The latest performance of the top five listed insurance companies in A shares were all unveiled. On May 19, a reporter from the Beijing Business Daily combed and found that in the first four months of this year, five A-share listed insurance companies, namely, China Life Insurance, China Ping an, China people's Insurance, China Pacific Insurance and Xinhua Insurance, achieved the original insurance premium income of 1.Seagamescountries.25 trillion yuan, continuing the growth trend in the first quarter, an increase of 1.5% over the same period last year. According to the life insurance sector focusing on "wind and unboiled water", the growth of premiums of many insurance companies showed a recovery in the first four months, with premiums of life insurance companies, including China Life and Life Insurance, rising by more than 10% year-on-year in April.
What factors does the A-share five listed insurance companies' life insurance sector continue to recover from? If the regulation recently liberalizes the "one-to-three" restrictions on the bancassurance channel, how will it affect the head insurance companies?
The life insurance premiums of multi-insurance companies have increased by more than 10% a month.
The premium income was 1.25 trillion yuan, an increase of 1.5% over the same period last year. The latest performance of the top five listed insurance companies in A shares surfaced, continuing the growth momentum in the first quarter.
Specifically, the four insurance companies have achieved positive year-on-year growth in premium income in the first four months. The growth rate of China Life ranked first among the five listed insurance companies in A shares, and its cumulative premium income increased by 3.9% compared with the same period last year.SeagamescountriesPing an's cumulative premium income rose 2.4% from the same period last year, ranking second in terms of growth. China Pacific Insurance and people's Insurance of China achieved premium income of 181.7 billion yuan and 300.1 billion yuan respectively, with growth rates of 1.0% and 1.3% respectively.
April is the month of "good start". At the same time, the "integration of newspaper and bank" of bancassurance channel and economic channel affects the pace of business growth to a certain extent. With the interweaving of multiple factors, life insurance business is naturally the focus of attention.
Beijing Business Daily reporter combed found that the listed insurance companies in the life insurance sector signs of warming. Of this total, Ping an Life's original insurance premium income totaled 212.155 billion yuan, an increase of 1.9% over the same period last year, which was further expanded from 0.9% in the previous three months. China Life's original insurance premiums increased by 3.9% in the first four months of this year, up from 3.2% in the previous three months.
In April alone, life insurance ranked first among the top five listed insurance companies with a premium growth rate of 23.59%. China Life and Pacific Life Insurance also achieved double-digit growth in premium income, of which China Life Insurance earned 33.6 billion yuan in April, up 11.63 percent over the same period last year, and Pacific Life Insurance earned 12.838 billion yuan, up 12.29 percent over the same period last year. Ping an Life also saw positive growth, with premiums rising 6.69 per cent year-on-year to 38.855 billion yuan in April.
The overall growth performance of the life insurance sector of A-share listed insurance companies showed a pick-up trend in April, which is driven by multiple factors. Qu Fang, an investment consultant at Wanlian Securities, told Beijing Business Daily that the reasons for the increase in premiums in April included the renewal of the accumulation of new orders in 2023, the suspension of business such as large certificates of deposit by some banks in April, and the flow of deposits to insurance and deposit products due to the relocation of deposits; seasonal factors and the new assessment tasks of some banks.
With regard to the significant increase in premiums of a number of A-share listed insurance companies in April this year, Zhi Peiyuan, an enterprise tutor for master's degree students in the School of Management of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), added that the factors also depend on, insurance companies' continuous efforts in product innovation and service optimization have provided a driving force for the growth of life insurance business. Some insurance companies have launched health insurance and old-age insurance products that are more responsive to customer needs, as well as more convenient online service channels, all of which help to attract and retain customers.
Bancassurance channel will welcome premium "plus"
Under the background of the downward deposit interest rate, the breaking of financial management and the strong demand for residents' savings, the importance of the bancassurance channel of life insurance companies is increasing, especially at the level of listed insurance companies.
"value Bancassurance" is becoming a major strategy or direction for many insurance companies. When referring to the layout of the bancassurance channel in the first quarterly report of 2024, Xinhua Insurance said that the bancassurance channel adheres to the concept of high-quality development, optimizes the business structure, strengthens channel cooperation and actively looks for opportunities. China Pacific Insurance said that the company's bancassurance channel unswervingly adheres to the high-quality development route, ploughs the strategic cooperation channel and consolidates the cooperation position.
What needs to be concerned is that from the regulatory emergency document requiring the bancassurance channel to strictly implement the "integration of newspapers and banks" and standardize the upper limit of handling fees, to the recent abolition of the limit on the number of cooperation between bank outlets and insurance companies, bancassurance channels have frequently ushered in policy briefings in recent years.
Looking back in the first quarter of this year, the growth rate of new single premiums in the bancassurance channel was weak. However, based on the fact that the bancassurance channel can make use of the bank's extensive network and customer base, the industry expects that with the recent liberalization of relevant policies on the bancassurance channel, which is conducive to the market-oriented operation of the channel, the bancassurance "cake" is expected to become bigger. At the same time, after the standardization of handling fees, the cancellation of restrictions on cooperation in bancassurance channels is conducive to the transformation of the channel to "whose products are better to sell".
In the view of people in the industry, the implementation of this policy will not only contribute to the long-term and healthy development of bancassurance channels, but also promote the innovation and progress of the insurance industry. Zhi Peiyuan said that the implementation of the new policy on bancassurance channels, that is, the abolition of restrictions on the number of cooperation between bank outlets and insurance companies, is expected to have a far-reaching impact on the five listed A-share insurance companies as well as the industry as a whole. First of all, the liberalization of this policy will contribute to the market-oriented operation of bancassurance channels, so that banks can flexibly choose partners with insurance companies according to their own business characteristics and customer needs. This will promote healthy competition between bank outlets and insurance companies, and promote the improvement of service quality. Secondly, the liberalization of the policy will also provide insurance companies with a broader market space, especially for those insurance companies that have competitive advantages in product innovation and service optimization, there will be more opportunities to expand their business through bancassurance channels.
Qu Fang said that in terms of premium income, the overall quota will increase, while increasing competition will also prompt insurance companies to develop new products.
From the perspective of premium contribution, the State Administration of Financial Supervision has lifted the "one-on-three" restriction on bank-insurance cooperation, which will significantly boost the premium growth of top insurance companies, including the five major A-share listed insurance companies. Huafu Securities analyzed that the release of the "one-on-three" restriction in this notice will marginally benefit small and medium-sized insurance companies to sign contracts, and it is expected that the large negative growth trend in the early period will be alleviated. However, affected by the general contract signing and offline service regulations in the notice, head insurance companies are expected to further expand the contract scale by leveraging more outlets and cooperation advantages. At the same time, head insurance companies benefit from the numerous cooperation channels, better training service support, and a general increase in value ratios brought about by significant improvements in the superimposed term structure. Under the new regulations, they are expected to further expand the scope of signing contracts, and the long-term delivery scale is expected to grow well.