More than half of the annual reports of listed insurance companies in 2021 are disclosed. From the published annual report data, the life insurance business of listed companies is still undergoing difficult transformation.
China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , CPIC life insurance and Taiping Life Insurance achieved year-on-year growth in premiums, and Ping An Life Insurance and health insurance business achieved an insurance business income of 494011 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.98%. At the same time, affected by the epidemic situation and the slow release of insurance demand, the decline in the number of life insurance agents, the difficulty in the growth of new life insurance orders and the decline in the value of new business have become common problems.
data show that in addition to the positive growth of individual insurance agents of Taiping Life Insurance, the welfare of sales personnel of Guoshou, Ping An, CPIC and PICC individual insurance all decreased by more than 25%, with a total reduction of more than one million people. In terms of new business value, TPL achieved a slight increase of 0.7% driven by bancassurance channels, and the value of China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , Ping An Life Insurance, CPIC life insurance, PICC Life Insurance and other new businesses decreased significantly
life insurance new business value drops
From the annual report data, the premium income of life insurance business of listed insurance companies has increased.
In 2021, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) the total premium income was 618327 billion yuan, an increase of 1.0% year-on-year; The net profit attributable to the shareholders of the parent company was 50.921 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.3%.
CPIC life insurance achieved an insurance business income of 211685 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.1%, of which the original insurance premium income was 209610 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.6%; The operating profit was 28.265 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%, and the net profit was 18.905 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.4%.
Ping An Life Insurance and health insurance business realized an insurance business revenue of 494011 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.98%, and a net profit of 60.303 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 37.23%.
The People’S Insurance Company (Group) Of China Limited(601319) in terms of the original premium income of PICC Life Insurance and health insurance totaled 132663 billion yuan, an increase of 3.29% over 128442 billion yuan in the same period in 2020. Among them, the original premium income of PICC Life Insurance increased by 0.7% year-on-year, and that of PICC Health increased by 11% year-on-year. The net profit of PICC Life Insurance was 4.145 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.4%; PICC Health realized a net profit of 260 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 622.2%.
Affected by the epidemic situation and the slow release of insurance demand, it is difficult for new orders to grow and the decline of new business value has become a common problem.
In 2021, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) new single premium was 175864 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 9.3%; The value of new business in one year was 44.780 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.3%. In this regard, the company admitted in its annual report that “it is not easy to make a correction on the basis of a high base and keep the correction range within a reasonable range.”
In 2021, Ping An Life Insurance and health insurance business’s first year premium was 136.29 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 8.5%; The value of new business was 37.898 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 23.6%; Without considering the impact of hypothetical adjustment, the value of new business decreased by 18.6% year-on-year, which was mainly affected by the decline in the value rate of new business caused by the increase in the proportion of savings products and the decline in the number of agents during the transformation.
CPIC life insurance new business value was 13.412 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 24.8%; The value ratio of new business was 23.5%, down 15.4 percentage points year-on-year.
The People’S Insurance Company (Group) Of China Limited(601319) in terms of new business value of PICC Life Insurance in one year decreased by 40.6% year-on-year, and that of PICC Health increased by 8.8% year-on-year.
At the time of the overall downturn in the life insurance industry, Taiping Life 2021, the original premium income increased by 3.0% year-on-year, the new single term premium income increased by 13.5% year-on-year, of which the new single term premium of individual insurance increased by 21.6% year-on-year, and the new business value achieved positive growth.
From the perspective of profit performance, in addition to the impact of new policy premium, new business value and other factors, the change of accounting estimates caused by the decline of long-term interest rate and the change of insurance contract assumptions is also an important reason affecting the net profit performance of life insurance business.
China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) because the discount rate assumes that the change will increase the contractual reserve amount by 30 billion 701 million yuan, the assumption of a change in the incidence rate of some insurance risks increases by 5 billion 897 million yuan in the insurance contract reserve, and the 1 billion 677 million part of the insurance contract reserve is increased in part of the insurance premium and other assumptions, which together reduce the pre tax profit by 38 billion 275 million yuan.
