All the latest performance of the five A-share listed insurance companies appeared. On May 19, a reporter from Beijing Business Daily found that in the first four months of this year, five A-share listed insurance companies, including China Life Insurance, China Ping An Insurance, PICC, China Taipao Insurance and Xinhua Insurance, achieved original insurance premium income of 1.25 trillion yuan, continuing the growth trend of the first quarter, with a year-on-year growth of 1.5%. Focusing on the life insurance sector of "rising with wind and water", the premium growth of several insurance companies in the first four months showed a recovery trend, and the monthly premium of life insurance companies including China Life Insurance and PICC Life Insurance in April rose by more than 10% year-on-year.

What factors determine the sustained recovery of the life insurance sector of the five A-share listed insurance companies? How will the "one to three" restrictions on the bancassurance channels released by the regulator affect the head insurance companies?

Life insurance premiums of multi insurance companies rose by more than 10% in a single month

The premium income was 1.25 trillion yuan, up 1.5% year on year. The latest performance of the five A-share listed insurance companies surfaced, continuing the growth momentum of the first quarter.

Specifically, the four insurance companies achieved positive year-on-year growth in premium income in the first four months. The growth rate of China Life Insurance ranked first among the five A-share listed insurance companies, and the company's cumulative premium income increased by 3.9% year on year; Ping An's cumulative premium income increased by 2.4% year on year, ranking second. The premium income of CPIC and PICC reached 181.7 billion yuan and 300.1 billion yuan respectively, with growth rates of 1% and 1.3% respectively.

April is the month of "a good start" and the end of the month. At the same time, the "newspaper bank integration" of the bancassurance channel and the agent channel has affected the pace of business growth to a certain extent. With multiple factors intertwined, life insurance business is naturally the focus of attention.

The reporter of Beijing Business Daily found that the life insurance sector of listed insurance companies showed signs of warming up. Among them, the accumulated original insurance premium income of Ping An Life Insurance was 212.155 billion yuan, up 1.9% year on year, a further increase compared with 0.9% in the previous three months. The cumulative original insurance premium of China Life Insurance increased by 3.9% in the first four months of this year, a further increase from 3.2% in the first three months.

In April, PICC Life Insurance ranked first among the five listed insurance companies with a premium growth rate of 23.59%. The premium income of China Life Insurance and Taibao Life Insurance also achieved double-digit growth, of which the premium income of China Life Insurance in April was 33.6 billion yuan, up 11.63% year on year; The premium income of Taibao Life Insurance was 12.838 billion yuan, up 12.29% year on year. Ping An Life also achieved positive growth. The premium of the company in April increased by 6.69% year-on-year to 38.855 billion yuan.

The growth performance of the life insurance sector of A-share listed insurance companies in April showed an overall trend of recovery, which was driven by multiple factors. Qu Fang, an investment consultant of Wanlian Securities, told Beijing Business Daily that the reasons for the premium growth in April include the renewal of new orders accumulated in 2023; In April, some banks suspended large deposit certificates and other businesses, and deposit relocation led to the flow of insurance and deposit products; Seasonal factors and new assessment tasks of some banks.

As for the significant increase in premiums of many A-share listed insurance companies in April this year, Zhi Peiyuan, an enterprise tutor for master students from the School of Management of China University of Mining and Technology (Beijing), added that the factors also depend on the continuous efforts of insurance companies in product innovation and service optimization, which has provided impetus for the growth of the life insurance industry. Some insurance companies have launched health insurance and pension insurance products that are more suitable for customers' needs, as well as more convenient online service channels, all of which help to attract and retain customers.

The bancassurance channel will "mark up" the premium

Against the backdrop of falling deposit interest rates, financial management has just been broken, and residents' demand for savings is strong, the importance of the bancassurance channel of life insurance companies is constantly increasing, especially at the level of listed insurance companies.

"Value bancassurance" is becoming a major strategy or force of many insurance companies. When Xinhua Insurance mentioned the layout of bancassurance channels in its 2024 quarterly report, it said that the company's bancassurance channels adhere to the concept of high-quality development and optimize the business structure; Strengthen channel cooperation and actively seek opportunities. CPIC said that its bancassurance channel adheres to the high-quality development line unswervingly, deepens strategic cooperation channels and consolidates cooperation positions.

It should be noted that the bancassurance channel has received frequent policy briefings in recent years, from the regulatory emergency document requiring the bancassurance channel to strictly implement the "reporting to the bank in one" and standardize the upper limit of service charges, to the recent removal of the limit on the number of bank outlets cooperating with insurance companies.

Looking back at the first quarter of this year, the growth rate of new premium of bancassurance channel was weak. However, based on the extensive network and customer base of the bank that can be used by the bancassurance channel, the industry expects that with the recent liberalization of policies related to the bancassurance channel, which will help the market-oriented operation of the channel, the "cake" of bancassurance is expected to grow. At the same time, after the normalization of the service charges, the cancellation of the cooperation restrictions on the bancassurance channel is conducive to the transformation of the channel to "whose products sell better".

In the opinion of insiders, the implementation of this policy will contribute to the long-term healthy development of the bancassurance channel, and will also promote the innovation and progress of the insurance industry. Zhi Peiyuan said that the implementation of the new policy of bancassurance channels, namely, the elimination of the number limit on the cooperation between bank outlets and insurance companies, is expected to have a far-reaching impact on the five A-share listed insurance companies and the entire industry. First of all, the liberalization of this policy will help the market-oriented operation of bancassurance channels, enabling banks to flexibly choose partners with insurance companies according to their own business characteristics and customer needs. This will promote healthy competition between banking outlets and insurance companies, and promote the improvement of service quality. Secondly, the policy liberalization will also provide insurance companies with a broader market space, especially for those insurance companies with 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 amount will increase, and the increasingly fierce competition will also encourage insurance companies to develop new products.

From the perspective of premium contribution, the cancellation of the "one to three" restriction on bancassurance cooperation by the State Administration of Financial Supervision will significantly boost the premium growth of head insurance companies, including the five A-share listed insurance companies. Huafu Securities pointed out that the release of the "one to three" restriction in this notice will marginally benefit small and medium-sized insurance enterprises to sign contracts, and it is expected that the large negative increase in the early stage will be alleviated. However, affected by the general contracting and offline service provisions in the notice, head insurance companies are expected to further expand the scale of signing with more outlets and cooperation advantages. At the same time, the head insurance companies benefit from many cooperation channels and more excellent training service support, and the value rate is generally high due to the significant improvement of the superimposed term structure. Under the new rules, it is expected to further expand the scope of signing, and it is expected that the growth rate of long-term scheduled delivery scale will be better.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Hu Yongxin