Shanghai’s insurance regulators and a newly launched marine insurance institute have gained more administrative powers to manage the industry in the city’s Free Trade Zone. The measures released Monday by the China Insurance Regulatory Commission are also aimed at standardizing insurance terms and conditions to provide better international marine insurance practices.

The commission says insurance companies can apply for approvals for any new marine insurance products from the Shanghai Institute of Marine Insurance, rather than from the Insurance Regulatory Commission. The institute was launched in December with 31 members including insurance companies and shipping companies. It is the institute rather than the insurance companies themselves that will file new products to the commission as a matter of record. One institute member says that should make the business easier to carry out in future.

"We have a lot of foreign trade business with foreign countries. And we have to use terms and conditions employed by foreign countries, and then also have to ask for official approvals, which is time consuming. Approvals by the institute will give us more freedom to work." Zu Zhoujun, Manager of PICC Property and Causalty Company said.

Zu says currently it takes one to two months to get an approval for a new insurance plan, but he expects approvals by the institute alone will shorten this time. An institute official says that so far China doesn’t have standardized terms and conditions for marine insurance, so Chinese insurance companies have to follow rules made by foreign countries. But Xu says the institute-led marine insurance plan should make China’s marine insurance more competitive.

"Internationally we have the US terms, the Norwegian terms and the British terms, while every Chinese insurance company has its own terms. But you need to meet the demands of the international market. So if domestic companies can work together to have standardized insurance terms, the Chinese version of insurance terms will come to occupy a leading position in the world given the volume of the country’s international trade." Xu Feng, Secretary General of SH Institute of Marine Insurance said.

Xu says detailed plans are expected to be released by the end of this year. They will encourage members to develop more marine insurance products for trading in the Free Trade Zone. China’s insurance companies received nearly 6 billion yuan in premium payments in 2012 from marine insurance nationwide, of which Shanghai accounted for 44 percent.