Ding Junfeng of Taikang Online: Building a New Ecosystem of Internet Insurance + Digital Healthcare

Over the past year, after navigating a myriad of business models—including B2C, B2B, B2B2C, and even “B2VC”—entrepreneurs in the internet healthcare sector have gradually shifted their focus toward insurance. Their aim is to create a “To Insurance” business model where insurance companies serve as the primary payers for the entire internet healthcare ecosystem. However, mainstream domestic insurers have remained largely cautious. While insurance products targeting specific diseases or particular demographics have occasionally emerged, most are merely pilot initiatives. The large-scale integration of insurance with internet healthcare has yet to take off.

Nevertheless, the prospects of internet healthcare are impossible for any insurance company to ignore. As the first internet insurance company initiated and established by a major Chinese insurance enterprise, Taikang Online was officially launched on November 18, 2015. However, as early as 2000, Taikang Life Insurance had already set its sights on the future by integrating traditional business with the internet, establishing China’s first insurance e-commerce platform. Taikang Online has been committed to innovating and expanding internet insurance services, as well as deeply integrating online and offline insurance services, to build an internet insurance ecosystem featuring four pillars: “vibrant elderly care, premium healthcare, superior wealth management, and end-of-life care.”

As one of the few companies in the market with prestigious origins and a dual DNA of insurance and internet technology, how does Taikang Online view the development opportunities of internet insurance in the healthcare sector, and how has it personally driven the integrated development of internet insurance and healthcare? VCBeat conducted an exclusive interview with Ding Junfeng, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Taikang Online, to explore the company’s proactive strategies and open-minded approach in the internet insurance space, with the aim of jointly promoting the robust growth of both internet insurance and healthcare.

Ding Junfeng, Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Taikang Online

In recent years, the concept of internet insurance has gained increasing popularity. However, most business models merely utilize the internet as a new sales channel for insurance, with the integration of internet technology and insurance remaining superficial. Ding Junfeng believes that the internet does offer a superior distribution channel for insurance, featuring lower costs, greater information transparency, and more targeted customer acquisition. Furthermore, Taikang Online itself is the first insurance company in China to achieve full digitalization of the entire process, including policy design, application, underwriting, premium payment, and after-sales services.

However, Taikang Online aims to do far more than simply use the internet as a sales channel for insurance. With the widespread adoption of mobile internet, people’s daily lives have become increasingly fragmented, posing significant challenges for traditional insurance sales, such as high channel costs and a mismatch between products and customer needs. Ding Junfeng pointed out that scenario-based thinking, highly regarded in internet marketing, must also be integrated into all aspects of insurance, including product design and sales. By developing tailored insurance products for each fragmented user segment or specific need, insurers can leverage the most straightforward and direct internet channels to reach users in their diverse, fragmented scenarios.

Ding Junfeng introduced that in the entire internet insurance sector, Taikang Online has had multiple successful and in-depth collaborations with major internet giants. For instance, it partnered with Taobao to launch “Leye Bao,” an insurance product specifically designed for sellers. In the realm of medical health, Taikang Online has also made numerous attempts, such as developing “Wei Huzhu,” a social insurance product based on the WeChat ecosystem. “Wei Huzhu” is structured around a one-year cancer critical illness insurance policy. After following the “Taikang Online” official WeChat account, users can join the Wei Huzhu plan by paying RMB 1 to receive cancer coverage with an initial sum insured of RMB 1,000. By sharing the generated “Seek Care” page to their WeChat Moments within the 30-day enrollment period, the policy’s sum insured increases by RMB 1,000 for each additional RMB 1 paid by friends (for users aged 40–49, the sum insured increases by RMB 300 per RMB 1 contributed), up to a maximum cap of RMB 150,000.

Ding Junfeng pointed out that “Micro Mutual Aid” leverages the inherent trust within WeChat Moments to establish a communication chain of “dissemination–participation–diffusion.” This represents an effective application of social attributes in the mobile internet era and reflects Taikang Online’s thinking and exploration in the field of internet-based medical insurance.

Taikang Online is accelerating its exploration of internet-based health insurance, with a steady stream of innovations. Ding Junfeng told VCBeat that Taikang Online launched a product at its inception that embodied both internet-driven innovation and humanistic care: “Ai (Cancer) Forecast.” Unlike traditional cancer insurance, which provides compensation only after the insured is diagnosed with cancer, this product innovates in terms of insurance coverage responsibilities to change people’s approach and attitude toward cancer. The “Ai Forecast” features a three-step screening protocol to help individuals detect cancer earlier, thereby achieving better treatment outcomes.In late May this year, the company introduced another innovative insurance product called “Taikang 9.9 Smoking Cessation Insurance.” This product primarily targets China’s 300 million smokers. Its core concept revolves around social circles of acquaintances, facilitating smoking cessation through peer supervision via six steps: premium payment, scientific assessment, expert consultation, personalized plans, daily check-ins for smoking cessation, and weekly monitoring. The premium is only RMB 9.9. In mid-June, Taikang Online successively launched the “90-Day Professional Physician Full-Course Smoking Cessation Management Plan” and the “Smoking Cessation Medication Coverage Plan.” Together, these three products form a comprehensive “Scientific Smoking Cessation Solution.”

