Since the start of this year's flood season, successive typhoons have made landfall. Multiple southern provinces, including Guangxi, Hunan, Hubei, Guangdong, Guizhou, and Jiangxi, have been hit by rounds of extreme heavy rainfall. This has led to widespread flooding and urban waterlogging, causing extensive damage to residential properties, motor vehicles, and farmland crops.
Simultaneously, the latest forecasts from meteorological departments indicate that, influenced by a recent typhoon, parts of China will continue to experience heavy to torrential rain, with some areas facing extreme downpours. Risks of secondary disasters such as mountain torrents and landslides remain high, and the flood prevention and disaster relief efforts have entered a most critical phase.
In response to the severe flooding situation, the insurance industry has acted swiftly. On July 8th, Taikang Insurance Group announced a donation of 10 million yuan through its Taikang Yicai Public Welfare Foundation to support disaster relief, the relocation and resettlement of affected residents, and basic livelihood support. Major insurers including China Life Insurance, PICC, China Taiping, China Continent Insurance, and New China Life Insurance immediately activated their major disaster emergency response mechanisms. They have established a comprehensive protection system covering "pre-disaster warning, in-disaster rescue, and post-disaster rapid claims settlement." They have fully opened green channels for claims, simplified documentation requirements, advanced claim payments, and deployed frontline services. This financial support is safeguarding post-disaster reconstruction and fully leveraging the insurance industry's role as a pillar of risk coverage.
Financial regulatory authorities have issued a notice regarding financial and insurance services for recent flood control, disaster relief, and post-disaster recovery and reconstruction. It requires the entire system to optimize insurance investigation and claims settlement, ensure the continuity of basic financial services, increase credit support, and fully support post-disaster rebuilding. The notice emphasizes that all insurance companies should adhere to the principle of "special handling for special cases and urgent handling for urgent matters," simplify claims processes and procedures, keep green channels unobstructed, and ensure claims are paid quickly where possible, fully where due, and with reasonable advance payments where appropriate.
According to the latest statistics, insurance institutions in regions including Guangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou, Gansu, Chongqing, Jiangxi, and Anhui have received approximately 320,000 reports related to rainstorm and flood disasters. The total amount paid out (including advance payments) has exceeded 2.2 billion yuan.
Industry's Proactive Response to Floods
The prominent features of this flood season are the high intensity of rainfall, the concentrated outbreak of disasters, and the wide scope of the affected areas. Cases of waterlogged vehicles, flattened crops, and damaged houses have surged in a short period, placing extremely high demands on the emergency response capabilities of the insurance industry. Various insurers have been closely monitoring weather forecasts in advance, moving disaster prevention and loss mitigation efforts forward, aiming to fortify defenses before the floods arrive.
Leveraging its extensive network of grassroots outlets across urban and rural areas, PICC promptly issued mass flood prevention reminders to businesses, farmers, and residential community owners after red rainstorm alerts were issued. It organized field personnel to conduct on-site inspections in industrial parks, underground garages, and low-lying villages, assisting clients in relocating equipment and blocking water ingress points. Its Guangxi branch established data channels with meteorological, water resources, and emergency departments, utilizing a comprehensive risk map for real-time rain condition analysis. It sent targeted flood prevention and risk avoidance prompts to customers via its 95518 hotline, mobile applications, and township service stations. The branch also inventoried emergency supplies like assault boats, high-power drainage pumps, and flood control sandbags, and formed multiple Party member vanguard teams for thorough area-by-area inspections.
China Life Insurance coordinated efforts between its headquarters and branches to prepare for flood control, forming Party member emergency vanguard teams equipped with investigation vehicles, drones, and rescue equipment. It stationed emergency personnel in six southern provinces and conducted risk follow-ups for clients of agricultural, property, and auto insurance policies.
Ping An Insurance relied on its self-developed "Eagle Eye System DRS3.0" to dynamically assess rainfall and flood situations. Since July 1st, it has cumulatively issued over 97.28 million typhoon and rainstorm-related warning messages, reaching four customer groups—vehicle owners, agricultural clients, enterprises, and households—through multiple channels like its Good Driver app, Enterprise Bao, and Ai Nong Bao.
China Taiping sent a cumulative total of 23,000 rainstorm warning text messages in heavily affected areas of Guangxi. It conducted on-site flood prevention inspections for over 20 industrial and commercial enterprises and pre-arranged for rescue tow trucks and investigation vehicles to be on standby in flood-prone areas like Qinzhou and Fangchenggang.
