Selling insurance has surprisingly become a "performance dark horse"? Last year, some bank individual insurance agents saw their income surge by over 50%. This year, the bancassurance channel is still expected to soar.

The 2025 financial reports that banks have been releasing one after another recently show that last year banks made a lot of money selling insurance on behalf of insurers.

By the end of 2025, CITIC Bank’s insurance agency business scale was 24.572 billion yuan, up 24.69% year over year.

Ping An Bank’s agency individual insurance premium volume grew 35.3% year over year. The bank disclosed that last year its wealth management fee income was 5.061 billion yuan, up 15.8%; of that, agency individual insurance income was 1.292 billion yuan, up 53.3%.

Data from insurance companies reveals banks’ preference for top-tier insurance institutions. Last year, China Life’s total premiums through the bancassurance channel reached 110.874 billion yuan, breaking the trillion-yuan mark for the first time, up 45.5%, and new business premiums were 58.506 billion yuan, up 95.7%.

From the annual reports of multiple banks and insurance institutions, it is not hard to see that as more participating insurance plans are moved onto banks’ product shelves, the sales of participating insurance plans in the bancassurance channel are very impressive.

Industry insiders, when interviewed, expect that driven by falling market interest rates and residents’ demand to continue policies, bancassurance growth in 2026 is likely to continue.

Data disclosed in China Life’s annual report shows that last year the bancassurance channel implemented the “banking and reporting for alignment” policy, promoting cost control and efficiency improvement, and resulting in a substantial increase in premium scale and new business value. The bancassurance core indicators show total premiums of 110.874 billion yuan, breaking the trillion-yuan mark and up 45.5%; new business premiums of 58.506 billion yuan, up 95.7%. First-year single premium-equivalent (or first-year) premiums totaled 26.478 billion yuan, up 41.0%; renewal premiums totaled 52.368 billion yuan, up 13.1%.

In terms of channel cooperation, last year the number of partner banks exceeded 100, and the number of new business issuance outlets reached 77,000, up 25.9%, including a 49.1% year-over-year increase in the number of star outlets. In addition, bancassurance channel customer managers totaled 20,000; average individual productivity increased 53.7% year over year.

The bancassurance channel has also become a major driver of Sun Life’s growth. In 2025, Sun Life’s bancassurance channel premium income was 67.46 billion yuan, up 34.8%; of that, new business premiums were 34.09 billion yuan, up 69.0% year over year; activity-driven average individual productivity was 148,000 yuan, maintaining a high level of productivity.

By comparison, Sun Life’s individual insurance channel premium income was 25.976 billion yuan, up 13.6%; of that, new business premiums were 6.046 billion yuan, down 7.6% year over year.

As for foreign insurers, in 2025, AIA’s new business value in mainland China increased 2% to 1.24 billion USD over the full year. Of the new business value, agents accounted for 85%, and the remaining 15% of new business value was contributed by bancassurance.

AIA stated that under this growth momentum, the new business value in the first two months of 2026 is up more than 20% year over year.

Individual insurance and bancassurance are the two main channels for life insurance sales. Starting in 2018, individual insurance entered a period of deep adjustment. To relieve business pressure, insurance companies once again stepped up efforts in the bancassurance channel to supplement premium scale. Starting in 2020, the booming sales of increasing whole-life insurance plans with guaranteed additional benefits drove growth in the bancassurance channel’s installment premiums, and their value ratio was higher than that of single-premium products; major insurers increased efforts to develop the bancassurance channel. With the implementation of “banking and reporting for alignment” in the bancassurance channel beginning in August 2023, fee and cost expenses dropped significantly, driving a significant improvement in the value ratio. Combined with the relaxation of the “1+3” outlet restrictions, leading companies have all ramped up development of the bancassurance channel, with the leading players’ market share in the bancassurance channel continuing to rise.

Worth noting is that multiple insurers mentioned that sales of floating return products represented by participating insurance plans have increased. China Life data shows that the proportion of new business premiums from participating insurance plans increased by about 15 percentage points year over year. Sun Life data shows that last year, among new business installment premiums, the share of floating return products was 32.2%.

Participating insurance plans also enrich banks’ product shelves. Ping An Bank said that last year the company followed market trends by introducing multiple participating insurance plans and high-end medical insurance products, continuously improving the richness of its insurance product shelves. CITIC Bank said it continued to enrich the types of insurance it distributes on behalf of others in 2025, deepening tiered and categorized operations, and working together with high-quality partner insurance companies to build a protection product体系 covering needs such as health, retirement, and inheritance. Through scenario-based campaigns and professional services, it improves business value and maintains a healthy structure.

In the view of industry participants, behind banks’ push to expand insurance agency business is the reality of continuously narrowing net interest margins, while insurance agency can effectively increase fee-based intermediary business income, becoming an important growth point for profits.

Taking Ping An Bank as an example, in 2025 its net interest margin was 1.78%, down 0.09 percentage points year over year; CITIC Bank’s net interest margin was 1.63%, down 0.14 percentage points year over year.

There are indications that this year participating insurance plans may be able to hold their position as the “C position” on banks’ product shelves. Recently, Economic Daily reporter visits to multiple bank outlets found that institutions have intensified their promotion of participating insurance plans, and participating insurance products with a declared interest rate of 1.75% have become the mainstream product in the bancassurance channel at present.

CITIC Bank said in its annual report that in 2026 its wealth management business will accelerate the release of capacity, seize structural opportunities such as capital markets and participating insurance, and provide customers with distinctive and professional asset allocation solution.

Song Zhanjun, Deputy Secretary-General of the China Insurance Research Institute of Beijing Technology and Business University, told reporters from the Economic Information Daily that currently the declared interest rate of personal insurance products still has an advantage relative to bank time deposit rates, so the bancassurance channel will still maintain a rapid development trend in 2026.

A research report from Guojin Securities shows that when selling insurance products, wealth management managers mainly focus on customer returns and the insurance company’s brand, followed by sales expenses and additional value-added services. Based on the current situation, insurers with strong investment capability can demonstrate a higher demonstration interest rate (i.e., customer returns) when selling at the front end, and participating insurance plan sales advantages are stronger.

“Going forward, floating return products mainly based on participating insurance will be different from the increasing whole-life insurance plans with clearly stated policy benefits that bancassurance channels have promoted in recent years, and will impose higher requirements on product explanations and customer service provided by bancassurance channel salespeople.” Song Zhanjun emphasized that in 2026 the bancassurance channel should place even greater emphasis on the risk of potential sales misrepresentation.

(Editor: Liu Sijia ）

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