OTA Tuniu announced it has been issued an insurance agent license and its newly established Tuniu Insurance Company has completed the necessary preparations and procedures to officially begin operations.
Tuniu CEO Donald Yu
Tuniu Insurance will offer insurance services to all its domestic users. It has already launched over 70 insurance products such as travel accident insurance, trip cancelation insurance and universal life insurance and will add health insurance and investment insurance products in the future. Tuniu said it saw a 150% growth y-o-y of the number of users using its booking service to buy insurance products and it estimates total annual premiums will exceed RMB100 million.
A manager at Tuniu’s financial and insurance department said Tuniu would team up with insurance companies to promote insurance in more areas such as offering complimentary flight delay insurance that users can directly claim with Tuniu Insurance.
In 2011, Ctrip applied to set up an insurance agency and in 2013 it teamed up with Alibaba, Ping An Insurance and Tencent to establish the Zhongan Online Financial Insurance JV. Qunar also received an insurance agent license in 2013.
Tuniu also revealed its supply chain data for the first time that showed it had amassed RMB5 billion in capital reserves last year and RMB1 billion in capital funding from its partner so far this year.(Translation by David)
