With the non listed insurance companies successively disclosing the performance data of 2021, the pattern of head institutions in the insurance industry is becoming clearer. In the life insurance industry that has encountered difficulties in development, the premium income of the “old seven” varies, and the ranking is reshuffled.
From the perspective of the life insurance industry as a whole, according to the data of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, the premium income of life insurance companies in 2021 was 3.12 trillion yuan (excluding institutions in the risk disposal stage), while the industry wide premium data in 2020 was 3.17 trillion yuan, showing the weakness of premium growth. Galaxy Securities research report concluded that the covid-19 epidemic, the substitution role of Internet insurance and the traditional marketing system encountered bottlenecks, which impacted the sales of insurance policies and put pressure on the fundamentals of life insurance in 2021.
In 2022, the “chill” of life insurance has not yet subsided. Many analysts believe that there is a lot of pressure on the premium growth during the good start, such as the impact of the epidemic, the change of potential customer base, the mismatch between supply and demand, and the effect of agent team transformation is difficult to show in the short term. However, there are certain driving forces. For example, under the background of breaking the new regulations of asset management and the downward interest rate, the advantage of guaranteed interest rate of insurance products will appear.
the seventh family handed in the paper: the fourth change of ownership
you can also feel the chill from the life insurance head institutions in the past two years.
According to the announcement of listed insurance companies and the solvency report of non listed insurance companies for the fourth quarter of 2021, in 2021, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , Ping An Life Insurance, CPIC life insurance, New China Life Insurance Company Ltd(601336) , Taiping Life Insurance, Taikang Life Insurance, PICC Life Insurance and other “old seven” life insurance companies, with a total premium of about 1.86 trillion, a year-on-year increase of only slightly more than 1%. From the old seven families, the growth rate of premium income continued the differentiation trend, most of which maintained a small single digit growth, and the growth rate of Taikang Life Insurance was the highest.
Specifically, the ranking of the old seven remained stable in the first three. China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) the premium income is about 620 billion yuan, 457 billion yuan for Ping An Life Insurance and 209.6 billion yuan for CPIC life insurance. Since then, the premium income of Taikang Life Insurance has reached 164.8 billion, with a rapid growth of 14.5% year-on-year, raising it to the fourth place; New China Life Insurance Company Ltd(601336) premium 163.5 billion, ranking fifth; TPL ranked sixth with 148.7 billion yuan; PICC’s life insurance premium was 96.8 billion, ranking seventh.
The analysis of a senior executive of a foreign-funded insurance company represents an external perspective. The business growth of Taikang Life Insurance Group is related to the overall strategic layout of Taikang Insurance Group. The annuity policy linked to the elderly care community, which is positioned for medium and high-end customers, has continued to grow rapidly in recent years and has become an important source of business growth of the company. According to the information released by Taikang group, its new single value led the market with double-digit growth in 2021, the embedded value of Taikang Life Insurance reached a record high, and its number of high-end customers ranked first in the financial and insurance industry.
In addition to Taikang Life Insurance, as of January 27, more than 20 unlisted life insurance companies have issued solvency reports for the fourth quarter of 2021. Combined with the report data, the situation of major institutions is as follows: the premium of China Post life insurance is 85.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 4.7%; The premium of sunshine life was 60.8 billion yuan, with a year-on-year growth rate of slightly more than 10%.
The profits of unlisted insurance companies can also be estimated from the reported data disclosed by them. Among them, the annual net profit of Taikang Life Insurance in 2021 was about 25.8 billion, which was also high in the whole industry. In addition, sunshine life is about 4.7 billion and China Post’s life expectancy is about 1.4 billion.
In addition, a number of foreign-funded insurance companies have also announced their performance, including Sino Italian life, Sino US liantai metropolis, Sino British life, Everbright Yongming life, Sino German Allianz life, Heng’an standard life, etc., of which CITIC Prudential Life has a premium of more than 26 billion and a net profit of 2.8 billion yuan.
life insurance industry still needs time to improve
At present, life insurance is in an important period of “making a good start” at the beginning of the year. Compared with previous years, the atmosphere of making a good start this year is still slightly cold. This is also in line with the expectations of previous research institutions.
2022 has a good start and the situation is not expected to be optimistic for many reasons. For example, preparations for a good start are delayed. According to the analysis of the Non Bank Research Report of Huajin securities, the supervision and guidance of insurance enterprises have gradually weakened the good start, and the premium growth of insurance enterprises in 2021 is under pressure. The pressure of assessment at the end of the year is large, and the task of performance sprint in the fourth quarter is heavier, resulting in the late start of 2022. Among the listed insurance companies, Guoshou started off well in October 2021, Ping An, CPIC and Taiping in November, and Xinhua in December. The overall rhythm is about one month later than last year.
At the same time, the first quarter of 2021 has a high base, the impact of the epidemic is still on, and the transformation effect of the agent team is difficult to show in the short term, which also puts pressure on the good start of 2022.
The in-depth report of the insurance industry of Galaxy Securities believes that the improvement of life insurance still needs time. “As insurance companies actively promote the transformation of agent channels, improve the professionalism of agents, change the past crowd tactics into precision marketing, realize the matching of product supply and demand, and truly focus on customers, the effect of industry transformation will gradually appear, and the number of agents may continue to decline, but the production capacity will be improved, the year-on-year growth rate of premium income is low before and high after, and the value of new business will be improved.”
However, the insurance industry also has some positive factors for product sales. For example, China International Capital Corporation Limited(601995) the 2022 insurance industry outlook report mentioned that the new asset management regulations require that asset management businesses should not promise principal and income protection, and the advantage of guaranteed interest rate of insurance products will appear under the background of downward interest rate. For example, in the second half of 2021, some companies achieved a phased high boom in new businesses through increasing lifetime, end-of-life and other products, and it is expected that the sales of serious diseases will slow down, In the future, the importance of long-term savings insurance for the premium and value growth of new businesses in the industry will be significantly improved.
Huajin securities also believes that there is pressure and driving force for premium growth during the good start of 2022. The driving force is that in recent years, the premium income from a good start accounts for about 40% – 50% of the annual premium. A good start is still important to insurance enterprises, and listed insurance enterprises also actively layout. At the same time, in the fiscal quarter at the end of the year and the beginning of the year, residents have abundant funds and strong terminal demand, or make a positive contribution to the growth of premiums. At the end of 2021, the transition period of new asset management regulations ended, and insurance became the only financial product with guaranteed income at present. After the income of the opening products is thickened by the additional universal account, it forms a comparative advantage over the yield of bank financial products. With the enhanced attraction, the sales trend is expected to be good. It is expected that all listed insurance companies will make a good start in 2022 and can achieve single digit or small double-digit growth.
When looking forward to 2022 in December last year, the Guoxin non bank team predicted that the sales of new orders of large life insurance enterprises would continue to decline in the first half of the year, but the decline might ease. After the second quarter, it is expected to reach a medium growth platform and regain the growth trend.
