Total premiums exceed 700 billion yuan, with multiple core indicators reaching new highs. China Life Insurance aims to achieve a "full house" of performance by 2025.

Standing at this pivotal, transitionary moment—marking the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan—China Life Insurance Company Limited (hereinafter “China Life”) has delivered a performance report full of confidence. As Cai Xiliang, Chairman of China Life, said at the company’s earnings release conference held on March 26: “The company has again achieved an all-around, perfect ‘full house’ across scale, value, speed, quality, structure, efficiency, and safety.”

Cai Xiliang said: “This set of results not only reflects economic value, but also demonstrates social value.” At the same time, he summarized this performance with three “more”:

First, protect with greater warmth. In 2025, China Life’s long-term effective policies reached 327 million policies. Throughout the year, it provided services for more than 3 billion person-times, and claims payments exceeded 1 trillion yuan. With the broadest coverage and high-quality services, it fulfilled its commitment to保障 (protection), safeguarding people’s better lives.

Second, gain stronger momentum. In 2025, China Life maintained a strong growth momentum on high platforms and with a large scale. Both total premium and new business value growth rates reached new highs in the same period since 2018. It achieved the best investment performance in recent years, profit levels reached a new height, its leading position in the domestic market was continuously strengthened, and many indicators have already entered the ranks of the world’s top-tier industry.

Third, build greater resilience. While China Life achieved rapid business growth, its business structure remained reasonable and balanced; operating costs across channels improved significantly; and production-and-investment efficiency continued to rise. These measures laid a solid foundation for responding to complex situations and achieving long-term, steady development.

With balanced development across multiple dimensions—tight control of asset-liability management, building channel teams, investment returns surging upward, optimizing premium structure, and growth in business value—China Life has entered a new high-quality development stage characterized by higher quality, better structure, and stronger resilience, steadily moving toward a world-class life insurance company with Chinese characteristics.

Stable Foundation for Core Business Leads Both Scale and Value

In 2025, China Life reached a new milestone for leapfrogging development, with total premiums surpassing 700 billion yuan. At the end of the reporting period, the company’s total premiums were 729.887 billion yuan, making it the first life insurer in China to step onto the 700-billion-yuan platform.

The performance report also shows that during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, China Life’s total assets surpassed the three 10-trillion-yuan thresholds consecutively. By the end of 2025, they reached 759.9 billion yuan; embedded value was 147 billion yuan, maintaining the No. 1 position in the industry; new business value for the year was 45.752 billion yuan, up 35.7% year over year. The growth rate hit a new high for the same period since 2018. Its leading position in both scale and value was continuously reinforced.

The success of this leapfrogging development benefited from steady improvements in channel building and the product system.

Over the past year, China Life’s individual insurance (individual agency) channel has fully leveraged its role as the main channel contributing value. Channel total premiums were 551.79 billion yuan, up 4.3%. Of that, renewal premiums were 442.39 billion yuan, up 7.9%. Annual business value reached 39.3 billion yuan, up 25.5%, with value contribution at 85.9%.

China Life’s individual insurance teams are accelerating their transformation toward professionalization, specialization, and younger talent. The marketing system reform has further deepened. Data shows that as of the end of 2025, individual insurance sales headcount was 587,000, with an increase in headcount by 40% year over year.

The bank insurance channel achieved a substantial increase in premium scale, effectively contributing to overall performance growth.

In the bank insurance channel, China Life’s total premiums were 110.87 billion yuan, up 45.5%; new business value for bank insurance and other channels was 6.45 billion yuan, up 169.3%; first-premium new policies were 58.51 billion yuan, up 55.7%, contributing 25% to the company’s first-premium new policies. Renewal premiums were up 13.1% year over year; first-year installment premium was up 41% year over year. Sales of variable-returns product types increased significantly.

In the bank insurance channel, China Life has adhered to full-scale deployment—both outlet operations, new-policy issuance outlets, and star-rated outlets all achieved double-digit growth. At the same time, it focused on professional development; the first-year production capacity of customer managers increased by 53.7% year over year.

According to Hou Jin, assistant general manager and chief actuary of China Life, in 2025 China Life achieved an upgrade in asset-liability linkage, mainly reflected in four aspects: first, it simultaneously advanced the transformation of variable-returns business, increased equity investments, and strengthened account-level refined management; second, it took into account scientific management of liability durations and flexible adjustment of asset durations, with an effective duration gap of less than 1.5 years; third, it actively responded to changes in market interest rates—dynamic adjustments of product assumed rates and time-optimization-plus-optimization of solid fixed-income asset allocation worked in tandem, reducing the guaranteed cost ratio of new business liabilities by more than 60 basis points; fourth, value creation and realization became more robust, with stronger and more resilient endogenous capital creation capability.

