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On 9/30, the "Administrative Measures for Online Marketing of Financial Products" (hereinafter referred to as "the New Regulations"), jointly issued by eight departments including the People's Bank of China, the National Financial Regulatory Administration, and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, officially came into effect. The New Regulations cover all online marketing activities for financial products, including insurance. This marks that online marketing of insurance products has entered an era requiring proper licensing, with non-compliant practices being gradually phased out of the market.
On the eve of new regulations, some local financial regulators have begun surveying, documenting, and rectifying compliance issues in insurance companies' online marketing accounts within their jurisdictions to clarify the market landscape. Many agents are also cleaning up non-compliant marketing on public platforms like WeChat Moments at the company's request and undergoing intensive compliance training to obtain official compliance authorization.
For agents, the old growth model driven by internet traffic no longer fits today's market. Under the new regulatory framework, compliance is just one piece of the puzzle. To monetize digital marketing and succeed in the future, agents must increasingly prioritize service quality and professional expertise.
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Eight agencies crack down on old online marketing ecosystem of insurance agents, clarifying that insurance institutions bear primary responsibility
Eight agencies have launched a joint enforcement action of unprecedented scale, with a clear regulatory intent: governance of online marketing for financial products will no longer rely solely on financial regulators. Instead, it will involve coordinated efforts across content oversight (Cyberspace Administration), platform regulation (Ministry of Industry and Information Technology), and advertising supervision (State Administration for Market Regulation). Each agency will apply pressure on non-compliant financial product marketing activities within its respective jurisdiction.
When multiple departments intervene simultaneously, compliance pressure on third-party internet platforms will rise exponentially. Unlike in the past, this new regulation is being enforced with greater force, largely because internet platforms are now brought under financial regulatory oversight. This strengthens their obligations to monitor and verify partners while clarifying their authority to take independent action. Platforms must now monitor and verify the qualifications of cooperating financial institutions as well as marketing content; they can no longer claim exemption from liability by asserting that they merely provide information storage space.
Third-party internet platforms must verify the qualifications of entities engaged in financial product marketing and related content creation, and display their financial business licenses or professional certifications on the homepage of accounts used for financial product marketing. For non-compliance with this provision, platforms shall promptly suspend information publishing services in the relevant domain or close the associated accounts.
Third-party internet platforms shall strengthen monitoring and surveillance. Upon discovering that financial product marketing or promotional content violates the provisions of these Measures, they shall immediately cease information dissemination services and report to the relevant regulatory authorities.
For insurance agents, the internet has become a critical channel for business development. With the implementation of new regulations, the most noticeable change is in how content spreads. Previously, many agents built direct relationships with platforms, using personal accounts to drive traffic through content marketing and convert customers. Insurance companies played only a supportive or advisory role, while platforms generally lacked effective mechanisms to verify and control marketing content. This allowed some agents to partially bypass compliance requirements.
The new regulation's most direct impact is breaking the original relationships among agents, insurance institutions, and online platforms. It integrates all three parties, fully placing compliance responsibility for internet-based marketing of insurance products on insurance institutions. This establishes a sales conduct management framework centered on insurance institutions, which can be summarized in three aspects:
First, at the qualification access level, new regulations have significantly tightened entry requirements. The "independent" status for agents engaging in online marketing has been effectively ended. Holding a valid license, obtaining agency authorization, and possessing a legitimate account are now all mandatory. The new rules explicitly state:
When marketing financial products via official accounts, live streams, or short videos, you must do so on the financial institution's own platform or on legally authorized accounts operated by the institution on third-party internet platforms. Marketers must be employees of the financial institution, hold relevant qualifications for the business, and obtain explicit authorization from the institution.
Second, at the content management level, agents' autonomy in creating marketing content has been significantly reduced, with control shifting from individuals to insurance institutions. Under the new regulations, insurance institutions are responsible for the legality and compliance of online marketing content. They must establish a centralized review mechanism managed by headquarters that includes approval, filing, and compliance checks. When conducting online marketing, agents must use content approved by the insurance institution.
Specific rules also govern marketing details: insurers must not exaggerate insurance coverage or product returns, compare insurance returns to bank deposits or asset management products, or use persuasive terms such as "low risk," "low entry barrier," "instant settlement," "high returns," "low interest rates," or "no cost." Some agents report that since the new rules were issued, their companies have strictly controlled online marketing communications for agents. All topics, copy, scripts, and on-camera presentations now require rigorous approval.
Third, at the traceability level, all online sales activities by agents will be logged. Actions can no longer be erased without consequence; compliance requirements will apply throughout the entire marketing lifecycle, and any violation at any stage may be recorded. In accordance with new regulations, insurance institutions must assume responsibility for managing the online marketing conduct of their employees. They are required to strengthen traceability management of marketing activities and retain relevant video, audio, and text/image records for verification.
