Deep investigation! Block the profit cycle of "agent surrender"!

On a winter day in 20 19, a middle-aged man stood at the exit of Dalian Railway Station, holding high the sign of "Insurance Refund, High Refund". Since then, in Guangdong, Liaoning, Shanghai, Sichuan and other places, the "black industry organization where all malicious complaint agents turn themselves in" (hereinafter referred to as "black property where agents turn themselves in") has started to "stir up" sporadically.

In just three years, from various "leather bag" companies to major Internet platforms, the figure of "agent surrender" is everywhere. Shanghai securities news's long-term follow-up investigation shows that the black market of "agent surrender" is gradually organized, large-scale, specialized and diversified, and the so-called "successful cases" have been publicly spread on the media platform with high frequency, which is shocking and rampant.

The spread of this new type of financial fraud has aroused the public indignation of regulators, industries, institutions and even consumers. It not only discredits the image of the insurance industry and increases internal friction in the industry, but also seriously interferes with the financial order and disrupts the market environment. When the risk really comes, these consumers who are induced to surrender their insurance are unable to get economic compensation because they lose insurance shelter, and often suffer heavy losses.

There must be zero tolerance for lawless elements. Recently, public security organs in Shenzhen, Hainan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Chongqing and other places issued announcements to collect clues about illegal and criminal activities of "proxy surrender" from the society. At the same time, the China Banking Regulatory Commission also issued relevant notices, regarding the rectification of "agent surrender" as the key work at present and in the future. At the same time, relevant civil lawsuits have been accepted by the court and the gangs involved have been brought to justice.

The promotion of public security law has made the industry see the dawn of "agent surrender" black production that is expected to accelerate the arrest. In the opinion of industry experts, the efforts to crack down on the "agent surrender" of black products cannot be relaxed. We must work together to deeply dismantle the operation mode of illegal production and formulate a comprehensive management plan focusing on cutting off the profit cycle of illegal production to prevent the resurgence of illegal production.

Continuous expansion and downward penetration

Surrender should be a normal behavior in the process of consumer insurance consumption. Policy contracts generally have a hesitation period, usually around 10 days or 15 days. During the hesitation period, consumers can terminate the contract and return all the premiums; After the hesitation period, consumers have to surrender their insurance again to get back their cash value. In the first few years of the policy, the cash value is generally much lower than the premium amount.

However, in recent years, some illegal organizations or individuals pretend to be financial institutions and insurance workers. And in the name of "internal resources", apply for full surrender by telephone or online publicity. After defrauding consumers' trust and entrustment, under the guise of "acting as an agent to protect rights", they maliciously complained to the regulatory authorities by fabricating facts and providing false information, so as to achieve the purpose of surrendering insurance and asking for handling fees, and then tricked consumers into "returning the old ones to buy new ones" and taking out the commission commission of insurance sales again.

Such behavior is vividly called "agent surrender" by the industry. It is different from the traditional financial fraud, belongs to a new type of financial fraud, and has the characteristics of constituting the traditional financial fraud, but the purpose and implementation method of its illegal possession are more hidden and complicated.

At first, due to the small amount of insurance policy involved, the insurance company only followed up with "agent surrender" as a case. However, the development of the situation exceeded expectations. As more and more cities become popular, "agent surrender" black production organizations appear, and insurance companies realize the seriousness of the problem.

According to the reporter's investigation and interview, at the beginning of 20 18, "agent surrender" was only a few sporadic incidents, and the complaints were mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta region, which did not form a large-scale bad atmosphere. In the middle of 20 18, the scale of "agent surrender" began to break out, and the means of committing crimes gradually evolved into "from illegally obtaining consumer information, to pretending to be the staff of the supervision or insurance company, and finally deceiving consumers to maliciously surrender or reinsurance", which became the main source of regulatory complaints.

The person in charge of Guangdong Branch of a large life insurance company said that in 2020, affected by the epidemic, the "agent surrender" black industry with low threshold, high profit and quick cash-out quickly attracted a large number of idle unemployed people, which led to the second outbreak of "agent surrender" complaints in the first half of that year. In the black industry, professional companies and individual agents have gradually blossomed everywhere, and even professional training institutions have appeared.

