The 2026 China International Conference on Insurance and Risk Management (CICIRM 2026) was held at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics on July 8-11 — with the Central University of Finance and Economics, or CUFE, participating. Associate Professor Mao Lei from CUFE's School of Insurance, along with eight master's and doctoral students, presented their research findings.

Mao presented a paper entitled New Advances in Agricultural Insurance Demand Research: A Behavioral Cognition Perspective at the conference's Behavioral Insurance II session. The paper reviews research on agricultural insurance demand from a behavioral cognitive perspective, reveals how behavioral biases modify classical insurance demand theory, and discusses behavioral-cognition-based interventions — offering new ideas for institutional optimization.

The eight students presented their work in parallel sessions. Wang Yuzheng modeled old-age allowance claiming behavior, and proposed optimization suggestions such as simplifying applications procedures and better serving the elderly. Around non-matched insurance data, Ren Tingdi proposed a Tweedie model identification method and a new approach for zero-inflated scenario estimations. Xu Yitian combined fertility subsidies with the pension system, and demonstrated that fertility policies have lagged effects on improving pension funds, recommending policy coordination. Xiang Jiayu built a quantitative evaluation framework for typhoon risk reduction services by using large models, confirming that the disaster prevention and loss-reduction services of property insurers are moving towards routine deployment. Tong Yina, based on provincial-level panel data, found that digital inclusive finance has a significant crowding-out effect on agricultural insurance. Zhang Yuxin constructed a reinsurance Stackelberg game model, interpreted the reinsurance behavior of insurers, and offered a range of risk-control recommendations. Lu Xinmin identified a 6-to-7-year pro-cyclical fluctuation pattern in auto insurance, and pointed out that reform policies are the core driver of such fluctuations. Ji Rui analyzed the differentiated impacts of the new insurance contract accounting standards on the operating metrics of property insurers — providing empirical evidence for industry performance evaluations.

During the conference, Mao Lei and the eight students engaged in in-depth discussions with domestic and overseas experts on cutting-edge topics. These included pension security, risk pricing, reinsurance, agricultural insurance, auto insurance cycles and insurance accounting standards.

This year's event was jointly hosted by the School of Economics and Management at Tsinghua University, and the School of Finance at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics. It included an opening ceremony, four invited keynote speeches, four plenary reports, the Young Leaders Forum and the Chief Editors Forum. There was also a display of relevant journals and publications, along with roundtable discussions and 27 parallel sessions. The event attracted a total of more than 200 experts, academics and industry representatives from home and abroad.

Writers: XU Yitian

Reviewers: ZHOU Hua

Editors: WANG Xinyu

Approvers: HUO Xiaoran