90% of Hainan Tourists Buy No Travel Accident Insurance: Take-Up Shockingly Low

Hainan hosted 16.97 million overnight tourists in H1 2013, earning RMB 18.1 billion — tourism booming. Yet travel accident premiums were just RMB 5.47 million in 2012 and RMB 2.88 million in H1 2013 — utterly disproportionate to 30 million-plus overnight tourists a year.

How low is take-up?

Why so low? Four reasons

1. Low take-up: weak self-protection awareness — “a few days away, nothing will happen”
2. Products don’t fit: diving, parachuting, climbing, rafting — the activities tourists most want covered — are routinely excluded
3. Narrow channels: sold mainly via agencies; independent travellers face hassle
4. Weak service system: take-up wildly mismatched with Hainan’s tourism growth

What’s proposed?

Hainan insurance regulators propose a proper travel-insurance mechanism to spread risk: timely treatment and compensation for tourists, business risk transferred off travel firms, less pressure on government.

A province hosting tens of millions of tourists with a few million in annual accident premiums — that’s not a market problem, it’s an awareness and system problem.