Life insurance telesales rules tighten

China's insurance regulator has strengthened rules on telesales of life insurance products, a move welcomed by consumers who hope the new regulations will help better protect their personal information.

Insurance salespeople can no longer dial a random number to promote their products, or make phone calls to clients between 9 pm and 9 am unless clients ask them to do so, the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) said in a statement published Thursday.

Life insurance companies will be required to keep lists of people who wish not to be called, and the names of any clients who ask not to be called again should be added to the list for at least six months, the statement said.

The CIRC will require local insurance regulatory bureaus to be responsible for inspecting telesales of life insurance products, and for punishing violations of the regulation.

Telesales of life insurance products have grown quickly since 2010, with more than two-thirds of life insurance companies in China currently selling their products over the phone. But the business model has created problems such as bothering and misleading consumers, according to the CIRC.

The commission received 617 consumer complaints about insurance telesales in 2012, up from 16 in 2011, with more than half of the complaints related to life insurance. Problems included repeated calls, fraudulent information provided by salespeople and the disclosure of personal information.

The new regulation aims to protect consumer interests and boost the healthy development of the insurance industry, the CIRC said.

"Big insurance companies have already set their own rules to regulate their employees, but a large number of smaller firms are disturbing the industry and increasing public distrust of the whole sector," Zhang Tao, general manager of online insurance agency 91datong.com, told the Global Times Sunday.

Zhang said telephone sales of life insurance products are also popular in countries such as the US and South Korea, but they have better supervision and stricter penalty systems.

"Now that the CIRC has followed up by rolling out these rules, local authorities need to implement the regulations thoroughly," he said.

The new regulations have also been welcomed by consumers, who hope a wider range of products will be included under the supervision.

"Besides receiving promotional phone calls from insurance companies, I also often receive calls from investment companies and property agencies. I have no idea where they got my information," Hu Yuan, a 24-year-old Beijing resident, told the Global Times Sunday.

"But I have my own tactic to deal with these spam calls - using software in my smartphone to automatically reject them," she said.

Zhao Zhanling, a lawyer at Beijing Huicheng Law Firm, said on his Sina Weibo Friday that authorities should also make efforts to crack down on illegal trading of personal information.