Since May 2020, under the background of large-scale "agent surrender" crackdown in the national regulatory linkage industry, some powerful black production organizations have been forced to further transform. They began to attract professional legal personnel and scholars to participate (for example, recruiting law firms and recruiting law students at colleges and universities with high salaries). ), and gradually transform into a large-scale, compliant and enterprise-oriented way, and the difficulty of cracking down continues to increase.

Since 20021,with the continuous expansion and downward penetration of the "agent surrender" industry, "agent surrender" has become more and more diversified in terms of geographical distribution, means of committing crimes and agency methods.

After nearly two years of development, the subject of "agent surrenders" has developed from an individual and a small gang to a large gang with strict organization, clear division of labor, strict discipline, hierarchical management and implementation system. The members of the "agent surrender" black market gang are complex, including on-the-job or off-duty insurance practitioners and social idlers, as well as legal experts in professional fields, who play different roles in the gang. The interest chain is long, attracting different social classes to participate, such as underground call centers, express delivery companies, law firms and so on. Moreover, all links cover each other and are extremely concealed, making it more and more difficult to crack down on illegal production.

A number of insurance companies told reporters that the "agent surrender" of illegal products has gradually escalated into organized and large-scale "illegal crimes". In other words, from the beginning, consumers were instigated and instructed to complain to the regulatory authorities about malicious surrender for profit. Now, after obtaining a large amount of consumer information through improper channels, they pretend to be the service personnel of insurance companies to swindle at home, misappropriate the funds in their insurance accounts to re-insure for their own interests, resulting in consumer property losses.

Illegal infiltration of "getting customers"

Since the report of "agent surrender" in 2020, shanghai securities news has been paying attention to the development and evolution of this stubborn black interest ecological chain. More and more insurance institutions began to reflect the seriousness of the trend of "agent surrender" to the regulatory authorities. Especially since this year, there has been a new trend of committing crimes across provinces.

The reporter learned in the investigation that in Guangdong, for example, except Shenzhen and Dongguan, black gangs from Hunan, Sichuan, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hubei and other places have successively entered the Guangdong market, and formed an operation mode of attracting customers online and organizing personnel offline. Even in some areas, some local employees, mainly after-service insurance salesmen, colluded with foreign black market gangs to exchange customer information and make profits through cooperation.

This kind of black market gang is familiar with the supervision system, with professional methods, attracting customers from all over the country, and has a complete crime process of "letters and visits-administrative reconsideration-repeated entanglement", which has begun to take shape in Fujian, Hunan, Sichuan, Qingdao and other places.

The market has always been very curious. Where do the customers of the illegal gangs of "agent surrender" come from?

According to the reporter's investigation, there are three main ways to get customers:

First, by infiltrating insurance companies, courier companies and other places that have access to insurance contract information, illegal means are taken to obtain a large number of customer information, including customer personal information, insurance contracts and other property information. Then, a special person pretends to be the supervisor by using VoIP or an unnamed mobile phone number, and the staff of the insurance company contacts the accurate customer, inviting him to "serve" on the grounds of annual insurance inspection and giving gifts, and inducing the customer to choose to surrender and re-insure.

Second, through small loan companies, financial consulting companies, legal consulting companies, financial consulting companies, industrial and commercial consulting companies, science and technology consulting companies and other small "leather bag" companies (or soliciting individual agents to draw shares), directly ask customers with capital needs whether they have insurance policies and promise to lend money in 10- 15 days. Compared with lending, the interest rate of luring lenders to complain about surrender is higher.

Third, through social networks such as WeChat official account, circle of friends, riders and car owners, the agency's "full surrender" advertisement was released to attract customers in its interpersonal relationships. And relying on public media such as Baidu Search, Taobao, Weibo, Tik Tok, Xiaohongshu and Idle Fish to publish false information to attract the attention of strange customers with insurance contracts; And there is a special person to receive, using private chat methods such as WeChat to divert customers to special groups. In the group, many members play the roles of insurance company staff, legal affairs, finance and so on, providing customers with many-to-one "private services".

A recent article "Surrender = Loss" from WeChat official account "Morning Reading in the Workplace Circle"? I successfully surrendered 40,000 yuan, and my experience is worth learning from, which has successfully attracted the attention of many readers. After the reporter clicked in, he found that this was a soft advertisement suspected of "agent surrender".

