Tapping into a Global Financial Market: A Study of Cross-Border Life Insurance Transactions

Extensive research at the national and institutional levels has examined the global expansion of the financial market. However, individual responses to market opportunities and political and institutional constraints brought by this expansion are relatively little understood. This issue will be examined with the social network approach through a case study of cross-border life insurance transactions.

The qualitative data includes 65 in-depth interviews and 3 months of both online and offline observations. Among these, there are 14 paired interviews featuring Hong Kong life insurance agents and their Mainland Chinese clients, along with 37 unpaired participants—21 from Hong Kong and 16 from Mainland China. The observation was conducted with a sales team of a major insurance company in Hong Kong to understand the organizational impact on sales practices. Preliminary findings show that Hong Kong life insurance agents seek to expand their business in the Mainland as a result of perceived market saturation in the local market, while Mainland clients perceive overseas life insurance as a means of wealth preservation and accumulation. Sentiment-based social relationships and social networks with structural holes are proactively and consciously constructed and maintained by insurance agents and clients in global financial markets to identify economic opportunities on the one hand and to overcome market uncertainties and structural constraints on the other. Personal trust was also formed and maintained throughout this cross-border business matching process by strategically mobilizing social resources across digital, physical, and institutional contexts.