Backed by the surge in premium scale and the effectiveness of professional development, China Life’s overall operating quality and efficiency improved steadily, and its solvency capability and global market standing were continuously strengthened. Its comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio was 174.01%, and its core solvency adequacy ratio was 128.77%, maintaining an adequate level on a continuous basis. The scale of total market capitalization and the reserves for life insurance and health insurance rank first among global life insurers.

Investment Power in Multiple Directions****With Patient Capital Bearing Fruit

Currently, the capital markets are trending steadily in a favorable direction. China Life fully leverages the advantages of insurance funds as long-term capital and patient capital, actively practicing the entry of medium- and long-term funds into the market. As of the end of 2025, the company’s public-market equity investment scale exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 450 billion yuan from the beginning of the year.

By aligning with national strategic directions, seizing opportunities in the capital market, and flexibly adjusting asset allocation, China Life achieved what was, in recent years, its best investment performance: total investment returns were 387.694 billion yuan, up 25.8%; total investment yield was 6.09%, up by 59 basis points year over year. With both its main business and investment business growing in both directions, it drove net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company to 154.078 billion yuan, rising strongly by 44.1% on a high base.

When discussing the strategic mainline of China Life’s investment business, Liu Hui, vice president and secretary to the board of directors, summarized it as: “Equity investment is the deciding factor for winning returns; fixed-income investment is the ballast for stable returns; alternative investment is the growth engine for enriching returns.”

As he explained, China Life strengthens the ballast for asset allocation by strategically increasing the proportion of equity assets, accumulating long-dated high-quality fixed-income assets, and tapping into the deep potential of alternative investments, thereby solidifying asset allocation in volatile market conditions.

In 2025, China Life strategically increased its equity investment proportion by nearly 5 percentage points. Its equity total asset investment scale was 1.2 trillion yuan, with key allocations to technology stocks representing China’s new quality productive forces. It increased long-bond allocation across cycles; it has already accumulated 3 trillion yuan in long-term bonds, promoting asset-liability duration matching at a relatively good level, and it hedged downside risk of interest-related items using quasi-fixed-income strategies. It also built an alternative investment ecosystem spanning all product types and all life cycles. The overall alternative investment scale exceeded 1 trillion yuan. While dealing with a low-interest-rate environment, it opened up long-term space for increasing production and value.

As Liu Hui said: “Insurance investment needs to span the dimensions of 20 years, 30 years, and even 50 years. It’s not about who wins first in ‘the flow,’ but about endless, continuous momentum. Long-term funds and patient capital will traverse cycles in such deep still waters and long-term commitment.”

On the other hand, as a typical representative of patient capital, China Life continues to inject patient capital into technology-innovation enterprises. Main approaches include direct equity investments focusing on core assets, PE funds to layout emerging industries, and using innovative tools to support industrial upgrading—focusing especially on investment opportunities in three major areas: artificial intelligence and semiconductors, healthy aging and biotechnology, and green energy and new infrastructure.

“ The ‘15th Five-Year Plan’ has opened broad strategic space for equity investment of insurance funds. The nine major strategic emerging industries and six future industries represent key directions in China’s transition of new and old drivers of economic growth, and also the place where future core assets will be nurtured. Wherever China’s future is represented, our long-term funds will flow there.” Liu Hui said. “In 2026 and during the ‘15th Five-Year Plan’ period, China Life will continue to follow deployments to nurture and strengthen emerging industries and to look ahead to future industries, using diversified tools such as M&A funds, S funds, and PE funds to contribute to the growth and strengthening of new quality productive forces. In the process of serving China’s economy as it develops toward being newer and better, China Life will create sustainable long-term value for both shareholders and customers.”

Aligning with Policy Guidance  Writing a New Chapter of Development

From “investing in things” to “investing in people,” the philosophy behind insurance is undergoing a profound shift in meaning. This change has also received clear resonance at the policy level.

On March 25, 2025, the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Establishment of a Long-Term Care Insurance System,” bringing broad development space for long-term care insurance. At the earnings release conference, Hou Jin said: “During the process of promoting the system, China Life will shoulder the responsibilities of a central state-owned enterprise, play the role of a vanguard, actively participate in the system promotion, and strive to provide services that support social livelihood security.”