"Successfully surrendered 89,454.3 yuan! Three insurances, give me a full refund! " With the help of the surrender consultant, I can do it in one month? The description of the so-called "agent surrender" success case is not concealed, and even the WeChat QR code of the surrender consulting manager is left at the end of the article.

At the other end of the QR code is a surrender consultant who calls himself "Manager Hong". He directly asked the reporter whether he had consulted about insurance surrender, and said that his team has been engaged in "agent surrender" for more than 3 years and has very rich experience in this field. He claimed: "As long as it is commercial insurance, it can be refunded. However, if a single company pays less than 1 1,000 yuan, it will not do it, and a service fee of 30% will be charged according to the surrender amount. "

Looking through this manager Hong's WeChat circle of friends, we generally introduced hundreds of successful cases of "agent surrender", covering Shandong, Henan, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong and other places. The reporter found through inquiry that Wuhan Hongde Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. introduced by Manager Hong was only established in February this year, and both the major shareholder and the legal representative pointed to a person named "Gao Kai".

The reporter found that Manager Hong also mentioned another company "Wuhan Hongzhengyang Legal Consulting Co., Ltd." in the WeChat circle of friends. Coincidentally, Tianyan's information shows that the legal representative of this company is also Gao Kai. In addition, Gao Kai is the major shareholder and legal representative of Wuhan Honghui Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. and Wuhan Shen Xing Legal Consulting Co., Ltd.

It is worth noting that Wuhan Hongzhengyang Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. was established in August 20021year, and Wuhan Honghui Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. and Wuhan Shen Xing Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. were established in February this year. Wuhan Hongzhengyang Legal Consulting Co., Ltd. also has disputes related to "insurance consulting service".

There are many indications that this man named "Gao Kai" is closely related to "agent surrender".

The reporter learned in the investigation that compared with the previous active marketing communication modes such as websites, due to the restrictive communication, "agent surrender" is mainly concentrated in first-tier cities. However, in recent years, personal publicity channels have blown out, and "agent surrender" has begun to spread, rapidly affecting many second-and third-tier cities and counties.

"Service" is under the challenge.

Since the crackdown on "agent surrender", regulatory authorities and industry associations at all levels have been sparing no effort to issue a document to remind the vast number of insurance consumers to be alert to the potential risks of "agent surrender", while paying attention to protecting personal information and rationally safeguarding their legitimate rights and interests from infringement according to law.

But there are still consumers who fall into the trap. For example, the reporter learned in the investigation that recently, an insurance company found that a 16 gang headed by Chen Mou illegally bought and sold a large number of customer information of the company, and tricked 247 consumers into surrendering insurance for profit. Although consumers can provide some clues when giving feedback to insurance institutions afterwards, it is difficult for insurance institutions to form effective follow-up evidence collection due to the lack of professional investigation methods. In the end, consumers suffered economic and property losses in vain, and black-collar elements fled at this time.

This is related to the illegal gangs setting up rings in the "service".

First, misleading to stimulate demand.

As we all know, insurance is a relatively professional financial product. The black market of "agent surrender" mainly uses insurance consumers' lack of relevant knowledge and information asymmetry to win customers' trust by disguising official background, maliciously misinterpreting contract terms, creating and amplifying customers' misunderstanding of the contract, and inducing customers to "subtract", "upgrade" and "replace" the original insurance contract, thus creating opportunities for cashing in premiums and making profits from them.

Secondly, "many-to-one" layout control.

In the process of "agent surrender" to provide so-called "service", there will even be people with different roles involved, playing duet with each other, confusing right and wrong and deceiving customers. For example, some employees of insurance companies claim to provide internal channels to assist in handling high surrender fees in order to collect handling fees; There are also financial personnel who are responsible for reminding customers to pay the handling fee; What's more, the so-called "leader" closely controls every step of the customer's actions, including how to complain, in what name, providing false evidence, how to handle complaints step by step, paying attention to the recording of each call, and then determining the next action according to the recording, and so on.

Finally, the agreement pays "service fee" and "liquidated damages".