China Continent Insurance initiated flood prevention and disaster relief work as soon as typhoon warnings were upgraded. Its Guangxi branch established a dedicated emergency task force, entering a state of full emergency preparedness. The branch coordinated and deployed 45 rescue vehicles on 24-hour standby and assembled a specialized emergency support team of 76 claims specialists drawn from the head office and branches in locations like Beihai and Yulin.
Utilizing online platforms such as SMS, the Dadixing app, and the China Continent Insurance app, the company cumulatively pushed typhoon risk avoidance, vehicle flood prevention, and factory waterlogging warning prompts 349,000 times to customers across the region, achieving full coverage of risk reminders for insured clients. It also organized personnel to conduct on-site inspections of key flood-prone sites like low-lying factories, warehouses, ports, and agricultural greenhouses, compiling lists of potential hazards and urging clients to make timely corrections.
China Pacific Insurance urgently assembled a core team to form a major disaster vanguard unit, deploying rescue forces in affected cities like Nanning and Guigang and planning temporary vehicle parking areas in advance. New China Life Insurance simultaneously mobilized resources from its branches in Hubei, Guangxi, and Gansu, implementing a 24-hour duty system to ensure disaster information was reported and instructions were relayed promptly.
Key Role of Technology in Response
An industry expert noted that the insurance industry's ability to achieve relatively high efficiency in its emergency response is closely related to the continuous strengthening of technological investments in recent years. Many insurance companies have actively applied digital technologies such as disaster warning platforms, drone-based investigation, and AI-powered remote loss assessment, effectively enhancing the efficiency of major disaster response and claims settlement. Compared to traditional models reliant on on-site investigation, digital tools can support the online completion of reporting, image review, preliminary investigation, and advance payments for some cases, improving overall processing efficiency. This also accumulates valuable experience for the industry to further refine its emergency claims mechanisms for major disasters.
Responders in the Storm
After disasters struck, claims investigators rushed to affected sites without regard for muddy roads or floodwaters.
Investigators from PICC waded through waist-deep water to enter flooded communities, assisting car owners in relocating vehicles from underground garages. In rural Guizhou, they walked into villages, registering damage to farmhouses and household appliances door-to-door. In flooded fields, they used drones for aerial photography to survey the area of crop damage. The company strictly implemented its "three exemptions, four fasts" policy—exempting meteorological disaster certificates, mandatory on-site investigation, and charging for road rescue—enabling rapid rescue, investigation, loss assessment, and payment. It also set up temporary claims service points in communities and townships.
After areas in Hubei like Huangshi and Huanggang were suddenly hit by Level 13 thunderstorms and gales, PICC Property & Casualty Insurance's Hubei branch immediately established an emergency task force, heading to the front lines even before the winds subsided. The first batch of policy-based rural housing insurance claim payments was completed just two hours after the disaster. At a landslide site in Dangchang, Longnan, Gansu, PICC's provincial, city, and county-level institutions coordinated their efforts, adhering to the principle of "people before property" and setting up a temporary service point at the rescue and resettlement site.
China Life Insurance coordinated between its life and property insurance lines. The life insurance team proactively identified clients with personal injuries, while property insurance personnel entered waterlogged communities to centrally handle auto insurance claims. For agricultural insurance cases involving large areas of flattened rice or sugarcane, batch loss assessment was implemented with simplified documentation requirements. For affected small and micro enterprises, specialists were arranged to conduct on-site loss verification while simultaneously providing equipment repair suggestions.
Ping An Insurance established Party member vanguard teams for emergency rescue in severely affected areas, providing indiscriminate rescue services to all affected people. Rescue personnel were assigned specific zones for thorough, door-to-door checks, focusing all efforts on rescue work. Ping An Property & Casualty set up temporary emergency service points in key disaster areas, supporting online self-reporting, remote video investigation, and simplified loss assessment documentation, and implementing convenient measures like "exempting on-site re-inspection and paper documents."
During a river backflow emergency in Fangchenggang, the Party branch secretary of China Continent Insurance's Fangchenggang central branch took command at the front, rushing to the disaster site to coordinate vehicle rescue and investigation work. In response to severe agricultural insurance losses in Yongning District, Nanning City, the Party branch of the Nanning central branch quickly formed a Party member vanguard team. They went deep into muddy fields, checking water depth and crop damage village by village, household by household, and field by field, proactively coordinating with township and village committees to establish a grid-based inspection system.