For another example, affected by the downward movement of the 750 day treasury bond moving yield curve, TPL ‘s life insurance business operating profit decreased by 22.5% from HK $14.803 billion in 2020 to HK $11.475 billion.
personal insurance sector grew sluggishly, and agents decreased by more than one million
Individual insurance is the most important channel of life insurance, so the performance of individual insurance sector directly affects the performance of life insurance business of listed insurance enterprises.
In terms of premium income, in 2021, the total premium of China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) individual insurance sector was 509489 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 0.3%; The value of new business in one year was 42.945 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 25.5%.
Ping An Life Insurance and health insurance according to the scale premium, the new business of personal business through agent channel is 460175 billion yuan, a decrease of 17.48% compared with 492233 billion yuan in the same period of 2020, and the proportion in personal business premium decreased to 84.46% from 85.81% in 2020.
The continuous reduction of manpower in Chinese listed companies has also attracted attention China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China Ltd(601318) , CPIC life insurance, PICC Life Insurance and individual insurance sales personnel all suffered a great decline in welfare.
By the end of 2021, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) total sales manpower had dropped to about 890000, a decrease of about 568000 compared with 1458000 at the end of the previous year; The number of individual insurance sales personnel was 820000, a decrease of 558000 compared with the same period in 2020, and the decline of welfare was 40.49%.
Among them, the scale of marketing team is 519000, a decrease of 322000 compared with the same period in 2020, and the scale of exhibition team is Shanghai Hajime Advanced Material Technology Co.Ltd(301000) , a decrease of 236000 compared with the same period last year.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China Ltd(601318) the number of sales agents of personal life insurance decreased to V V Food & Beverage Co.Ltd(600300) , about 423500 less than 1023800 at the end of the previous year, a decrease of 41.4%. The average monthly number of insurance marketers of CPIC life insurance was 525000, a year-on-year decrease of 224000 or 29.9%. As of December 31, 2021, there were 185900 “big personal insurance” marketers of PICC Life Insurance, a decrease of 228300 or 55% compared with 414300 in the same period in 2020.
Zhan Zhong, vice president of China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) said at the performance conference that in the process of team decline, the top performers are relatively stable and the foundation is still relatively solid. This year’s team development strategy is “improving quality and stabilizing quantity”, and we will strive to improve the quality of the team.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China Ltd(601318) believes that although the decline in the number of agents has had a certain impact on the business, in the long run, the team structure of the company will be gradually optimized to lay a solid foundation for long-term sustainable development in the future.
In contrast, the manpower scale of TPL agents stabilized in 2021. According to the data, by the end of 2021, TPL had 385000 individual insurance agents, a positive increase of 1% over the same period in 2020.
Cheng Yonghong, general manager of TPL, said at the performance communication meeting that the positive growth of life insurance agents of TPL in difficult times was mainly due to the concept of “insisting on keeping the team alive and living well”.
The decline in the number of agents has been an industry problem. According to relevant statistics, as of December 31, 2021, there were 5.907 million agent sales personnel nationwide, a decrease of 2.521 million compared with 8.428 million at the end of the previous year.
At present, the agent channel is still the main channel of listed insurance enterprises, but the importance of multiple channels such as bancassurance is emerging.
From the perspective of China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) in 2021, the total premium of Bancassurance channel reached 49.326 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%; The premium income of individual insurance channels decreased by 0.3% year-on-year, accounting for 82.39% from 84.36% in 2020.
From the perspective of Ping An Ping An, although the premium income of agent channels decreased last year, the bancassurance channels, e-marketing, Internet and other channels increased slightly year-on-year respectively. In 2021, innovative channels such as bancassurance, telemarketing, Internet and others of Ping An Life Insurance accounted for 15.1% of the new business value of Ping An Life Insurance, with a year-on-year increase of 3.8 percentage points.
