Reflections on the Criminal Involvement of the Top Insurance Seller: The Drawbacks of High Commissions and Scale Worship

Why Does the Crown of Insurance Sales Shine with Hidden Risks?

21st Century Business Herald Reporters Sun Shihui and Lin Hanyao

Recently, Taikang Life Qingdao Branch’s individual agent Ren was taken away by police on suspicion of fraud, causing industry shock.

This “national sales champion” and “century saintly insurance meeting president,” once regarded as a benchmark by the company, used his halo to exploit the insurance company’s endorsement, deceiving clients with claims of “internal financial management” and “high-interest loans” to embezzle large sums of money. This is not an isolated case; several years ago, a star agent from a major insurance company was sentenced for fundraising fraud.

Industry data shows that in the first 11 months of 2025, internet insurance premiums reached 590 billion yuan, with an annual growth of about 14%, but complaints and disputes remain high. Keywords like “automatic renewal,” “difficult claims,” and “zero yuan in the first month” have long topped consumer complaint lists.

Regulation is like “whack-a-mole”—when one violation is suppressed, “mutations” quickly emerge again.

Trust “Double Deficit” Online and Offline

Whether it’s the halo fraud of offline star agents or the “watered-down” information disclosure of online products, both expose the industry’s problems of prioritizing scale over quality, sales over service.

Ren Zili, Vice President and Secretary-General of the Insurance Law Research Association of the China Law Society and professor at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics Law School, pointed out that in the Taikang Ren case, his “national sales champion” status, frequent official announcements of performance, and promotional appearances by executives can easily mislead.

This “god-making” style promotion is similar to the “beautification” packaging of products on internet platforms.

Recently, some consumers reported to reporters that some online shopping platforms lure consumers with promises like “insurance given free in the first month,” but after a careless first click, they trigger automatic platform charges, leading to unnecessary financial losses for many unaware consumers, thus invisibly infringing on consumer rights.

Long Ge, Deputy Director of the Innovation and Risk Management Research Center at the University of International Business and Economics, told 21st Century Business Herald that the root cause of the persistent “misleading marketing” is the fundamental conflict between the rapid monetization logic of traffic and the rigorous professionalism of insurance. Marketers exploit the visual impact of short videos and users’ quick consumption habits to deliberately weaken key terms, while current regulatory measures struggle to cover the massive, fragmented content in real time. Meanwhile, some platforms, driven by commercial interests, often turn a blind eye to high-conversion content during review.

The recently released “2025 Insurance Digital Trust Blue Paper” (hereinafter “Blue Paper”) by the China Insurance and Social Security Research Center pointed out that there is a huge gap in understanding between consumers and insurance companies. Many consumers simply compare long-term savings insurance with bank deposits, ignoring surrender losses; they have fuzzy understanding of core concepts like “deductibles,” “liability exclusions,” and “cash value,” leading to illusions of “full coverage” during claims. The key issue is not that insurance companies fail to disclose information—contracts contain all necessary clauses, and many are highlighted in bold—but that disclosures remain at the “formal compliance” level, far from “substantive understanding.” In the era of mobile internet, consumers are used to “quick thinking” and “秒点击” (instant clicking), rarely reading dozens of pages of insurance contracts carefully. If platforms only pursue “one-click insurance” conversion rates, key information is folded, weakened, or hidden, making it difficult for consumers to truly understand “what’s not covered” or “how much loss on surrender” before making decisions.

System Roots: High Commissions + Scale Worship

The State Administration of Financial Supervision recently issued the “Negative List for Personal Insurance Products (2026 Edition)” (hereinafter “2026 Negative List”). It explicitly added provisions such as “setting excessively high deductibles or very low payout ratios for health insurance.” Industry insiders pointed out that unreasonable deductible settings and low payout ratios essentially weaken the core risk hedging function of insurance, and such products are prone to evolve into tools for low-price sales funneling.

Why do agents focus more on “big deals” and “scaling up” rather than long-term service? Why are internet platforms eager to set high deductibles and low payout ratios as “pseudo-innovations”? The answer points to the same systemic root: excessive short-term incentives.

Ju Junsheng, a postdoctoral fellow and professor of applied economics at Peking University, said that in traditional agent systems, the commission structure mainly relies on the first-year commission, creating strong short-term incentives with limited long-term service benefits. Under high commission incentives, agents prefer high-commission, high-premium products, which are not necessarily the most suitable for clients. Similarly, under pressure from high traffic costs, internet platforms tend to promote “high commission, high deductible” products rather than truly meeting consumer needs.

A senior agent from a leading life insurance company (with 27 years of experience) told reporters that since the implementation of the “reporting and operating as one” policy, commissions have been cut, and income has decreased. But deeper issues lie in the long-standing “star-making movement” within the industry, creating unrealistic “success bubbles.” Long Ge believes that this “star-making” can mislead agents into pursuing short-term fame rather than solid professionalism; externally, it may damage the industry’s overall professional image and consumer trust when “public personas collapse.” The so-called “pseudo-innovation” products in the internet health insurance sector are essentially another form of “star-making”—packaged with gimmicks like “0 deductible” and “zero yuan in the first month,” attracting attention but hiding the true cost of coverage.

Breaking the Deadlock: From “Whack-a-Mole” to “Trust Co-Governance”

The “Blue Paper” proposes a “layered and progressive information disclosure model” (“sandwich” model): the top layer uses short videos and scene demonstrations to quickly spark interest; the middle layer condenses core logic into a standardized “Key Facts Statement” (KFS); the bottom layer retains complete legal clauses for reference.

For agent channels, Ren Zili suggests implementing hierarchical authorization and differentiated management at the system level, strengthening high-frequency audits of star agents; clarifying credit endorsement responsibilities, and incorporating “god-making” publicity into authorized management; exploring parallel models of employee and agent systems, converting high-impact agents into employees. Ju Junsheng calls for further increasing the proportion of long-term renewal service benefits, so that agents’ long-term income depends more on client management than one-time sales.

However, a sales director of an insurance intermediary told reporters that the current gray operational space has been greatly narrowed, commissions have fallen, and many companies no longer include self-purchased policies in their competitive rewards. But rebuilding industry trust still requires a “dual effort”: at the institutional level, reform the legal status and assessment system of agents; at the incentive level, deeply incorporate long-term indicators such as business quality and customer satisfaction into evaluations.