To the Relevant Authorities: Online Mutual Aid Is Not Financial Insurance

First, modern commercial insurance companies all take the writing of premiums as their core business, and every insurance company holds vast financial assets. In online mutual aid, by contrast, the platform transfers the money to the recipient as soon as it receives it, and the platform itself accumulates no capital. This is the single most important difference from modern financial insurance.

Second, the revenue of an online mutual aid platform comes only from service fees and cost savings, whereas an insurance company earns the interest spread, the expense spread and the mortality spread — the income models are fundamentally different. Fluctuations in exchange rates and interest rates, for example, have an enormous impact on insurers but none at all on a mutual aid platform.

Third, an online mutual aid platform does not guarantee a fixed payout; it gives the recipient whatever is actually raised. Insurance, by contrast, requires rigid claim settlement, guaranteed by the state.

Fourth, the insurance industry is backed by the credit of the state and guaranteed by state resources, whereas mutual aid platforms occupy no state resources.

Fifth, the differences are obvious in specific cases: when an insurer denies a claim, its current income increases; when a mutual aid platform declines a case, no member incurs any contribution and the platform earns nothing extra.

The above are only the most obvious differences; many more could be listed. In essence, one could say that online mutual aid is primitive insurance with as many financial attributes as possible cut away — a grassroots solution that helps the state share its burdens rather than a troublemaker. I hope these characteristics can be recognized, so that greater misunderstandings can be avoided.