According to Hou Jin, since 2016, China Life has participated in pilot programs for more than 70 long-term care insurance projects, accumulating extensive experience and professional capabilities: first, it has end-to-end underwriting and handling capabilities, forming a comprehensive and robust management system for operations and services; second, relying on institutional and outlet advantages, it has built professional service teams with broad coverage, high qualifications, and strong capabilities; third, it has used digital intelligence and empowerment to build a smart long-term care insurance management information system, providing technical solutions across the full process and across multiple business scenarios.

While deeply participating in long-term care insurance pilots, China Life has continued to focus on the healthy aging and healthcare field, promoting steady growth in health insurance business. In 2025, through diversified business layouts and refined service supply, the company achieved health insurance premium income of over 120 billion yuan, with medical insurance taking the leading role.

For the subsequent development of commercial health insurance, Hou Jin clarified four major future focus directions: first, continuously enrich diversified product supply to match differentiated protection needs of people across their full life cycles, while optimizing risk control and expanding coverage at the same time; second, deepen the integration of insurance and services, consolidate health management resources, advance the upgrade of “insurance + services” functionality, and build an end-to-end health management ecosystem; third, leverage advantages in both full-channel sales and full-domain layout to improve product service reach and precise matching capabilities; fourth, strengthen digital intelligence empowerment—optimize operating efficiency, upgrade service quality, and provide people with health protection services with more care and warmth.

In the field of care for senior living and wellness services, China Life is also accelerating its deployment. Zhang Xinyu, assistant general manager and president assistant (for clarity, “assistant to the president”), said that in 2025 the company, around building a care-and-wellness ecosystem, continued to enrich diversified supply and create China Life’s featured care-and-wellness services, mainly in two aspects:

First, “insurance + retirement.” Leveraging the long-term stability advantage of insurance funds, it actively promotes service models such as CCRC urban-care retirement and travel-based retirement. It has cumulatively set up 20 institutional eldercare projects across 16 cities, and it launched the “Sui Xin Ju” travel-based retirement product, exploring the construction of a home-based eldercare service system and actively serving the silver economy.

Second, “insurance + health.” It integrates internal and external resources to build a health service system covering prevention before events, management during events, and protection after events. Around customers’ health needs, it provides diversified services ranging from checkups to rehabilitation.

On this basis, Hou Jin further added three key work priorities: first, accelerate the development of retirement security business. For elderly and at-risk groups, it provides pension financial products with multiple terms and forms to meet retirement security needs across the full life cycle. At the same time, it enhances risk protection levels for the elderly, develops health insurance and accident insurance suitable for seniors, and improves the accessibility and coverage of insurance; second, optimize the retirement service system. In the App, it launched a respect-for-the-elderly mode; by phone, it opened a “one-key call-in” service for senior citizens. At offline counters, it equipped age-appropriate facilities, providing priority handling and services with assigned staff accompaniment. Next, it will comprehensively optimize and enhance age-appropriate services; third, deepen the “insurance + care-and-wellness” ecosystem. Leveraging the long-term stability advantage of insurance funds, it promotes investment in high-quality projects in areas such as care-and-wellness projects, silver-economy industries, medical and health services, and emerging care-and-health technology, while working in synergy with its main business.

Looking ahead, “2026 is the first year of the ‘15th Five-Year Plan.’ We have confidence and the capability to continue maintaining a steady development pace on the basis that multiple indicators reach new historical highs, to keep optimizing the business structure, to further enhance value creation capability, and to bring the quality structure and sustainability of growth to a new level.” Cai Xiliang said.

He believes that the next five years remain a golden strategic window of opportunity for China Life, containing the benefits of four “red利” (dividends): economic environment dividend, policy dividend, demand dividend, and technology dividend.

“During the ‘15th Five-Year Plan’ period, China Life’s strategic goal is to accelerate the building of a world-class life insurance company with Chinese characteristics.” Cai Xiliang said: “To achieve this goal, we will continue to focus efforts in three areas: first, strengthen value creation capabilities that span long periods and can survive through cycles; second, forge digital intelligence capabilities oriented toward the future; third, continuously strengthen risk prevention and control capabilities.”

Limingguang, President of China Life, further added that in the future it will focus on five aspects: advancing digital intelligence transformation, upgrading its business management model, advancing coordinated development across all channels, deepening customer management, and strengthening investment capability building. This will drive the company’s services to reach new heights in serving China’s economic and social development, make its vanguard position even more solid, maintain steady growth in scale and value, solidly build a barrier for safe development, and accelerate its march toward a world-class life insurance company with Chinese characteristics.

By/Wang Xinyu Edited/ Xu Nan

Translation

Search

Copy

(Editor: Wang Xinyu)

Keyword: