The Chinese Insurance Market

http://www.celent.com/reports/china-insurance-market-and-technology-trends-2011

Knowing that my company is increasing its awareness of international opportunities, including India and China, I found this article to be very current and interesting. I have heard talk that we currently have employees situated in China, discussing opportunities. There is definitely potential with premium income growing to about thirty percent in 2010. Strong governmental regulations make places like China harder to penetrate over countries in Europe and South America where we currently have partnerships. According to the article, the market share of of foreign-funded and joint venture property and casualty insurance companies declined from 1.18% in 2008 to 1.06% in 2010. However, premium income is growing consistently and companies can benefit from this growth.
Relating this to technology, internet insurance will become more prevalent with the rapid development of e-Commerce. They talk about how IT used by insurance companies in China is growing and increasing automation. With the items that we offer like online quoting and binding, will this make our penetration of the Chinese insurance market easier? How will the government regulate this type of business interaction? It will be interesting to see these relationships continue to develop.