In comparison, TPL has more decentralized channel strategies, and bank channel premiums increased by 20.8% year-on-year to HK $44.943 billion. Last year, the value of new business increased by 3.6% year-on-year (RMB caliber + 0.7%) mainly due to the improvement of bancassurance business structure. Among them, the value ratio of new business of Bancassurance increased by 4.7pt to 9.3% year-on-year, which promoted the value of new business of Bancassurance increased by 70.1% year-on-year, while the value of new business of individual insurance decreased by 5.9% year-on-year in the same period.
optimistic about the long-term development prospect of life insurance
Since the outbreak, the traditional life insurance industry has faced many internal and external challenges. Affected by the repeated outbreak of covid-19 pneumonia, customer demand has changed, consumption has become cautious, and the sales of serious illness insurance products have become more difficult. At the same time, with the rise of flexible employment and the gradual decline of demographic dividend, the extensive human driven development model of life insurance industry in the past has been unsustainable. The consensus view of the market is that transformation and change are urgent.
in recent years, mainstream life insurance companies have been promoting life insurance reform. Many companies choose to adjust the crowd model and actively carry out in-depth channel and product reform to achieve a smooth transition and future growth; Some companies have increased investment in the downward cycle of the industry and maintained growth through contrarian expansion
Large insurance companies have always been the wind vane of the achievements of industry transformation. From the performance of life insurance business in the first two months of this year disclosed by listed companies, the performance of insurance companies has been differentiated, and the effect of transformation remains to be seen for some time.
For example, China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) , the scale of life insurance premium has always been the largest in the industry. In January this year, the premium decreased by 5.34% year-on-year, but the decline narrowed in February, and the decline in premium income in the first two months fell to 5.04%. Ping An Life Insurance, which ranked second in life insurance premium income, realized a premium income of 128788 billion yuan in the first two months, down 1.61% from the same period last year, a slight increase from January this year.
CPIC life insurance original premium income increased by 2.3% from a year-on-year decrease of 1.1% in January.
New China Life Insurance Company Ltd(601336) the premium growth rate further increased from 3.57% to 5.2%.
The life insurance and health insurance businesses of The People’S Insurance Company (Group) Of China Limited(601319) have achieved substantial growth, of which the original insurance premium income of PICC Life Insurance in the first two months was 53.384 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 26.45%; The original premium income of human health insurance was 14.104 billion yuan, an increase of 7.64% year-on-year. However, the first year premium of long-term insurance of health insurance companies still decreased by 8.5%, and the regular renewal and short-term insurance increased by 17.7% and 26.8% year-on-year respectively, becoming the main driving factor for the growth of human health insurance premium income.
In addition, Guohua life achieved a premium income of RMB 11.957 billion, a year-on-year increase of 56.20%. It is understood that the substantial growth of Guohua life’s performance has something to do with its small scale and the low performance base in the same period in 2021. In the first two months of 2021, Guohua life insurance realized an original insurance premium income of 7.655 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 16.25%.
Challenges also brew opportunities. In response to the challenges, insurance companies are still optimistic about the development prospect of life insurance.
Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China Ltd(601318) believes that in the long run, the security demand of Chinese residents is still strong, and the above challenges faced by the life insurance industry will not bring fundamental changes to the broad development prospects of the industry. The aging of population and the continuous growth of residents’ wealth level imply huge demand for medical and pension security, and the life insurance market is far from saturated. At the same time, Huimin insurance and Internet insurance also play a positive role in promoting the development of traditional life insurance industry, stimulating residents’ insurance awareness and helping companies tap deeper protection needs of consumers.
China Life Insurance Company Limited(601628) president Su hengxuan said at the press conference that it takes a process to achieve high-quality development, transformation and upgrading, and it also takes some time to convert the old and new kinetic energy. He also believes that the turning point of high-quality development is not only reflected in quantity, but also in the company’s business behavior. For example, in terms of the company’s management, how to gradually transform from extensive management to intensive management, how to further strengthen the empowerment of science and technology, and how to further improve the service level? At the same time, adhering to the people as the center, truly adapting to the needs, developing corresponding products, continuously creating value for shareholders, providing high-quality services for customers, and actively serving major national strategies, decisions and deployment are all important factors for high-quality developmentcenter>
