At a major insurance industry forum this week, a senior executive detailed the dual challenges facing insurers as they seek to better serve industrial sectors.

The discussion took place at the 2026 Huibao Tianxia Insurance Conference, held from July 3rd to 4th, which centered on the theme of navigating a new five-year cycle for the sector, driven by artificial intelligence and market divergence.

Pang Bo, Assistant General Manager of China Re Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd., participated in a panel titled "New Momentum for P&C Insurance: Breaking Growth Barriers in Industrial Deep Cultivation," which was part of the conference's mid-year strategy session.

Key Obstacles for Insurers

Pang Bo highlighted that the insurance industry's service to industrial development primarily faces two significant challenges.

Pricing Challenges from New Technologies

The first major hurdle is the pricing difficulty stemming from a lack of understanding of emerging technologies. "For instance, taking technology insurance, particularly insurance for technological activities as an example, from a traditional insurance logic perspective, we might consider it an uninsurable business because it is extremely difficult to price," Pang explained. He noted that while the insurance industry could theoretically calculate a probability and price for the success or failure of a research activity—similar to a venture capital investment—insurers cannot capture the investment returns. This creates a persistent issue of underpricing under high uncertainty. Conversely, industrial entities may perceive the premiums as too high and unaffordable, leading to a significant and enduring gap in expectations.

Loss Control for Complex, Emerging Risks

The second challenge involves loss control when confronting new and complex risks. These risks are highly intricate, diverse, interconnected, and come with greater scale and uncertainty. Pang used computing power insurance as an example, which encompasses risks from the high-value, asset-intensive nature of data centers, significant interconnected risks from business interruption and computing liability, and systemic risks like cybersecurity threats facing the entire supply chain. "When these three layers of risk are superimposed, for the insurance industry, especially for a single insurance company, it may be unbearable," he stated. This creates immense tension between supply and demand that is very difficult to reconcile.