Multiple listed banks saw a double increase in insurance premiums and income from agency sales last year. Dividend insurance became the main force in the bancassurance channel.

Reporter Peng Yan

As publicly listed banks gradually release their 2025 annual reports, related data on bancassurance distribution has come out. The data show that last year, in multiple banks, both the scale of bancassurance premium sales and agency income grew year over year, becoming an important growth driver for banks’ fee-based intermediary business income.

Interviewees believe that against the backdrop of continued narrowing net interest margins, stepping up bancassurance distribution has become an important way for banks to enhance profits and optimize their revenue mix. In the future, banks will accelerate their deployment of bancassurance distribution, transforming from traditional deposit-and-loan institutions into integrated wealth management platforms, and helping the bancassurance channel become a key growth engine for non-interest income.

Strengthening marketing of insurance products

Judging from the operating situation of major state-owned banks, in 2025 Postal Savings Bank of China’s insurance agency business, the share of long-term single-pay/periodic-pay (long-term periodic payment) business continued to rise. The bank focused on stepping up promotion efforts for products such as dividend insurance and annuity insurance, and steadily cultivated new growth points such as internet-based insurance. During the reporting period, the long-term periodic payment premium sales via Postal Savings Bank’s insurance agency reached 1034.06 billion yuan, accounting for 58.26%, up 4.78 percentage points year over year; Bank of Communications’ balance of personal insurance products distributed via bancassurance was 374.0 billion yuan, up 14.61% year over year; and China Construction Bank’s insurance business income was 5.868 billion yuan, increasing by 553 million yuan from 2024.

At the same time, multiple joint-stock banks also saw both premium scale and agency income for their insurance agency businesses increase year over year last year. For example, in 2025, Citic Bank’s bancassurance distribution business scale reached 24.572 billion yuan, up 24.69% year over year; the share of long-term protection-type product sales was 59.51%, up 1.68 percentage points year over year. Ping An Bank’s 2025 agency personal insurance premium scale grew by 35.3% year over year; it achieved wealth management fee income of 5.061 billion yuan, up 15.8% year over year, of which agency personal insurance income was 1.292 billion yuan, up 53.3% year over year.

From the perspective of sales at frontline outlets, banks are generally increasing their marketing efforts for insurance products. Insurance products distributed via bancassurance are favored by investors, and especially after dividend insurance products were listed and promoted, sales have continued to climb through bancassurance channels.

Multiple banks mentioned in their 2025 annual reports their related plans for insurance products. Ping An Bank said that in 2025, it followed market trends and introduced several dividend insurance and high-end medical insurance products, continuously improving the richness of insurance product “shelf space.” Citic Bank stated that in 2025 it continued to optimize the structure of distributed insurance products, deepen tiered/segmented classified operations, and work with high-quality insurance companies to build a protection system covering needs such as health, retirement, and wealth inheritance. It also enhanced business value and optimized the business structure through scenario-based activities and professional services. In 2026, it will accelerate the release of capacity in wealth management business, seize structural opportunities such as the capital market and dividend insurance, deepen its investment research and advisory capabilities, and provide customers with distinctive and professional asset allocation solutions.

Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Shanghai Financial and Legal Research Institute, told Securities Daily reporters that the strong performance of dividend insurance through bancassurance channels is mainly due to two factors: first, dividend insurance’s model of “guaranteed returns + floating dividends” not only meets customers’ needs for principal safety and long-term interest rate locking, but also retains the possibility of participating in market upside, making it more aligned with the risk preferences of bank customer segments; second, banks adopt targeted business strategies, promoting dividend insurance as a key distributed product.

Bancassurance business is expected to maintain high growth

Growth in banks’ insurance distribution directly drives a substantial rise in premiums through bancassurance channels for listed insurance companies. In 2025, China Life’s total premiums via bancassurance channels reached 110.874 billion yuan, breaking the 100 billion yuan mark, up 45.5% year over year; new single premiums were 58.506 billion yuan, up 95.7%; bancassurance channel customer managers numbered 20,000, with per-capita productivity up 53.7% year over year. In the same period, Suning Life’s bancassurance channel premium income was 67.46 billion yuan, up 34.8%, including new single premiums of 34.09 billion yuan, up 69%; activity-based per-capita productivity was 148,000 yuan, continuing to stay at a high level.

Regarding the core driving factors behind the high growth of banks’ bancassurance insurance distribution business in 2025, Xue Hongyan, special researcher at 苏商银行, told Securities Daily reporters that the main reasons were the combined effect of three aspects: bank business transformation, regulatory normalization, and residents’ demand. Under pressure from continued narrowing net interest margins, banks urgently seek growth points in intermediary business with lighter capital, making agency insurance an important direction for pushing efforts. Regulatory policies have driven the bancassurance channel to shift from “scale first” to a “value-oriented” approach, creating a favorable environment for the healthy development of the business. Against the backdrop of declining market interest rates, residents’ demand for stable asset allocation has increased significantly; funds with low risk appetite have moved toward bancassurance products that feature both safety and income elasticity, jointly pushing the distribution scale up quickly.

Liao Feipeng, a researcher at China Postal Savings Bank, told Securities Daily reporters that in 2025, the reasons banks’ bancassurance insurance distribution business achieved high growth mainly have three points: first, interest rates on deposits fell, accelerating residents’ “deposit shifting”; second, banks’ net interest margins narrowed, and agency insurance business income became an important profit growth point; third, the “banking-reporting combined” policy promoted a return to value for bancassurance channels, and cooperation in bancassurance continued to deepen.

Looking ahead to future development trends, industry insiders said that driven continuously by falling market interest rates and ongoing resident demand for stable allocation, bancassurance business in 2026 is expected to maintain a high-growth momentum.

Xue Hongyan believes that in the future, in terms of product structure, dividend insurance will continue to occupy an important position for banks’ bancassurance distribution. At the same time, the product matrix will expand toward diversified directions such as protection-type, retirement-type, and health-type products, covering customers’ wealth management needs across their full life cycles. In terms of channel models, banks will upgrade from simple sales cooperation to in-depth customer operations. Relying on their outlets and customer profiling capabilities, they will build an integrated service system of “deposit substitution + wealth value enhancement.” In terms of profit models, banks will focus on the sustainability of intermediary business income, transforming from single-transaction service to full-cycle value companionship services, so as to make bancassurance channels a core growth engine for non-interest income.

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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