I. Introduction At the beginning of his tenure, President Wu Dingfu emphasized at the National Insurance Work Conference that the modern insurance industry has three functions: economic compensation, financial intermediation and social management. Among them, the "social management" function of insurance is an innovation, which interprets the function of insurance industry from the height of overall economic and social development and endows it with new and deeper connotations. This is a high generalization and theoretical summary of the long-term practice and service of the insurance industry, and a major theoretical innovation of the traditional insurance theory and supervision thought. To accelerate the development of insurance industry, we need to give full play to its unique social management function, expand new development space, and better shoulder the important mission of "promoting reform, ensuring economy, stabilizing society and benefiting people's livelihood" in building a well-off society in an all-round way. Strengthening the social management function of insurance and highlighting the social benefits of insurance are not only the needs of the sustained and stable development of insurance industry, but also the requirements of continuous social progress. With the in-depth development of the insurance market, the position of the insurance industry in social and economic life will become more and more prominent and its role will become more and more important. Therefore, it is of great practical significance to study the social management function of insurance. Second, the connotation of the social management function of insurance Insurance is an economic compensation system in which the insurer establishes an insurance fund in the form of collecting insurance premiums to compensate for the economic losses caused by natural disasters and accidents or to pay insurance benefits when personal insurance accidents (including death, illness, disability, old age, unemployment, etc.) occur. ) happens. The insurance industry belongs to the tertiary industry, and its service has its own characteristics. It can provide services such as disaster prevention, economic compensation and risk control for administrative organs, enterprises and institutions, and can also provide life support and welfare services for individuals. Since the reform and opening up, the breadth and depth of insurance practice have been continuously expanded, and insurance has penetrated into all aspects of social production, social life and social management, which is closely related to the interests of the people. Insurance is a "subtle social stabilizer". Social development is inseparable from insurance. The more it develops, the more it needs insurance. The superiority of insurance is reflected in the social management function. It can not only make up for the shortcomings of other social services, but also reduce the government's shortcomings in social security, public security management and economic reserves, and promote the benign operation of social economy. The social management function of insurance is multi-level, complete and systematic, including social stability, economic adjustment, economic development, public management and social progress. (1) The role of insurance in social stability Insurance has the functions of economic compensation and disaster prevention and loss prevention, and realizes the protection of social resources with its good recovery mechanism. Insurance can help enterprises suffering from natural disasters or accidents to resume production in time, help individuals to recover health in time, promote the normal reproduction of labor force, restore social resources in a short time, and ensure the normal operation of society and individuals. In the event of an economic crisis, insurance can also achieve financial stability by reducing unemployment, ensuring government taxes and sharing government burdens. With the gradual opening of China's insurance market, the domestic insurance market and the international insurance market are increasingly closely linked. Insurance can prevent and resolve the impact of international risks to a certain extent, and maintain the stability of China's financial market and national economic security. (B) the adjustment function of insurance to the economy. The regulating effect of insurance on the economy is reflected in the macro-control of the economy on the one hand and the consumer guide to the citizens on the other. 1, the macro-control effect of insurance on economy. Modern economy is based on the high cooperation and continuity of production, distribution, exchange and consumption. The more developed the economy, the higher the requirements for this foundation. Insurance can guarantee the normal operation of social economy and coordinate the development of social and economic departments. If there is no insurance to compensate the losses of all links and maintain the continuity of economic operation, economic development will be hindered. At the same time, insurance will pool idle monetary funds in society to form a powerful insurance fund, and then "secondary diversion" will be carried out through bank deposits, bonds, stocks, loans, etc., and the funds will be transferred to the investment field, giving full play to the effectiveness of funds and vigorously supporting social and economic construction. 2. The guiding role of insurance in citizens' consumption. Since the mid-1990s, the consumer market in China has been dominated by the buyer's market, but the consumer's consumption behavior is not completely rational, and the market economy has gradually changed from the original resource constraints and supply constraints to demand constraints and structural upgrading obstacles. There are many factors that cause insufficient effective demand in the market, but the main factors are that the insurance function is not fully exerted, residents' expectations of future expenditures are uncertain, and their consumer confidence is insufficient, so they often save money for a rainy day. Especially in recent years, the state has continuously reformed the original employee welfare systems such as medical system, housing system and retirement system, and adjusted the original fixed and predictable welfare. Therefore, employees must strengthen their own capital planning, adjust the proportion of their own funds between consumption and savings, reduce immediate consumption and increase savings deposits. To a certain extent, this has caused the weakness of the consumer market and failed to effectively achieve the goals of stabilizing the market, stabilizing the economy and promoting the normal development of social production. In this case, insurance can play a role in developing consumer protection products, compensating consumers when they lose their spending power, decomposing consumers' excess spending power and transferring it to supplement their future spending power, ensuring the balance of spending power and promoting the improvement of quality of life. (3) The function of insurance to economic development ensures the benign operation of the economy and promotes economic progress, which is the requirement for the existence and development of the insurance industry and the root of its development potential. The development function of insurance to economy mainly includes the effective operation of enterprises, the linkage of capital market and the effect of factor market. 