Starting with a bachelor's degree, is an annual salary of 400,000 yuan just the threshold? Insurance companies are competing for talent in "new life insurance," where expertise in finance, healthcare, and elderly care has become standard.

Everyday Economic News Reporter | Yuan Yuan Everyday Economic News Editor | Liao Dan

As China’s population aging accelerates, residents’ needs for health management and retirement planning are becoming increasingly diverse. The traditional agent model, which focuses solely on policy sales, can no longer meet market changes. Insurance companies are beginning to recruit and develop diversified insurance sales talent.

Recently, Ping An Life held the “Good Development with Ping An” Insurance and Elderly Care Advisor Anniversary and Talent Plan Launch Conference in Shenzhen, officially announcing the full launch of the “Top Talent Plan.” Through a professional and specialized talent development system, the goal is to build a top insurance and elderly care advisor team with the triple value of “financial advisor, family doctor, and retirement manager.”

It is understood that the “Top Talent Plan” focuses more on the role of “elderly care advisor” within the sales team. This also means that insurance agents in the plan are no longer limited to traditional marketing and management paths but are becoming stewards capable of providing comprehensive solutions for family wealth, retirement, and medical care.

This move is not an isolated case. As the era of longevity continues, the demand for retirement and health management among the public keeps rising. Driven by this demand, insurance institutions are exploring the deep integration of “insurance” and “elderly care.” According to reports from Daily Economic News, Taikang Life’s “Health Wealth Planner (HWP),” Taiping Life’s “S Plan,” and AIA’s “HEA (Elite Wealth Planner) High-End Talent Recruitment Plan” all focus on recruiting and developing versatile professionals. By reshaping the insurance agent workforce, they aim to meet the increasingly diverse health and wealth management needs of high-net-worth clients.

Role Shift: From Sales to Full Lifecycle Service

By 2025, Ping An Life will first launch the “Insurance Elderly Care Advisor” program, positioning agents as “financial advisors + family doctors + retirement managers”—a hybrid talent capable of not only selling insurance but also connecting medical and elderly care resources. Recently, based on the “Insurance Elderly Care Advisor,” Ping An Life upgraded and launched the “Top Talent Plan.”

As the top-level design of Ping An Life’s “Insurance Elderly Care Advisor” talent strategy, the “Top Talent Plan” targets elites with a bachelor’s degree or above, aged 28 to 55, with previous annual income exceeding 400,000 yuan. The aim is to build a top-tier team to serve high-net-worth clients in depth. Tao Ben, Deputy General Manager of the Human Resources Development Team at Ping An Life, stated that since the pilot started in June 2025, over 800 high-caliber professionals from banking, financial management, and technology fields have joined, with more than 80% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, nearly 10% holding a master’s degree, and nearly 30% of the top talents earning over one million yuan annually.

From the positioning and recruitment of Ping An Life’s “Top Talent Plan,” it is clear that these agents are no longer traditional insurance salespeople but are assigned three roles: financial advisor, family doctor, and retirement manager. This means agents need to deeply meet clients’ full lifecycle needs for wealth, health, and retirement.

It is worth noting that Ping An Life’s initiative is not unique. Similar role transformations are happening in other insurance companies, each with different focuses: some emphasize health management by collaborating with medical institutions for professional training to enhance advisors’ health services; others focus on retirement scenarios by integrating elderly care community resources to cultivate professionals with retirement planning and care coordination skills; some strengthen the integration of finance and elderly care, requiring advisors to have skills in insurance planning, wealth management, and elderly care services.

For example, Taikang Life’s Health Wealth Planner (HWP) combines functions of insurance advisor, medical and elderly care advisor, and financial advisor; AIA’s “HEA Talent Program” positions marketers as lifelong “health and wealth management partners” and “insurance entrepreneurs” with leadership qualities.

Overall, the cultivation of high-end agents and elderly care advisors in the industry shows three distinct features: first, talent thresholds are continuously rising, with high education levels and cross-field elites becoming key recruits; second, training systems are becoming more comprehensive, covering financial, health, and retirement knowledge through integrated guidance models from basic understanding to advanced skills; third, career development paths are clear, with most insurance companies restructuring dual-track channels of “individual sales + organizational development,” providing ladder-like promotion opportunities and competitive reward systems.