In order to ensure profitability, customers will be required to sign a so-called "service agreement" after accepting the "service". Black market organizations provide legal camouflage through agreements. When the customer found out that he was cheated and wanted to quit the service, some legal personnel coerced the customer to pay the service fee and liquidated damages by agreement. If the customer insists on not cooperating, there will be a dunning team, which will use the customer information obtained in advance to harass and intimidate the customer, such as "calling you to death" by SMS, telephone, APP, etc., threatening to apply for a loan in the name of the customer, and even threatening to harass relatives and friends.

The "agent surrender" black products are all gang crimes, with clear division of labor and strict organization. They try their best to make illegal profits in various forms:

One is to collect the share of surrender premium. The "agent surrender" black market organizations mislead or encourage insurance consumers to misinterpret insurance products, sign personal agency agreements with consumers, and immediately charge 500-2,000 yuan as a deposit, and charge 30%-60% of the surrender fee as a handling fee after surrender.

The principal-agent agreement generally stipulates that the lawsuit shall not be withdrawn without the consent of the surrender agent. If the customer gives up the complaint halfway, the deposit will be confiscated. If the customer insists on giving up the complaint, the institution or individual will coerce or coerce the consumer to cooperate in completing the complaint, surrender and other procedures with agreements that are not protected by law and completely contrary to the facts (such as threatening to blacklist their credit information and not taking the high-speed train) and pay high handling fees. ).

The second is to charge a high consulting fee. In order to prevent customers from getting the share of surrender premium due to unreasonable full surrender, the black market organization of "agent surrender" is upgraded to the form of full surrender guidance and consultation, which provides customers with full surrender guidance in stages to obtain the income of customer consulting fees.

The third is to induce insurance consumers to "retire the old and buy new ones". Organizing resignation insurance salesmen to pretend to be existing employees or supervisors of insurance companies, deceiving insurance consumers to "return the old products and buy new ones" on the grounds that the original insurance company's products have low returns, that is, buying so-called risk financing investment products under the banner of "high returns" and "high returns" to earn commission income.

The fourth is to teach students to make profits. Students who "turn themselves in" through WeChat groups, official WeChat accounts and other networks will gain relevant benefits through online teaching or providing counseling materials.

According to the reporter's investigation, it has been found that the "agent surrender" black-market organizations began to arrange personnel to join major insurance companies in turn, deliberately retaining evidence in the sales process, and after earning commissions from insurance companies, they left their jobs actively or passively, and then made a second profit through "agent surrender" for the policies during their employment. In addition, some black market organizations recruit a large number of employees who leave the insurance industry with high salaries, in order to obtain customer information and policy information held by employees during their work, improve the pertinence of customers, and even instigate employees to surrender in full.

Even some illegal gangs will intercept the insurance consumers' surrender money in order to obtain greater benefits, and even use the information of insurance consumers' ID cards and bank cards mastered in the process of "agent surrender" to defraud consumers' money again.

Block the profit cycle

The whole industry hates these illegal gangs that disturb the normal business order of the insurance industry. It is worth mentioning that the insurance industry from the regulatory authorities to institutions, as well as the public security law and other departments have begun to take active actions, adopted a series of specific measures, cracked several major cases, effectively cracked down on the arrogance of the "agent surrender" black-market gangs, and played a certain deterrent role.

The regulatory authorities are continuing to take action. Recently, the Personal Insurance Department of the China Banking Regulatory Commission issued the Notice on Deepening the Rectification of Surrender by Agency, requiring insurance industry associations, bancassurance companies and life insurance companies to take the rectification of Surrender by Agency as the key work at present and in the future, set up special working groups, focus on cracking down on illegal activities, actively promote business activities such as consulting agents for insurance surrender, mislead the insured to surrender, disrupt the market order, and dig deep into organizations or individuals that may be involved behind Surrender by Agency.

Local regulatory authorities have achieved initial results in cracking down on "agent surrender" black products. For example, Guangdong Banking Insurance Supervision Branch insists on striking hard and using legal means to explore new ways to pursue responsibility and recovery. First, the joint public security organs strengthened the investigation and punishment of "proxy surrender" illegal and criminal cases, and successively transferred four clues of "proxy surrender" illegal and criminal cases to the Guangdong Provincial Public Security Department. Among them, Jiangmen Zhou Moumou's case of infringing citizens' personal information was pronounced in June 5438 +2020 10, which became the first case of national judicial crackdown since the CBRC deployed the special treatment of "malicious complaints". Second, the insurance institution makes civil recourse against the responsible agent. Third, insurance institutions recover the losses caused by the illegal sales of agents in violation of the insurance law and insurance agency contracts in the form of lawyer's letters and official letters, and promote the construction of an all-round and diversified legal responsibility investigation system.

Shanghai Banking Insurance Regulatory Bureau has also cracked many cases of "agent surrender". After investigation by the bureau, since 20 19, Xu Moumou and Zhu Moumou have gathered a large number of unemployed people and employees of several insurance companies to form gangs, and organized a nationwide "surrender of black property" activity. By the end of February 2022, 96 people were involved, 44 were prosecuted and 40 were sentenced by the court.

The support of regulatory authorities and industry associations has also increased the confidence and determination of insurance companies to crack down on "surrendering illegal products". In the interview, the reporter learned that for cases of suspected illegal products "agent surrender", such as finding out the evidence before the complaint, leaving the salesman to protect himself, and the insurance company has no obvious flaws, some regional regulatory authorities clearly regard the confirmed illegal facts as the basis for punishment.

The public security organs are also taking action. According to reports, all localities are organizing a three-month special campaign to crack down on "agent surrender" crimes. The reporter found out that recently, public security organs in Shenzhen, Hainan, Hubei, Jiangxi, Chongqing and other places issued announcements to collect clues about "agent surrender" of black products from the society. The key points of the report include: information, telephone number, WeChat, address and other related clues of "agent surrender" black production organizations or individuals; "Surrender by proxy" refers to the proxy surrender agreement, telephone recording, transfer record and other related clues signed by black market organizations or individuals; The false propaganda of "agent surrender" issued by black-market organizations or individuals and other related clues.

Insurance agencies are also on the move. During the investigation, all the insurance companies harassed by the illegal gangs of "surrender by proxy" expressed their determination to "face it squarely and never tolerate it".

A number of insurance companies are actively involved in cracking down on illegal production. For example, a large life insurance company set up a special working group to crack down on black products led by the legal compliance team, deeply dismantled the operation mode of black products, and formulated a comprehensive management plan focusing on cutting off the profit loop of black products. In the next step, the effectiveness of existing relevant measures will be inspected and evaluated, and those with obvious effects will continue to strengthen promotion and consolidate the results of crackdown and rectification; At the same time, further clarify the identification standard, attack method and corresponding evidence materials. In terms of criminal crackdown, we will further strengthen the integration, unified command and hierarchical management of information resources, and promote it in the way of key supervision by the headquarters and self-investigation by the institutions.

It is necessary to strike while the iron is hot. The relevant person in charge of another large life insurance company also told reporters that on the one hand, they strengthened internal control to prevent the risk of "agent surrender" from breeding internally, on the other hand, they were building a monitoring platform for "surrendering black products", screening suspected cases of "surrendering black products" through big data analysis, and strictly controlling the handling of such cases.

However, at present, the insurance industry is still in a deep transition period, and all parties concerned still cannot relax in the face of constantly renovating and upgrading the means of committing crimes.

In the interview, many people in the insurance industry said that from the company's point of view, only an exception can be made and a systematic and powerful punishment cannot be formed. Therefore, it is suggested that industry associations should take the lead in formulating unified identification standards, strengthen high-risk information sharing and case merging, and form a collaborative mechanism for the identification, monitoring and disposal of illegal products surrendered by agents by regulators, associations, judicial and insurance institutions.

For insurance companies, it is also an important breakthrough to cut off the profit cycle of "agent surrender" from the source by strengthening agent management, tracing back to the source and promoting mechanism reform. At present, insurance agents flow frequently, and a large number of insurance agents fall off every year in many areas, and some of these people flow into the "surrender black property". The root of the problem is short-term incentive, loose management, unbalanced distribution of benefits and deviation of assessment system. In this regard, insurance companies should also speed up the reform of marketing system, constantly improve internal control mechanism, strengthen business and personnel management education, scientifically standardize the design of basic law, improve the commission system, and fundamentally prevent arbitrage risks.