Shanghai has unveiled guidelines on promoting the high-quality development of science and technology insurance, aiming to build an insurance system aligned with the city's development into an international science and technology innovation center.

Jointly issued by the Shanghai Municipal Financial Regulatory Bureau and the Shanghai Municipal Commission of Science and Technology, the guideline outlines a comprehensive strategy to strengthen the role of insurance in supporting technological innovation.

It focuses on three main areas:

• Targeted support: The guideline strengthens insurance support for major scientific research projects, breakthroughs in industrial clusters, and the cultivation of future industries. Standardized insurance products tailored to small and medium-sized businesses are being developed to help reduce their risk exposure.
• Product innovation: A Shanghai sci-tech credit system, a scoring mechanism based on the patent commercialization performance of tech enterprises, is being introduced to explore precise insurance pricing.

The policy promotes the deep integration of artificial intelligence in insurance and encourages the development of new models led by core enterprises within industry chains.

• Capacity building: Large insurance institutions are encouraged to lead the development of dedicated assessment mechanisms, customized products, specialized talent, institutions, technologies, and systems.

Efforts are underway to create regulatory approaches aligned with science and technology insurance.

The guidelines also call for deeper collaboration among government bodies, insurers, research institutions, and enterprises, with a focus on the following areas:

• Ecosystem building: Establishing expert databases and data-sharing mechanisms for tech insurance, promoting standardized tools such as technology readiness assessments and intellectual property valuation, and creating a closed-loop ecosystem that integrates insurance, services, and technology.
• Systematic coverage: Developing a comprehensive product matrix that spans the entire innovation chain and the full lifecycle of tech enterprises — from R&D and pilot production to commercialization.
• Global perspective: Leveraging Shanghai's international reinsurance hub to integrate domestic and global insurance resources and provide cross-border risk solutions for companies expanding overseas.

Source: Jiefang Daily