Jessica Tan, Co-CEO of Ping An Group: Elderly Care Needs the United Effort of Social and Family Forces

HONG KONG and SHANGHAI, Sept. 26, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Ping An Life, a subsidiary of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (hereafter "Ping An" or "the Group", HKEX: 2318; SSE: 601318), launched its home-based elderly care brand, Ping An Concierge, continuing to build differentiation advantages with the "insurance + home-based elderly care" service.

"Providing better protection and services for the elderly is exactly the original aspiration of Ping An to develop the elderly care business," said Jessica Tan, Co-CEO of Ping An Group, during the online conference. Ms. Tan said elderly care problems, such as the growing aging population, the faster pace of aging population growth, fewer pensions and challenges to family support, must be addressed through the united effort of social and family forces.

Four dilemmas in China's aging society

"The aging population has become a global concern and China's aging society is facing four critical dilemmas," Ms. Tan said. "The proportion of China's aging population over 65 is approaching the United Nations' 14% deep alert line for aging. By 2035, a super-aged society will be formed, with the proportion of the elderly population over 65 exceeding 20%."

Not only is the aging population growing, pace of growth is getting faster. "It took 115 years for France and 69 years for the United States to double the number of people over 65 from 7% to 14%, while it took China only 22 years. We are aging in a hurry, and society and families are not prepared and resourced enough," Ms. Tan said. In addition, China's pension pool is shrinking. "China's pension replacement rate has fallen from 87% in 1998 to 45% now, below the international alert line of 55%, which means a decline in the living standards of retired seniors."

At the same time, it is becoming more difficult for family to support elderly relatives. "China's family units are rapidly shrinking as more children are born alone. In 2020, China had, on average, more than five family members to support one elderly person, but after 30 years, that number will drop to less than 1.5 members," Ms. Tan said.

Two protections: wealth protection + elderly care services

These trends are challenging the traditional home-based elderly care model. Building on the strength of Ping An's healthcare ecosystem, Ping An Life has developed the "insurance + home-based elderly care" model and launched the home-based elderly care brand Ping An Concierge. Jessica Tan said that Ping An's home-based elderly care service not only provides financial protection, but also home-based elderly care services with a dedicated concierge to ensure that elderly customers are comfortable and their families have peace of mind.

For the comfort of the elderly, Ping An Concierge will provides hundreds of different services covering 10 major scenarios including medical care, food, housing, transportation, finance, health maintenance, entertainment, protection and safety. For example, as some elderly people do not go out often, Ping An online live-streaming classes can allow them to learn and communicate online. To put their families at ease, Ping An monitors the home environment with intelligent devices to ensure that the elderly can immediately make emergency calls in case of accidents at home. The health monitoring system can detect issues in blood pressure and sleep quality and doctors can be called quickly when needed. Ping An Life has provides a dedicated "three-in-one" concierge service, including an artificial intelligence-supported "intelligent" concierge, a life concierge and a doctor concierge. The intelligent concierge provides functions such as life assistant and intelligent IOT through AI smart speakers; the life concierge is an online real-life butler who can respond to the needs of the elderly 24 hours, seven days a week, such as making outpatient appointments or emergency calls for help; and the doctor concierge is staffed by general practitioners who can provide real-time remote consultation around the clock.

Ms. Tan believes that home-based elderly care services are quite meaningful and valuable "not only for our clients and their parents, but also for the agents and the whole society".

Leveraging its extensive experience in the insurance and healthcare sectors and capturing the huge opportunities in the healthcare ecosystem, Ping An continues to build a "finance + healthcare" service system and expand its business ecosystems of "finance + elderly care" and "finance + healthcare". The Group is committed to providing customers with professional financial advisor, family doctor and elderly care concierge services, for worry-free, time-saving, and money-saving financial and healthcare service experiences. At present, Ping An Concierge has activated eight major scenarios and developed more than 300 services for more than 30 major cities across China, with more than 10,000 customers qualified for its home-based elderly care services and more than 3,000 customers use its services.

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