Critical-Illness Online Mutual Aid Is a Supplementary Medical Protection Model Worth the State Promoting

This article was written in mid-2025, when I wanted to gather friends' opinions and then send it to various departments to win some policy space for online mutual aid. When I posted it on WeChat Moments, some friends and teachers offered specific suggestions for revision, for which I am deeply grateful.

For various reasons, however, the letter was never formally sent, nor submitted through online channels.

Dear leaders and teachers:

As China's earliest critical-illness mutual aid platform, KangAi Commune may not itself have been a success, but through 15 years of operational practice we are convinced that this is a model of supplementary medical protection that benefits the country and the people and is worth the government vigorously promoting.

I. This Model Basically Does Not Generate Financial or Social Risk

It is a post-event cost-sharing model; the operating platform itself does not accumulate large sums of money, so the platform carries very little financial or moral risk.

The mutual aid platform's revenue depends on handling fees rather than investment returns on funds, so it is unaffected by exchange rates or interest rates and is extremely resistant to financial risk.

The mutual aid platform does not offer rigid payouts and insists on small-sum mutual aid, which further reinforces its low-risk character.

Users of the mutual aid platform join cost-sharing voluntarily and, through strengthened notices, understand how the platform differs from commercial insurance.

In sum, developing online mutual aid on a large scale is harmless to financial and social stability.

II. It Has a Very High Rate of Utilization of Protection Funds

By operating transparently under public oversight and not engaging in capital operations, the mutual aid platform keeps its operating costs extremely low, so participants get protection with relatively high value for money.

III. It Has a Low Barrier to Participation and Can Broaden Coverage

Participants need not pay a large sum at once; through installment contributions, the financial pressure is greatly eased, allowing them to improve their protection at a particular stage of life.

IV. It Greatly Guides and Cultivates Public Insurance Awareness

Critical-illness online mutual aid embodies the principles of insurance in depth. Because it does not promise rigid payouts and has no state guarantee, people with the means will naturally move toward commercial insurance once they reach a certain level of income — completing an education in insurance awareness for the public and continuously feeding users to commercial insurance.

V. It Greatly Eases the Pressure on the Government and Regulators

The state need not backstop platform operations or mutual aid payouts; the platform operates entirely on market mechanisms without fiscal support.

In the relevant industries we see that regulatory pressure mainly lies in the accumulation of large amounts of social funds and capital operations. Because the operating platform itself does not accumulate funds, it is easy to monitor and manage; the mutual aid platform focuses mainly on critical-illness protection and does not involve complex financial product design; and platform operations are fully digitalized. All this makes it easy for regulators to monitor the data.

VI. It Helps Build a Mutually Supportive, Harmonious Society

The mutual aid platform establishes a direct relationship between participants and recipients. Participants see directly the whole process of funds helping people, which can vividly embody the mutual aid ideal of 'all for one, one for all' and socialist values, and provide spiritual value for a harmonious society.

If the relevant departments could lend clear support, then with the entry of well-capitalized funds and the establishment of large online platforms, we believe mutual aid platforms could easily cover 100 to 200 million people, providing powerful support for the nation's protection.

We believe that regulating mutual aid platforms is easier than regulating financial institutions; it requires constraints in only a limited number of areas:

1. Establish disclosure standards, requiring periodic public disclosure of the number of participants, the flow of funds, information on recipients, and so on.

2. Establish standards for platform fund management and financial auditing.

3. Require platforms to give sufficient risk warnings and to emphasize how they differ from commercial insurance.

4. Set an upper limit on the amount of mutual aid.

5. Engage actuarial experts to set standards or offer recommendations on the sustainability of platform rules.

6. Allow banks, payment providers, legal professionals, and loss-adjustment firms to provide assistance.

7. Define the procedures for winding up a platform and the standards for settling users.

We believe that mere policy recognition of a certain degree from the state could allow critical-illness online mutual aid to develop at scale and become a powerful supplement to multi-tiered social security — with a high input-to-output ratio, benefiting the country and the people, and worth the government's assessment.