1, to promote the effective operation of enterprises. Enterprises insure insurance products for the purpose of directly reducing and controlling economic losses caused by natural disasters, accidents or compensation liabilities through insurance. Insurance can help enterprises realize risk dispersion and risk transfer, reduce operating costs, reduce financial fluctuations caused by risk losses, make enterprises more competitive, and make their products and services more valuable because of stability. Insurance companies put forward reasonable suggestions to eliminate unsafe factors by urging enterprises to strengthen risk prevention; Through the differential treatment of rates, preferential rates are adopted for enterprises that have not paid for many years, and the rates are increased for enterprises with more payment records, encouraging enterprises to strengthen disaster prevention and loss prevention. By stipulating the deductible of insurance claims, enterprises can consciously strengthen risk management, which can reduce and control the risk losses of enterprises to a certain extent, and then reduce the economic losses of the whole society. 2. Capital market linkage. The accumulation characteristics of insurance funds make it closely linked with the development of capital market. The investment of insurance funds in the capital market usually focuses on long-term stable investment returns and participates in the capital market as a long-term institutional investor. The long-term, stable and large-scale characteristics of insurance funds also make it the most stable force to promote the prosperity of the capital market, which is conducive to the stable operation and structural adjustment of the capital market, thus promoting financial innovation and economic development. 3. Factor market effect. Market economy is essentially a way of resource allocation. A good market mechanism allocates resources to the most efficient departments and realizes the optimal allocation of resources. Factor market is an indispensable part of normal economic operation under the condition of market economy, and insurance has an important influence on the supply and demand of factor market and the flow of production factors. Taking the workers in factor market as an example, the establishment of a large number of unemployment insurance, pension insurance, medical insurance and other systems can relieve the worries of workers, greatly mobilize their enthusiasm and creativity, and at the same time promote the rational allocation of human resources and improve the efficiency of economic operation. (IV) The public management function of insurance When the government performs the public management function, there are inevitably some defects such as lack of incentive mechanism to reduce costs, arbitrariness, low resource utilization rate and low service level. As an industry specializing in risk management, insurance has formed a professional advantage in risk management, which can control risk accidents at a lower cost, reduce social fixed costs, replace some government management functions, and play an important role in managing and guiding social stability and development. In addition, insurance, as a commercial activity, can provide personalized services to meet individual needs, so that every member of society can maximize personal utility under the premise of following public order and good customs. In the sudden public health crisis such as SARS epidemic, the public management function of insurance is very obvious. It can guide citizens as quickly as possible, resolve risks, stabilize society, appease people's hearts and help the government solve problems. For another example, policy insurance such as export credit insurance has more advantages than government financial behavior and will benefit the government. In agricultural insurance, insurance can also share the security pressure of the government. (V) Insurance promotes social progress Insurance can promote the development of high-risk industries, thus greatly promoting social and economic development. Industries that have a great impact on social and economic development, especially high-tech industries, are often accompanied by great risks. Ordinary enterprises or other economic units cannot independently bear the huge losses that may occur, but such industries have made great contributions to society and need to be developed well. At this time, risks can be dispersed and transferred through insurance to solve worries and promote social progress. Third, the way to realize the social management function of insurance China has a vast territory, frequent natural disasters, uneven distribution, unbalanced economic development level among regions and many hidden risks. China is in the construction period, and large-scale national infrastructure construction needs a lot of money. If a major social disaster occurs, the country's ability in financial subsidies is very limited, and its ability in social assistance is also very limited. At this time, it is urgent to play the role of insurance, especially the social management function of insurance. However, judging from the development status of China's insurance industry, the development of China's insurance industry is still in the initial stage of development, mainly manifested in small scale, extensive management, low service quality, weak public awareness of insurance, insufficient function and role of insurance, and insurance products closely related to people's lives, such as pension, medical