AIA Group's five senior executives shared a total annual salary of 220 million yuan, with the CEO alone taking 100 million yuan.

Ask AI · Is AIA executives’ high compensation aligned with 2025 performance growth?

【By Yu Fan Guan Jin Studio Li Limeng】

On March 19, 2026, AIA Insurance Holdings Limited (01299.HK, hereinafter “AIA”) officially released its 2025 full-year financial report. In this set of results, the group delivered a standout performance with new business value (NBV) up 15% year over year to USD 5.52B. Operating profit after tax also crossed the USD 7.1 billion mark for the first time.

Another eye-catching item is that five AIA executives received a total of RMB 220 million in annual salaries.

**High-flying momentum, Hong Kong market “revenge-fueled explosion”** 

The return of mainland visitors in 2025 was the core driving force behind AIA Hong Kong’s “boom” in performance.

Going back to 2020, the pandemic caused mainland-to-Hong Kong visitor flows to come to a halt. AIA Hong Kong’s new business value then plunged 66% that year, turning from the group’s growth engine of the past into a drag on performance. After the mainland and Hong Kong fully restored border crossings in 2023, the continuously released “border-crossing dividend” fully activated Hong Kong’s insurance market. Combined with industry policy catalysts, 2025 saw AIA Hong Kong enter a period of performance surge.

Data shows that AIA Hong Kong’s new business value in 2025 soared to USD 2.26B, up 28% year over year. The new business value profit margin rose to 68.5%. The business volume from mainland visitors surged 35% year over year.

The “stopping-for-trading” wave across the Hong Kong insurance industry by end-2025 further boosted premium levels in the fourth quarter. It is understood that on July 30, 2025, the Hong Kong insurance industry regulator (the Insurance Authority) formally issued “Application Guidance on the Remuneration Structure Provided by Licensed Insurance Intermediaries to Policyholders for Participating Policies by Authorized Insurers,” clarifying that new commission structure requirements would take effect from January 1, 2026. This reform is referred to in the industry as “one-stop commission execution for Hong Kong insurance” (a “compliance-and-rebate unification” version), directly targeting the long-standing sales chaos in the participating insurance market caused by excessively high commissions in the first policy year: some insurance brokerage firms pay intermediaries without licenses commissions of as high as over 90%, and even engage in vicious competition via commission kickbacks. Before the new policy took effect, December 2025 became the “last window period.” Multiple media reports stated that contracts signed before December 15 and taking effect before December 31 were the final time limit to lock in the current high commission incentives.

It is worth being cautious that this round of high growth was built on a low base beforehand. With the fading of policy tailwinds, a future slowdown in growth is almost inevitable. Brokers generally predict that in 2026, growth rates may return to a steady range of around 10%. Uncertainties such as foreign exchange controls and global interest rate fluctuations will also trail along.

**From a deep squat to a jump, a “V-shaped reversal” in the mainland market** 

In contrast, the new business value in the mainland market increased only marginally by 2%.

In 2025, AIA Life, in the first half, saw mainland market new business value decline 4% year over year due to interest rates falling and policy adjustments such as “one-stop commission for execution” in the individual channel. In the second half of 2025, new business value growth was 14%. AIA Chief Executive Officer and President Li Yuansxiang said that the large drop in interest rates in 2024 led to adjustments to economic assumptions used in the business written that year, which affected the business data in the first half of last year. The performance in the second half excluded this factor.

AIA built a “three-high” agency force—high educational attainment, high productivity, and high retention—through a combination of “high-standard screening + systematic training + technology-enabled empowerment.” The financial report shows that in 2025, the agency channel contributed 85% of new business value. New agency recruits increased 14% for the full year, while active new recruits grew 20%. In the second half of 2025, 44% of new business value from the agency channel was contributed by protection-type products.

In 2025, AIA Life’s Shandong, Anhui, Chongqing, and Zhejiang branch offices were approved by local regulators in sequence to open for business. Its service network in the mainland has expanded to 14 regions. Previously, because of its wholly foreign-owned form, AIA Life before 2020 focused only on five regions: Shanghai, Beijing, Guangdong, Shenzhen, and Jiangsu. With China canceling restrictions on foreign investment companies’ shareholding percentages in personal insurance companies in 2020, that same year in June, AIA transformed from a foreign-invested branch into a wholly foreign-owned legal entity. AIA Life became the first wholly foreign-owned personal insurance company in mainland China, and it subsequently expanded its business scope into nine new regions: Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Hebei, Tianjin, Shandong, Anhui, Chongqing, and Zhejiang. The financial report shows that in 2025, new business value in these nine regions grew 45% to USD 118 million, contributing over 9% of new business value to AIA Life.

**Contrasting stories: “ice and fire” for the New Malaysia and Thailand market** 

Unlike the single-digit growth in the mainland, AIA’s policies are selling hot in the New Malaysia and Thailand markets.

AIA’s financial report shows that the results in the New Malaysia and Thailand markets are nothing short of remarkable. Data shows that in 2025, the new business value profit margin of AIA Thailand surged to 110.9%; AIA Singapore’s new business value increased 14%, with annualized new premium rising 23%; and Malaysia’s profit margin improved by nearly 5 percentage points to 72.2%.

However, what strongly contrasts with the booming performance on the business side is the loss on the investment side in Thailand, and the pressure on the business side in Malaysia and Singapore.

In the first half of 2025, a shock in Thailand’s capital markets instantly consumed USD 1.1 billion of AIA’s profit. Of this, market turbulence wiped out USD 754 million, while currency derivative volatility cost an additional USD 354 million. In the second half, AIA staged a strong comeback: net profit increased 5.1% year over year to about USD 3.7 billion. Ultimately, full-year net profit settled at USD 6.23B, down 9% year over year.

Singapore’s new business value grew healthily, but its profit margin declined. According to analysis from multiple brokers, this is because AIA adjusted its product strategy in Singapore and sold more “long-term savings” products. While these products are popular in the market and can generate premium volume, their profit margins are inherently lower than those of traditional protection-type products.

In Malaysia, to respond to the local scrutiny of medical insurance policy rules, AIA proactively adjusted its medical insurance products, causing short-term slowing of sales through the agency channel. According to broker research reports, new business value growth in 2025 nearly stalled.

**Total annual salaries for five people exceed RMB 220 million, with the president over RMB 100 million** 

The 2025 performance report also shows that for the year ended December 31, 2025, Li Yuansxiang’s total compensation amounted to USD 14,771,103. Using the latest exchange rate of USD 1 to RMB 6.8975, it is equivalent to his compensation exceeding RMB 100 million. The specific breakdown includes salaries, allowances, and non-cash benefits; bonuses; share-based payments; and retirement plan contributions, among other items. The reporter noted that compared with the approximately USD 13.73 million in the previous year, Li Yuansxiang’s compensation increased by about 7%. The report states that Li Yuansxiang’s compensation is only for serving as the Group Chief Executive Officer and President; he will not receive additional director’s fees for serving as a director of this company or of any affiliated company.

The report also shows that the “top five highest-paid individuals” employed by AIA Group, for the year ended December 31, 2025, had total remuneration of USD 32,562,653, which converts to RMB 224 million, basically in line with the prior year.

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