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Insurance influencers won't be phased out; traffic logic will ultimately yield to professional expertise.
As compliance responsibilities are increasingly placed on insurance institutions and all marketing activities fall under their authorization frameworks, a new question arises: What role will insurance agents who previously built traffic and influence on digital platforms through individual efforts play under this new regulatory structure? How should the value of personal IP be redefined?
In the past, many insurers welcomed and even encouraged their agents to build personal insurance brands. By leveraging internet platforms for online traffic generation, they achieved customer acquisition and business development. The core competitiveness of an individual insurance brand can be summarized as "personal brand + traffic capability." Many prominent insurance influencers operate under their own names, accumulating followers through consistent content creation. They then funnel public traffic into private channels to complete consultations and close deals. This model functioned effectively because platforms previously lacked robust qualification verification mechanisms for individual accounts engaged in insurance marketing. Consequently, personal brands partially substituted for institutional trust-building with clients.
Under the new regulatory framework, insurance institutions and platforms now deeply control online sales of insurance products, effectively cutting off traffic access for individual insurance influencers. Without actively integrating their accumulated audience and content capabilities into partnerships with insurance institutions, these influencers cannot convert their reach into effective marketing. Consequently, the model of independently promoting insurance products and converting customers under an individual's name—operating outside institutional credit systems—is no longer sustainable.
However, the new regulations only end a粗放 online marketing model for financial products; they do not directly prohibit insurance professionals from building personal brands or sharing professional content on the internet. Personal insurance IP remains viable, and top insurance influencers are not completely out of the picture.
For individual insurance influencers, participating in compliant marketing as an institutional entity means traffic alone no longer holds independent commercial value. We are already observing several transformation paths for these influencers in practice:
One approach is to embed insurance institutions into a communication matrix, positioning them as "personified endpoints." For instance, leading institutions may establish a three-tier matrix: a corporate headquarters account, regional branch accounts for provinces and cities, and individual agent accounts. The headquarters defines the IP positioning and content strategy; regional branches handle local brand exposure and localized operations; and individual agents flexibly choose between affiliation certification or separate persona development based on operational goals—maintaining compliance while preserving customer acquisition capabilities.
Currently, this matrix model has advanced to the practical implementation stage. For individual agent accounts, two distinct operating models have emerged: some accounts are verified as "company employees" and follow a "financial professional persona + content sharing" approach; others remain unverified as company employees, with content completely separated from insurance, relying on backend private domain operations for conversion.
Another approach is the "public domain education + private domain cultivation" model, where agents share only knowledge-based content unrelated to product promotion in public channels and complete customer conversion in private domains or offline. However, the boundaries of this marketing path must be carefully defined. New regulations explicitly state that insurance professionals may not conduct online marketing through channels other than their financial institution's proprietary platforms or accounts legally established by the financial institution on third-party internet platforms. While there is room for compliant "public domain education," the margin for error is slim. Agents must establish clear compliance boundaries during the content planning stage.
Additionally, note that the transformation direction of a personal IP is also constrained by the underlying insurance sales tiering system. This year, regulators have issued multiple significant documents targeting agent marketing behaviors, including the "Insurance Product Suitability Management Self-Discipline Standards" released in 7, which officially implemented the insurance sales classification and tiering system. Under this system, agents are authorized based on comprehensive metrics such as insurance knowledge, compliance records, and sales history. Agents with the lowest competency level can only sell P1 basic products, while only those at the highest level are permitted to sell P4 and P5 high-risk products.
This means that even after completing compliance migration and obtaining institutional authorization and platform certification, an individual insurance IP's product promotion scope remains limited by its sales capability level. Previously, top insurance influencers could leverage their traffic to offer a wide range of products. After the transition, the products they can promote will be directly tied to their professional qualifications. In short, under these regulatory requirements, transforming into a compliant entity is not just about following procedures—it also requires substantive upgrades in agents' professional expertise.
Overall, the new regulations don't eliminate personal IP itself; they phase out粗放 traffic release and monetization models. After the新规, personal brands remain valuable—but their value now stems from service capability rather than traffic capture, and must be realized through an agency's compliance framework. For top creators who previously relied on personal accounts for business operations, the choice is clear: either migrate to compliance by embedding personal accounts within an agency's authorized system, or strictly sever commercial promotion ties, exit public-domain marketing, and shift to offline or private-domain services.
The compliance costs and business logic for the two marketing paths differ, but one thing is certain: under the new regulations, the path of independent marketing in an individual's name has been closed at the policy level.
