourists, but the number of policy holders is very low.

Both Li and Zhou mentioned that following the Air China crash in South Korea on April 15, flight insurance policies had increased by more than 10 percent, which is expected to spur on the travel insurance market.

The insurance industry though keeps receiving the cold shoulder from the heated "holiday economy," a phrase referring to the boost in economic growth the three seven-day holidays have provided to the economy in recent years.

According to Zhang Hongtao, dean of the insurance department at Beijing-based Renmin University of China, the industry is not profiting from the holiday seasons because insurers underestimate the potential of the business. The emergence of holiday insurance will initiate competition though, said Zhang.

With increasing consumer awareness of insurance products and rises in disposable income, holiday insurance will have ample room for development in the coming future, said Zhang.

(China Daily April 30, 2002)