CNinsure To Establish First Of Its Kind Independent E-Commerce Insurance Platform In China

GUANGZHOU, China, March 26, 2011 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- CNinsure Inc. (Nasdaq:CISG) ("CNinsure" or the "Company"), a leading independent insurance intermediary company operating in China, today announced that it expects to invest a total of RMB500 million from 2011 to 2013 to build up its e-commerce insurance platform for the sales of commodity-type insurance products, such as auto insurance, accident insurance, travel insurance and homeowner property insurance.

CNinsure anticipates to launch a price comparison website in the fourth quarter of 2011, which will provide price quotes across multiple insurance carriers, product comparison and recommendation, online transaction processing, and nationwide customer services. It will be the first independent e-commerce insurance platform that offers those functions in China.

The estimated investment will be RMB100 million, RMB200 million and RMB200 million, respectively, in 2011, 2012 and 2013. Approximately 80% of the investment will be spent on marketing and advertising, and approximately 20% on the construction of the IT infrastructure and call center. CNinsure expects that its e-commerce insurance business will become profitable in 2014.

Commenting on the strategic investment in the e-commerce insurance platform, CNinsure's chairman and chief executive officer, Mr. Yinan Hu, stated, "The recent upsurge of B2B and B2T sales model has transformed people's consumption behavior pattern in China. According to a report released by the China Internet Network Information Center, among the 457 million netizens in China in 2010, 161 million are online shoppers, representing a growth of 48.6% from the previous year. Online shopper ratio has increased to 35.1% from 28.1% a year ago. Statistics from iResearch also show that online sales volume has increased 89.4% to RMB498 billion in 2010. The era of e-commerce insurance will soon arrive. In order to grasp the opportunity and maintain our competitive edge in insurance distribution, it has become a pressing task for us to launch our own e-commerce insurance platform and establish strong brand awareness at the earliest possible time through making investment in an expedited manner."