The launch of “Taikang 9.9 Smoking Cessation Insurance” most importantly reflects Taikang Online’s innovative spirit and open mindset in engaging with partners in the healthcare industry. Ding Junfeng candidly acknowledged that while the market prospects for products such as “Cancer Risk Forecast” and “Smoking Cessation Insurance” still require time to be fully assessed, the industry has highly praised the innovative spirit embodied in these offerings. Ding further stated that these initiatives merely mark the beginning of Taikang Online’s collaborative innovation in insurance products with the healthcare sector. The company is eager to actively partner with a wide range of entities in the broader health ecosystem that possess patient–provider resources or product advantages, including internet healthcare providers (serving specific populations or focusing on specialized disease categories), innovative public medical institutions, mid-tier private healthcare facilities, health service organizations such as those offering check-up and rehabilitation services, as well as companies operating in areas like precision medicine and smart wearable devices.

As internet-driven thinking and business models continue to permeate and integrate with the healthcare and insurance industries, Taikang Online aims to adopt a more proactive stance in promoting the development of internet-based health insurance. It is reported that Taikang Online will soon collaborate with VCBeat, a highly influential platform in the internet healthcare sector, to launch a competition for soliciting innovative internet insurance product proposals. Through this initiative, Taikang Online seeks to deepen its understanding of and explore collaborative opportunities with a wide range of internet healthcare enterprises, jointly advancing the growth of internet-based health insurance.

Ding Junfeng specifically pointed out that in the course of collaborating with internet healthcare companies, insurance companies, as payers for medical products and services, will bring a vast customer base to the many innovative business models in the internet healthcare sector. Meanwhile, leveraging their price negotiation and cost-control capabilities, insurance companies can procure medical products and services from internet healthcare enterprises at more favorable prices, thereby providing their clients with more affordable and quality-assured medical services. From this perspective, insurance companies are a key link in connecting the entire service ecosystem of internet healthcare.

Ding Junfeng candidly stated that despite years of development, the internet insurance industry remains in its nascent stage, with no mature and clearly defined business model yet emerging. On one hand, collaboration between internet healthcare companies and insurers is still at a tentative stage, with both parties maintaining caution regarding data sharing, channel partnerships, and other aspects. This has posed significant challenges to the design and pricing of internet insurance products.

On the other hand, Ding Junfeng believes that new technologies, business formats, and commercial models are emerging one after another, containing substantial opportunities for collaboration and broad commercial prospects. In the face of these significant opportunities, insurance companies and internet healthcare providers should place greater trust in each other and explore and promote various potential collaborations with a more proactive and open mindset.

Perhaps the more one observes the rise and fall of companies, the more one appreciates the importance of a team’s genetic makeup in shaping a company’s development trajectory and prospects. Although Taikang Online originated from Taikang Life Insurance, a “traditional insurance company,” it was established early on within Taikang Life in 2000 (initially as Taikang Life’s official website) and has been committed to the comprehensive integration of internet technology with insurance services. It is thus a rare player in the market that possesses both insurance and internet DNA.

Ding Junfeng told VCBeat that Taikang Online’s team has grown to several hundred members, with more than half having prior experience in the internet and IT sectors, and over one-third of those possessing technical backgrounds. More importantly, Taikang Online boasts a team of experienced actuaries as well as a big health business team well-versed in internet healthcare and insurance. Together, they continuously innovate in the design of internet-based insurance products. Their creations include market-noteworthy innovations such as “Micro Mutual Aid,” “Cancer Risk Forecast,” and “Smoking Cessation Insurance.”

Compared with traditional insurance companies, Ding Junfeng believes that Taikang Online’s advantages lie in its strong product R&D capabilities, deeply ingrained Internet mindset, and keen marketing acumen. This enables Taikang Insurance to better understand what Internet healthcare companies are “saying,” more clearly identify each party’s needs and capability boundaries, and determine which cooperation models can most effectively leverage the resources and capabilities of both sides when jointly developing Internet-based insurance products.

Ding Junfeng remarked with a smile that Taikang Online maintains a proactive and open mindset toward collaboration on various emerging IT technologies, internet-driven thinking, and fragmented scenarios. As long as enterprises in the internet healthcare sector possess unique resources, capabilities, and scenarios, Taikang Online will fully leverage its professional competency system accumulated over more than a decade to keep pace and jointly promote the vigorous development of internet-based health insurance.

Ding Junfeng concluded by stating that Taikang Online’s true ambition is to leverage the internet as a platform to deliver genuinely valuable services that promote the health and well-being of its users, while also providing robust support for the development of the online healthcare industry.

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