China Life earns nearly 400 million yuan daily, with equity investments increasing by 450 billion yuan. Cai Xiliang makes outstanding contributions.

Producer | China Visitor Network

Review | Li Xiaoyan

On the evening of March 25, China Life officially disclosed its 2025 annual report. As the “leading goose” in the life insurance industry, the company delivered an outstanding performance in the concluding year of the “14th Five-Year Plan”: total premium for the first time surpassed the 700 billion yuan mark, attributable net profit surged year over year by 44.1%, the growth rate of one-year new business value reached a new high for the same period since 2017, and with solid results showing both scale and profitability increasing, it demonstrates the steady resilience of an industry leader.

In 2025, China Life’s operating performance achieved a leap forward. Multiple key indicators hit record highs, fully confirming the company’s long-term value-creation capability and its core competitiveness in the market. Premium scale continued to grow steadily, with strong momentum driving core growth. For the full year, total premiums reached 729.887 billion yuan, up 8.7% year over year. For the first time, it crossed the 700 billion yuan threshold. Daily premium income was nearly 2 billion yuan, highlighting strong market absorption capacity and a solid foundation of customer trust. In terms of structure, renewal premiums made a standout contribution: for the full year, they reached 495.808 billion yuan, accounting for nearly 68% of total premiums, building a solid barrier for cash-flow stability. New single premiums were 234.079 billion yuan, up 9.29% year over year, with the fundamentals steady and trending positively. As a key metric for measuring a life insurer’s core value, one-year new business value reached 45.752 billion yuan, with a year-over-year increase of 35.7%. The growth rate reached the highest for the same period in nearly eight years, representing a substantive repair in value-creation capability.

Earnings jumped significantly, and investment capability continued to lead. On a high base, attributable net profit reached 154.078 billion yuan, up 44.1%; earnings per share also rose by 44.1%, with a clear improvement in profitability. The investment side performed especially well. In a low interest-rate environment, the company adhered to an allocation approach of “fixed-income as the mainstay, with an enhanced allocation to equities.” For the full year, total investment returns were nearly 387.7 billion yuan. The total investment yield rose to 6.09%, up 59 basis points from the prior year. Both investment returns and efficiency improved in tandem, providing strong support for growth in performance. By the end of 2025, the company’s total assets were 7.59 trillion yuan, and investment assets were 7.42 trillion yuan, maintaining the top position in the industry. During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, it continuously crossed three consecutive trillion-yuan thresholds, with capital strength and risk-resilience capabilities continuing to strengthen.

Against the backdrop of industry transformation pressure and changes in the market environment, China Life focused on channel reform and product upgrading, deepened structural adjustments, and achieved coordinated development for both scale growth and quality improvement.

The effectiveness of channel transformation has been highlighted: the “individual insurance (direct sales) business stabilizes value, bancassurance drives scale” pattern remains solid. As the core of value creation, the individual insurance channel achieved total premiums of 551.79 billion yuan for the full year, up 4.3%. Although the sales headcount of 587,000 was in a contraction cycle compared with the historical peak, the company continued to optimize its manpower structure through a “grow better and nurture better” model, driving a 25.5% year-over-year increase in one-year new business value and ongoing improvement in business quality. First-year premiums for terms of 10 years and above were 52.148 billion yuan, and their share of first-year premiums in the individual insurance channel rose to 58.48%. The steady increase in the proportion of long-term protection-oriented business highlights long-term competitive strength.

The bancassurance channel became a key highlight for performance growth. For the full year, total premiums were 110.874 billion yuan, up sharply by 45.5%. New single premiums grew by 95.7% year over year. Guided by regulatory policies of “reporting and issuance in unity,” it achieved breakthroughs in both scale and quality. With the number of partner banks exceeding 100 and the number of bancassurance issuance outlets reaching 77,000, the bancassurance channel—leveraging its advantages in scenarios and its fee-control capability—has become an important growth engine during the industry’s transformation period, aligning with market demand for dividend-type products in a low interest-rate environment.

The product strategy is precisely matched, and the direction of transformation is clear and defined. Under the downward trend in interest rates, the company increased its allocation to floating-income-type business. The share of this category in first-year premiums is close to 50%, effectively adapting to changes in the market environment. Among them, dividend insurance business grew rapidly: its share of first-year premiums in the individual insurance channel increased to nearly 60%, becoming a core support for new single premiums. At the same time, the company continued to optimize its product system. For the full year, it launched more than 170 products. The shares of new single premiums for life insurance, annuity insurance, and health insurance were 31.75%, 32.11%, and 31.23% respectively, achieving balanced development and meeting diversified protection needs of different customer segments. However, growth pressure persisted for traditional long-term protection-oriented business. New single premiums for first-year premiums with terms of 10 years and above decreased by 7.78% year over year, reflecting the challenges of structural adjustment under shared industry pressures.

