The Foundation of KangAi Commune's 100 Years, and What It Means for Members, Lies in Protection Efficiency

Every form of protection under the sun — public health insurance, commercial insurance, union mutual aid, or today's online mutual aid — works on the same principle: pooling money from many people to help the qualifying few. Given that so many forms of protection exist, why do I still firmly run KangAi Commune? Because I believe it has unmatched efficiency.

A hundred people pool 10,000 yuan to provide a protection payment to one person. There are costs along the way — designing the scheme, organizational management (sales), notification, collection, investigation, disbursement, submitting to public oversight — and all of it costs money. In the end, perhaps only 5,000 to 8,000 yuan reaches that person; 2,000 to 5,000 yuan is consumed. I firmly believe that among all the forms of protection, KangAi Commune consumes the least. We can compress that consumption to within 5 percent of all funds, because we have cut away every unnecessary step and every unnecessary management cost, and increased transparency without limit — taken together, these reduce the drain on protection funds to a minimum.

If we can keep consumption within 5 percent and still operate normally and efficiently, then it has unmatched protection efficiency. There are figures for the operating costs of each form of protection, but a comparison is not convenient here; interested members can look them up. For example, some protection products collect 100 yuan from a user and pay out an amount you would never imagine — under 30 yuan. The long-term existence of such things is a mockery of society's intelligence.

What is more, KangAi Commune does not collect protection funds in advance and does not tie up members' money in ordinary times — members only pay when a post-event cost-sharing is called. So in ordinary times members can put that money to use in daily life and production, which improves the efficiency of their personal funds and economizes on society's resources.

On this understanding, KangAi Commune will continue to work hard in future to reduce costs, raise efficiency and save members money, so as to sustain that advantage.

We will not run the Commune for the sake of running it. If one day it is demonstrated that KangAi Commune is inefficient, we will of course not insist; I trust that members will vote with their feet by then.

The point of this article is not that KangAi Commune's mutual aid is good and everything else is not, but to note certain advantages of KangAi Commune. Its disadvantages are of course also obvious. As we have always emphasized, do not see it as a means of replacing anyone, but as a supplement — and use multiple channels to complete your own protection portfolio.

On KangAi Commune's efficiency in using funds, see an earlier piece: There are a thousand reasons to leave the Commune, but "the contributions are too high" should never be one of them.