Meanwhile, Ping An's approach is being put to the test.When covid-19 first struck in January the company was a year into restructuring its life-insurance business.That involves improving its force of over 1m agents, who are still the main channel for insurance sales in China.The country's insurers are not only battling among themselves for talent, they are also fighting off new entrants."We are competing with the tech companies too," says Jason Yao, another co-ceo.Companies with their own financial technologies, such as Ant Group, have launched rival insurance offerings.The AI-powered recruitment and training tool has been one of Ping An's top solutions.It appeared to be working in 2019, when the value of new business per agent in the company's life-insurance division rose by a healthy 16.4% compared with the previous year.The gauge fell by almost as much in the first half of 2020. Analysts say that rivals in China have fared even worse.But the risk, says one consultant, is that the effectiveness of some of Ping An's tech solutionsmay have been overestimated because of rapid growth in the insurance industry in China at the time.A prolonged downturn could show that some of its tech is less effective than first thought.Another threat comes from leadership changes.In part, these reflect Ping An's position on the tech frontier, which has led rivals to sniff around its executives.
