Source: Beijing Business Today
The "Measures for the Online Marketing Management of Financial Products" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures") will officially take effect on 9/30. On the eve of these new regulations, the entire insurance sector has already felt that a deep industry adjustment and ecosystem restructuring—covering accounts, personnel, content, and conversion across the full chain—is imminent.
The "Management Measures" regulate the online marketing of financial products. It stipulates that personnel conducting marketing via public accounts, live streaming, or short videos must be employees of financial institutions, hold relevant qualifications, and obtain authorization from their institution.
On the surface, these new rules primarily target the vast number of fund and securities-related self-media accounts on the internet—individual accounts that provide investment advice and promote products to retail investors. However, their scope extends beyond this. Over the past few years, many insurance institutions have invested heavily in cultivating insurance self-media accounts and building personal brands as a key direction for agent transformation, establishing extensive account matrices across major platforms. Now, this wave of insurance self-media rooted in social platforms is also brought under the new regulatory framework, facing a top-down compliance overhaul.
Insurance Social Media Shifts from "Open to All" as Industry Rectification Underway
In recent years, as internet insurance transformation accelerates, short videos and private social channels have become key battlegrounds for agents to acquire customers, educate the public, and promote products. Major insurers and intermediaries are encouraging agents to build personal brands and manage self-media accounts on platforms like Douyin, WeChat Channels, and Xiaohongshu to drive online customer acquisition and business development.
A low-barrier, highly viral, and cost-effective online marketing model has significantly reduced insurance sales costs and expanded customer reach. However, due to the long absence of unified and detailed regulatory standards, it has gradually given rise to widespread marketing irregularities, gray-market chains, and compliance loopholes. The industry's unregulated growth has become increasingly problematic, forming the backdrop for the implementation of the "Management Measures."
Recent investigations by Beijing Business Today reveal that despite repeated bans, hundreds of insurance company accounts and thousands of short videos continue to feature misleading claims such as "covers both major and minor illnesses," "returns outperform bank deposits," "a product strongly backed by the state," and "principal remains intact with interest you can't stop collecting." Practices like luring customers with high-interest promises, manufacturing anxiety, and redirecting traffic to Hong Kong insurance products persist. Some accounts even misrepresent insurance products as deposit alternatives using terms like "interest," "deposit shifting," and "beat-the-deposit deals," falsely claiming funds are "fully accessible at any time after five years."
Industry lawyers state that "withdraw anytime after five years" conceals critical information. Insurance is not a deposit; the amount available in year five depends on whether it's a partial or full surrender, and may involve surrender charges and withdrawal restrictions.
Following the release of relevant reports, some accounts have already taken down their videos or deleted their profiles to go "underground." This "death by exposure" reaction indicates that marketing content from certain past accounts could not withstand compliance scrutiny.
Addressing long-standing industry issues, the "Management Measures" close regulatory gaps at the institutional level and strengthen the primary responsibility of financial institutions. The measures require financial institutions to assume management responsibility for their employees' online marketing activities. Institutions must ensure that such activities are conducted only through their proprietary platforms or via legally registered accounts on third-party internet platforms; they must enhance compliance reviews by promptly monitoring official accounts, live streams, short videos, and other content on third-party platforms to ensure all marketing materials comply with regulations; and they must implement traceability for marketing actions by retaining relevant video, audio, image, and text records for verification.
Sun Yuhao, a senior partner and attorney at Shanghai Huihua Yongtai Law Firm, explained that in the future, insurance agents will not be allowed to establish personal social media accounts as independent sales channels outside the control of licensed institutions. They cannot use educational content as a guise for soliciting insurance business. All private domain consultations, traffic redirections, and similar activities must comply with institutional compliance requirements to prevent sales misconduct, unauthorized sub-delegation, and other violations in private domain operations.
For key influencers in the insurance media space, Sun Yuhao stated that entities without professional qualifications or unable to be managed under licensed institutions will be prohibited from conducting insurance marketing and solicitation activities and must exit the insurance sales channel. Those holding valid professional qualifications may only serve as content dissemination channels within the framework of licensed institutions; all short videos, live streams, and private domain communications must undergo prior compliance review.
Tighten the entire chain: accounts, content, and audit trails are all mandatory.
For the insurance industry, the implementation of the "Management Measures" marks a shift in online insurance marketing from an unregulated "anyone can broadcast" phase to a licensed compliance stage characterized by institutional authorization, identity verification, and full audit trail capabilities.
"As the saying goes, 'When spring warms the river water, ducks know it first.' Recent regulatory adjustments are most acutely felt by frontline insurance agents. One agent noted that when managing their own accounts previously, they could independently curate materials and directly write and publish product introductions. By drawing on frontline insights, they would break down product highlights, functional details, and use cases to deliver flexible, relatable content for readers. However, following the rule changes, self-managed accounts can no longer directly edit or publish product-related content. Agents cannot write copy, deconstruct sales points, or release new product interpretations themselves. All external communications regarding products must now be handled without direct creation from these accounts."
This rigorous content control is not an isolated case. An insider from an insurance intermediary told Beijing Business Today that marketing materials are currently produced centrally by the headquarters' content team, submitted for compliance review via WeCom with full audit trails, and tracked through WeCom Cloud services to ensure traceability. Once approved, materials are published uniformly to the company's official verified accounts and internal sales material platform. Brokers primarily source their daily sales materials from this centralized platform, reinforcing compliance and consistency at both the source and systemic levels.
While content is being tightened, accounts are also brought under full-chain management. A representative from an insurance company revealed that the firm has established a reporting and approval mechanism for both personal accounts of frontline agents and verified employee IDs. All registered accounts must be entered into a dedicated internal monitoring system managed centrally by the Group's Compliance Department, with branch compliance teams required to conduct daily monitoring.
