Recently, life insurance companies have successively disclosed their solvency reports for the first quarter of this year, and the business situation of banking insurance companies that have attracted much attention from the industry in the first quarter has also been announced.
According to the statistics of Securities Daily, nine bank insurance companies, including China Post Life Insurance, ICBC AXA Life Insurance, ABC Life Insurance, CCB Life Insurance, China Merchants Sinonova, BOC Samsung, BOCOM Life Insurance, Sino Dutch Life Insurance and Everbright Yongming Life Insurance, achieved a total net profit of 706 million yuan in the first quarter of 2024, "turning losses into gains" on a year-on-year basis. Specifically, the net profits of these nine insurance companies were differentiated. Six insurance companies made profits, with a total net profit of 3.049 billion yuan, and three insurance companies made losses, with a total loss of 2.343 billion yuan.
Experts interviewed said that the differentiation of the net profits of insurance companies in the banking sector was influenced by the implementation of the new accounting standards on the one hand, and by factors such as capital market fluctuations and debt side business transformation on the other. Under the influence of the policy of "reporting to the bank in one" and the recent regulatory cancellation of the restrictions on the number of bank outlets cooperating with insurance companies, in the future, bank insurance companies need to rely on brands, products and services to create competitive advantages.
Rapid growth of insurance revenue
In the first quarter of this year, the insurance business income of bank insurance companies grew rapidly. The nine insurance companies achieved a total insurance revenue of 178.036 billion yuan, up 25% year on year. Specifically, China Post Life's insurance business income topped the list with 73.658 billion yuan; ICBC AXA Life Insurance and ABC Life Insurance ranked second and third with 19.622 billion yuan and 19.377 billion yuan respectively; The insurance business income of CCB Life and China Merchants Sinosure both exceeded 10 billion yuan.
In this regard, Li Wenzhong, the former deputy director of the Department of Insurance of Capital University of Economics and Trade and the deputy director of the Rural Insurance Research Institute, said to the reporter of Securities Daily that from the data, the overall premium of banking insurance companies has increased significantly, which shows that the products of banking insurance companies are still popular in the market despite the continuous decline of market interest rates.
In terms of net profit, China Post Life Insurance ranked first with a net profit of 2.754 billion yuan. BOC Samsung Life Insurance and ABC Life Insurance respectively achieved net profits of 159 million yuan and 61 million yuan. At the same time, three insurance companies lost money, of which CCB Life lost the most, amounting to 1.253 billion yuan.
From the perspective of year-on-year change trend, among the nine bank insurance companies, four insurance companies, including China Post Life Insurance, Bank of China Samsung Life Insurance, China Merchants Sinosure Life Insurance and China Netherlands Life Insurance, turned losses into gains, three insurance companies turned gains into losses, and the net profits of two insurance companies fell by more than 90% year on year. Among them, China Post Life Insurance and CCB Life Insurance have the most dramatic changes. China Post Life lost 2.504 billion yuan in the first quarter of last year and gained 2.754 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, turning losses into profits; CCB Life earned a profit of 188 million yuan in the same period last year, while the first quarter of this year saw a loss of 1253 million yuan.
The impact of the New Deal has attracted much attention
Recently, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration issued the Notice on Matters Related to the Agency Insurance Business of Commercial Banks, lifting the limit on the number of bank outlets cooperating with insurance companies. As bank insurance companies generally rely on the bancassurance channel, the impact of the new policy on bank insurance companies has also attracted the attention of the industry.
Li Wenzhong said that, on the one hand, the liberalization of restrictions on the number of cooperation between bank outlets and insurance companies will make insurance companies more competitive in the bank insurance channel, which may have a certain impact on bank insurance companies. On the other hand, for bank insurance companies, the bancassurance channel is usually the most important insurance product sales channel. Although it is affected by the commission level, its equity relationship with the bank has a greater impact. However, under the rule of "reporting and banking in one", the impact of commission level will be weakened, and the impact of equity relations on the cooperation between banks and insurance companies will be more prominent. The sales cost of banking insurance companies will decline when the commission is more standardized, and the competitive advantage may be further strengthened rather than weakened.
Zhou Jin, a management consulting partner of PricewaterhouseCoopers in China's financial industry, told the Securities Daily that most bank insurance companies are deeply bound or interdependent with the parent bank, and the impact is not expected to be very significant. Releasing the restrictions on cooperation between bank outlets and insurance companies will have a greater impact on the market-oriented competitive relationship.
Zhou Jin further said that under the influence of the policy of "newspaper and bank integration" and the cancellation of cooperation quantity limit, insurance companies will not compete by rate in the future, but increasingly rely on brands, products and services.
China Post Life previously said that the deep integration of bancassurance channels is no longer a simple market choice, but will become a strategic consideration. In the original "shelf style" marketing model, it is difficult for banks and insurance companies to deeply empower each other. In the future, banking insurance companies will certainly have more synergy and integration in product development and customer joint operation, and the "integration of reporting and banking" will further accelerate the trend of deep integration of banking and insurance.