care, education, housing, responsibility and so on. , can not meet a wide range of social needs, has not yet penetrated into all walks of life, social fields and all aspects of life. Therefore, it is necessary to fully tap the social management function of insurance, promote product innovation and service innovation in the insurance industry, make the insurance industry participate in the overall work of national economic and social development in a deeper and wider field, and play a greater role in building a well-off society in an all-round way. The way to realize the social management function of insurance: (1) fully involved in government macro-control and social public management 1. Insurance intervenes in the government's macro-control of economy and society. Different industries have different risks, especially those with high risks. Because of their instability, the inflow of resources is blocked, and the distribution of total social resources in various industries is therefore unreasonable. With the help of insurance, the risks of various industries can be transferred to insurance companies at a lower cost, so that limited social resources can be rationally allocated according to social needs, thus creating more social wealth. 2. Insurance participates in large-scale engineering construction and infrastructure construction. In the construction of national large-scale projects and infrastructure projects, the government should be good at dispersing and transferring project risks with the help of insurance. At the same time, a huge amount of insurance funds will fully participate in national large-scale project construction and local construction, optimize the allocation of capital resources, provide a long-term source of funds for economic construction, improve the efficiency of insurance funds, and enhance the social contribution of insurance funds. 3. Insurance involves various reforms. Any reform is the readjustment and distribution of interests, and it faces risks, some of which are still huge. At this time, it is necessary to use insurance to transfer and spread risks. Insurance's full participation in the reform process will help to reduce the pressure of reform, spread the risks of reform and vigorously promote various reforms. In the reform of social security system, insurance can design different insurance products according to different needs, further supplement and improve the social security system, reduce the financial pressure of the government, improve the comprehensive social security level, and establish a new socialized multi-level welfare system including the elderly, the disabled, women, children, housing, education welfare, family allowance, occupational welfare and community service. In the reform of housing system, the comprehensive insurance of mortgage housing is vigorously promoted, which not only facilitates citizens to buy houses, but also promotes the smooth progress of housing system reform. Similarly, whether insurance can give full play to its social management function and fully participate in the medical system reform will directly affect the smooth progress and success of the medical system reform to some extent. 4. Insurance intervenes in society. Managing a reasonable and effective social order is the expression of social civilization and the requirement of social progress. The purpose of insurance is to protect the interests of the insured and reduce the losses caused by natural disasters and accidents. The disaster prevention and loss prevention work of the insured is directly related to the operating efficiency of the insurance company. Because the insurance company has an interest in the subject matter of the insured, the insurance company will supervise the insured to strengthen disaster prevention and loss prevention, so as to prevent the insured's own negligent behavior from increasing the risk, thus restraining the insured's behavior and reducing the social risk to a certain extent. Insurance intervention in social public management can reduce social disputes and maintain a reasonable and orderly public order. If the proportion of no odds and no compensation is set in vehicle insurance, drivers can be urged to abide by traffic rules, form a good traffic order and promote the realization of social public management. (2) fully participate in the economic operation of the enterprise. In view of the risks existing in the business process of enterprises, actively develop and design insurance types, enhance the ability of enterprises to prevent disasters and losses, and reduce the operating costs of enterprises. By providing products such as liability insurance, we can ensure the normal production and sales of goods and reduce the losses caused by negligence. By providing credit insurance and other products, we can improve the reputation of enterprises, enhance their competitiveness and encourage bold market development. Insurance can also create a fair market competition space. The operation of enterprises will face all kinds of risks, and the existence of risks will hinder the free competition in the market. This is because operators have different risk preferences, and those with low risk preferences will avoid high-risk industries, so that some high-risk industries are monopolized by high-risk preferences. There is a similar situation in the same industry. The comprehensive involvement of insurance in the economic operation of enterprises can eliminate many uncertain factors, make the competition of enterprises more reasonable and fair, and highlight the social management function of insurance. (3) Full involvement in personal production and life insurance can realize the social management function of insurance, which is mainly reflected in two aspects: life security and consumption regulation. By purchasing insurance products, individuals exchange for the protection of the future with a smaller premium cost. Insurance products fully protect personal life and body, make personal health and labor ability continue, and reflect social civilization, which is also the direct purpose of social management. Insurance can guarantee an individual's spending power. When people are relieved of their worries about the future, they can greatly reduce their capital reserves for future uncertain events and ensure their quality of life. When personal funds are in short supply, some financing can be obtained through the terms of wide term and policy pledge loan, which promotes the stable development of social economy.