To address challenges in this agricultural disaster—scattered plots, muddy roads, and difficulties with manual investigation—China Continent Insurance's Guangxi branch fully adopted a three-dimensional investigation model combining "drone aerial photography + manual on-site verification." In heavy rain disaster areas like Yongning District and Xingning District, high-definition drones were used for area-wide aerial evidence collection and precise mapping of affected areas, capable of surveying over a thousand acres of affected farmland in a single day.
From the actions of various insurers, it is evident that major disaster emergency response is no longer a simple matter of "post-disaster compensation." Instead, it has formed a complete cycle covering "pre-disaster warning, in-disaster rescue, and post-disaster rapid claims." The establishment of this full-chain protection model has both reduced the actual losses caused by disasters and created conditions for accelerating subsequent claims settlement.
Advance Payments Address Urgent Needs
A significant highlight of the claims settlement process for this round of floods is the widespread adoption by insurers of advance payments to address the urgent needs of affected people, moving away from cumbersome procedures. In the past, claims settlement required waiting for the completion of full loss assessment and the availability of all necessary documents. Now, in the face of disaster, various insurers have broken with convention, putting the principle of "pay all that is due and make reasonable advance payments" into practice.
As of 11:00 AM on July 7th, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance had cumulatively received 10,504 customer reports, with an estimated claims amount exceeding 1.1 billion yuan. Its Guangxi branch, in key disaster areas, had received 4,329 reports with an estimated claims amount of 71.0607 million yuan.
In this disaster, as of July 7th, PICC's Guangxi branch alone had already completed payments for multiple waterlogged vehicle claims, with affected farmers and businesses successively receiving funds for resuming operations. In Hubei, the first batch of policy-based rural housing insurance claim payments was completed just two hours post-disaster, and the first auto insurance claim for wind damage in this event was settled in Ezhou at 1:50 AM on July 7th. In Hainan, where a Chengmai aquaculture farmer suffered net cage damage due to a typhoon, PICC relied on a weather index insurance product to intelligently determine payout conditions, making a one-time payment of 1.36 million yuan. In Zhongshan, a vehicle owner whose car stalled in water received a payment within 15 minutes through intelligent remote loss assessment.
China Continent Insurance fully opened green channels for major disaster claims, implementing measures such as "document reduction, process simplification, delegation of authority, and special case handling." For disaster-affected cases, it enforced a "five priorities" mechanism: priority investigation, priority loss assessment, priority review, priority payment, and priority fund release. It eliminated redundant procedures and compressed claim settlement timelines. It set up temporary emergency service points in severely affected areas to provide on-site reporting consultation and emergency supply support. The first claim payment was completed on July 7th itself, helping affected people receive compensation as quickly as possible.
China Taiping and China Pacific Insurance opened special channels for small and medium-sized enterprises with flooded factories or goods, disbursing partial advance payments before the completion of full loss assessment. New China Life Insurance adhered to three convenient services: "claims without the policy, door-to-door claims, and simplified claims," organizing employees to visit and offer condolences to affected families.
The Shenzhen Ping An Public Welfare Foundation announced its active participation in post-disaster reconstruction, helping affected people quickly restore production and daily life through donations of rescue supplies and epidemic prevention medicines. Ping An Insurance has urgently activated its five national emergency supply warehouses located in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta, Central China, and Hainan, implementing a "use-as-needed, dynamic replenishment" mechanism. Currently, supplies including over ten thousand water barriers, water pumps, lifeboats, and inflatable sandbags have been dispatched from the Pearl River Delta and Yangtze River Delta warehouses to aid disaster areas.
The industry expert further stated, "During the recent heavy rains in southern China, the insurance industry's emergency response and claims settlement efficiency have seen further improvement. Many insurers initiated risk warnings and disaster prevention/loss mitigation services before the disaster, quickly deployed investigation resources during the disaster, and actively promoted services like advance payments and online claims settlement after the disaster. This reflects that the insurance industry is gradually evolving from a traditional post-disaster compensation model towards a full-process risk management model covering pre-disaster, in-disaster, and post-disaster phases. This is also a manifestation of the industry's continuous enhancement of disaster prevention and reduction capabilities in recent years."
Currently, as another typhoon approaches landfall, the flood control situation remains severe. Various insurers have stated that they will continue to closely monitor disaster developments, dynamically adjust the deployment of emergency resources, and ensure that wherever there is a disaster, there will be insurance services.