Backed by digital transformation, China Life is promoting comprehensive upgrades across business processes, customer service, and risk prevention and control, injecting technological momentum into high-quality development.

Technology empowers the entire business lifecycle, and operating efficiency improves significantly. Relying on intelligent technologies to reshape underwriting processes for group insurance and bancassurance business, AI-supported agent work has been widely adopted. In 2025, the operating rate of digital underwriting clerks exceeded 24%. The intelligent review rate for policy servicing reached 99%. In some regions, the end-to-end processing without any manual handling exceeded 60%, significantly shortening business handling cycles and improving the customer experience. Smart-and-digital services continue to iterate: the share of smart-and-digital claims cases exceeded 75%, and one-stop claims direct settlement exceeded 5.3 million cases. Proactive claims services identify and prompt 680,000 customer visits, resulting in double improvements in claims efficiency and service quality.

Risk prevention and control across the entire spectrum is upgraded to build a bottom line for safe development. The company uses technical measures such as AI anti-fraud, AI anti-money laundering, and AI anti-sales misguidance to conduct full-scope risk monitoring, precisely identify risks, and block them in real time. It also deploys digital auditors to enhance the intelligence level of audit supervision. At the same time, it strengthens customer data protection, successfully obtained ISO27701 privacy information management system certification, and achieved international high standards in data security, building a solid barrier for the stable operation of the business and protection of customers’ rights and interests.

Adhering to a people-centered value orientation, China Life deepens the “big consumer protection” framework, and builds the “Guo Shou Good Service” brand characterized by “simple, quality, and warm” service, effectively fulfilling the social responsibility of a financial state-owned enterprise.

Service experience is comprehensively optimized, and reach capabilities continue to expand. The company builds an integrated and complementary service matrix of “online + offline.” Its life insurance app has accumulated 170 million users. It continues to optimize the “one-click online direct access” experience. Its elder-friendly mode and intelligent voice services are continuously upgraded, and customer service response efficiency has improved markedly. Nearly 2,500 offline counter outlets across the country are distributed across urban and rural areas, making financial services more reachable and more accessible. For the full year, it provided services to over 3 billion people times, fully meeting the service needs of different customer segments.

Social responsibility is put into practice, and livelihood protection continues to deepen. Focusing on pain points in people’s lives, it opened a “one-day payout for critical illness” green channel, serving 2.3 million customers and providing timely funding support for critical illness patients. Around scenarios such as parenting, health, and retirement, it carried out themed service activities reaching 58.31 million people times, and launched the “Art Back to the Mountain” youth arts education public welfare project covering 20 provinces, helping revitalize rural culture. It provided barrier-free services for elderly people to 27.78 million people times, participated in drafting the industry standard “Insurance Institution Service Standards for Elderly Customers,” and promoted a standardized upgrade of industry services. Consumer protection work has achieved notable results: for the full year, it listened to “the voice of customers” more than 20 million people times. The number of consumers reached by focused educational and publicity activities increased by 31.4% year over year. It builds a new ecosystem for financial education and effectively protects consumers’ legitimate rights and interests.

As 2026 is the opening year of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” China Life has clarified its core development approach. Focusing on the key areas of “three adherences,” “three improvements,” and “three breakthroughs,” it targets major fields such as intelligent and digital transformation, upgrading operational and management models, and coordinated development across all channels, to drive comprehensive deepening of reform.

The company will continue to consolidate its position as the leading goose, further optimize its business structure, improve investment capability and customer management level, and accelerate the creation of a world-class life insurer with distinctive features of China—“modernized governance, outstanding functions, excellence in development, advanced management, innovation-driven, and safe and steady.” At the same time, tightly aligning with the financial “five major articles,” it will deepen asset-liability linkage, prevent and control all types of risks, promote steady growth in both scale and value, cultivate new growth engines, achieve new success in the modernization drive with Chinese characteristics, and continue to play the role of the insurance industry as an economic shock absorber and a social stabilizer.

Overall, China Life’s 2025 performance demonstrates the steady strength and transformation resolve of an industry leader. Scale breakthroughs, earnings leapfrogging, channel optimization, technology enablement, and service upgrades have worked together to lay a solid foundation for high-quality development. In the period of tackling industry transformation, facing common challenges, the company holds fast to a long-term value orientation through long-termism, and addresses development difficulties through reform and innovation. On the new journey of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” it is expected to continue releasing development vitality, consolidate its leading position in the industry, and contribute more to the high-quality development of the industry.