Nearly all (97%) of senior Chinese citizens aged 60-70 have never bought commercial insurance, according to the findings of a survey carried out by Xianghubao, the online mutual aid platform of Alipay, a a third-party mobile and online payment platform of the Ant Financial group.

To date, more than 3m Xianghubao members have signed up their elderly parents, numbering over 5m in total, for membership of Xianghubao itself or the newly launched Seniors' Xianghubao, a senior-specific plan. Xianghubao, launched last October, currently has over 65m subscribers.

According to the survey results, in terms of age distribution, those born in the 1990s formed the biggest group of Xianghubao subscribers who enrolled their parents into the plan, accounting for 47.9% of the total. Next were those born after 1980s who accounted for 46.8%. In terms of geography, residents of Tier 2 and 3 cities formed 60.7% of the total number of Xianghubao subscribers who signed up their parents for the mutual aid scheme.

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the number of senior citizens aged 60 and over has reached 250m, accounting for 17.9% of the total population.

The Xianghubao survey attracted 100,000 responses.