Behind the Transformation: Shifting Demands Drive the “New Life Insurance” Model

From the recruitment and training directions of these institutions, it is evident that insurance agents are no longer just salespeople but providers of full-lifecycle services and one-stop solutions. This means that becoming an insurance agent in the past might only require understanding basic insurance terms and sales scripts; the educational and professional knowledge requirements were relatively low. Now, to join these elite teams, one may need to master complex knowledge in insurance, finance, medical health, retirement planning, taxation, and law, playing multiple roles such as financial advisor, family doctor, and retirement manager.

The core reason for insurance companies focusing on developing elderly care advisors and actively recruiting high-end talent is closely related to the current development changes in the insurance industry.

At the turn of the millennium, consumers’ understanding of insurance was limited to policies and claims. At that time, consumers only needed to purchase policies with appropriate coverage based on their needs, and insurance agents only needed to sell relevant products. The connection and service between the two generally ended after the policy transaction, with many agents only contacting clients again when claims were needed.

However, with economic development and increasing average lifespan, consumer needs have shifted. Insurance no longer only addresses protection but also includes wealth planning, medical care, and retirement needs. Under this concept, policies are no longer just proof of contract between insurance companies and clients but become a bond—through policies, clients can access health management services, retirement community admission, and even travel and retirement experiences offered by insurance companies.

This is called the “New Life Insurance” model. Chen Dongsheng, founder, chairman, and CEO of Taikang Insurance Group, once stated that traditional life insurance only covers life and investment, while “New Life Insurance” adds medical and elderly care services, forming a pattern supported by insurance payments, investment assets, and medical and elderly care services.

To meet consumer needs and provide personalized services under this model, insurance agents need to enhance their skills accordingly.

According to Tao Junqing, Deputy General Manager of Taikang Life’s Health Wealth Management Division and national head of the HWP project, the core of “New Life Insurance” is adding medical and elderly care services on top of the existing two pillars. Since these services often need to be conveyed to clients through agents, agents must not only understand insurance but also possess some medical and elderly care knowledge.

Future Development: Reshaping Individual Channel Personnel Continues

With the continuous improvement of training systems and active recruitment efforts by insurance companies, the growth rate of elderly care advisors and specialized agents is also very noticeable.

“Tahank HWP’s compound growth rate is higher than that of regular agents because the dropout rate of regular agents is relatively high,” Tao Junqing told Daily Economic News. “In first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Taikang basically no longer has regular agents; all business is conducted through HWP. In markets like Ningbo, 80% to 90% of newly recruited personnel are HWP.”

However, Tao also pointed out that in terms of overall numbers, HWPs still account for a smaller proportion than regular agents. “In some less developed insurance markets or third- and fourth-tier cities, there is still a need for a certain number of regular agents: on one hand, they lack the extensive resources that HWPs in big cities have; on the other hand, clients in these areas have insurance needs that require regular agents’ services.” Tao Junqing said that in terms of agent development, it is difficult for all regions in the country to follow a uniform approach, even for Taikang.

But there is no denying that, in a market environment that is increasingly complex and variable, with more diverse and personalized client needs, the professional competence and continuous learning ability of insurance agents will become crucial to coping with the complex market. In this context, many insurance companies are continuously promoting and improving relevant training systems to build a high-quality talent pool.

Postdoctoral fellow and professor at Peking University in applied economics, Zhu Junsheng, pointed out that marketers are shifting from traditional “network-driven” approaches to “professional and service-driven” models. By leveraging digital tools, they improve customer acquisition and management efficiency through social fission, private domain operations, and customer tagging, expanding service coverage. Marketers are gradually transforming from single-product sellers into “family risk management advisors,” providing systematic and customized protection plans around family lifecycle, extending to health management, retirement planning, and wealth inheritance, thereby increasing customer stickiness and creating a positive cycle of referrals based on professionalism, trust, and personalized service.

Cover image source: AIGC