To meet regulatory requirements, the intensity of industry compliance training is increasing to comprehensively enhance practitioners' compliance awareness and practical skills. Beijing Business Today observed that some insurance companies have invited lawyers for training, focusing on practical issues such as compliant management of agents' social media accounts, traceability management, and unified content libraries. Additionally, branches of certain insurance companies addressed compliance boundaries and risk disclosure requirements in "Senior Executives Discuss Consumer Protection" sessions, specifically covering high-frequency scenarios like WeChat Moments posts, short videos, and live streaming promotions.
Industry-wide general training is also underway. The China Insurance Education, under the China Insurance Association, is hosting an online classroom to interpret the "Management Measures," delivering industry-level general training.
According to Sun Yuhao, a complete online marketing compliance system must cover the entire process. He stated that online marketing compliance should evolve from "line-by-line copy review" to end-to-end management covering accounts, personnel, content, ad placement, conversion, record-keeping, and incident handling. Organizations should establish reusable compliant asset libraries and lists of prohibited statements. Key information—including product names, underwriting/sales entities, coverage responsibilities, fees, returns or benefit illustrations, and risk disclosures—must align precisely with contract terms. Additionally, behavior controls for streamers and sales staff must be strengthened. Beyond pre-publishing authorization and training, live streaming scripts or Q&A boundaries, escalation protocols for sensitive questions, real-time monitoring, and stop authority should be implemented. Any commitments made on the spot that exceed contract terms or authorized scope are strictly prohibited.
Implementation requires refinement; execution standards remain unclear.
With new regulations taking effect, all parties in online insurance marketing are navigating the transition from understanding rules to adapting execution. While the direction is clear, the standards remain to be calibrated, and a stable boundary between compliance and business development has yet to be established.
An internet insurance intermediary admitted that the company supports the new regulations and is committed to compliant operations, which is beneficial for the industry's long-term healthy development. However, a transition period from written rules to actual implementation is necessary. Currently, there are no clear penalty cases in the market. Major platforms (Xiaohongshu, Douyin, WeChat Channels) have already begun cleaning up content and accounts in advance, though the standards and scales of cleanup vary. In this context, the company's strategy is to maintain existing review standards without relaxation while closely monitoring regulatory dynamics and platform rule changes after 9 month 30, then gradually adjust advertising spend accordingly.
Account qualification requirements have also become a focal point for institutions. As noted by an industry representative, new regulations mandate that financial product marketing on digital platforms must be conducted using authorized accounts owned by the institution. In practice, only two account types fully comply: verified institutional enterprise accounts (blue checkmarks) and employee accounts where ownership lies with the company and agents hold usage rights only. However, many platforms still host personal insurance professional certifications, raising concerns about potential non-compliant financial activities.
Beyond accounts, defining content attributes is still an evolving process. Industry insiders note that the most discussed boundary currently lies between insurance education and specific product marketing. How to precisely distinguish between widespread educational content—such as general insurance knowledge and industry principles—and direct product promotion remains a shared challenge for the industry to solve in practice.
In practice, the core regulatory requirement of "licensed institutions and certified personnel" does not entirely prohibit insurance agents from sharing insurance education content via personal social media accounts. However, all such activities must remain under the unified oversight of their licensed insurance agency. Li Chao, an insurance attorney at Beijing Shaohemingdi Law Firm, explains that after the new rules take effect, agents may still share concepts about insurance principles, risk awareness, and basic financial knowledge in a personal capacity—as long as they do not mention specific products, include lead capture links, display business credentials, or direct users toward purchases. Any educational content ultimately intended to drive traffic into private channels for policy conversion is considered commercial promotion and therefore requires authorization from a licensed institution.
From traffic amplifier to long-term service gateway: ensuring reliability.
This regulatory crackdown on insurance marketing will also reshape the logic of online insurance.
The significance of the new regulations extends beyond tightening controls to recalibrating the industry—shifting insurance online marketing from short-term traffic chasing toward a sustainable path anchored in coverage awareness, long-term service, and high-quality operations.
Li Chao believes the "Management Measures" will reshape the industry ecosystem and rectify irregularities across three dimensions.
First, reduce the "cost of trust." Insurance is a long-term contract where you purchase a payout commitment decades in the future, not the emotional value of a few minutes in a livestream. Previously, "financial influencers" relied on their followers' trust to make decisions for them; the more sensational their rhetoric, the deeper the potential for misinformation.
Second, shift the focus from "investment logic" back to "protection logic." Prohibit simple comparisons between insurance returns and deposits or asset management products. Ban misleading terms like "low risk, high return." The goal is to bring insurance back to its core purpose: protection.
Third, shift industry competition from "who's loudest" to "who serves longest."
Amidst the reshaping of industry standards and a return to core values, the role of internet insurance channels is poised for comprehensive upgrade. "Internet channels will no longer serve merely as sales platforms for insurance products but also become vehicles for spreading risk awareness and conducting consumer education, guiding the market back to insurance's core function of risk protection," said Sun Yuhao. In the long run, this regulation will help internet insurance move away from uncontrolled growth, compel institutions to strengthen their online compliance systems, and foster a sustainable business model for the industry—truly achieving high-quality development in internet insurance.
"After the new regulations take effect, compliance costs may rise in the short term, but long-term metrics such as renewal rates, complaint rates, and claims experience will improve. Overall, the new rules do not prohibit insurance promotion via digital channels; however, online platforms should not amplify gray-market traffic. Instead, they should serve as educational spaces for coverage awareness and entry points for long-term service," Li Chao summarized.
Beijing Business Today reporter Li Xiumei
