Seven leading insurance companies conclude their annual reports; equity investments drive overall performance growth

◎ Reporter Han Songhui

As of March 27, the annual reports for 2025 have wrapped up for seven leading publicly listed insurance companies in China, including China Life, China People’s Insurance (Group), China Taiping, China Taibao, Ping An Insurance, New China Insurance, and Sun Life Insurance Group. Their performance has increased across the board.

Against the backdrop of significant changes in China’s insurance industry policy and market environment in 2025, leading insurers have proactively increased their equity allocation in their investment portfolios, driving growth in net profit. According to their annual reports, China Life, Ping An, China Taibao, China People’s Insurance, New China Insurance, Sun Life Insurance Group, and China Taiping’s net profits attributable to shareholders were 154.08B yuan, 134.78B yuan, 53.51B yuan, 46.65B yuan, 36.28B yuan, 6.31 billion yuan, and HKD 27.06B, respectively, up 44.1%, 6.5%, 19.0%, 8.8%, 38.3%, 15.7%, and 220.9% year over year, respectively.

Looking ahead to 2026, asset-liability matching is a common challenge faced by all companies. At performance briefings, senior management at multiple insurers said that strengthening asset-liability management is not only a regulatory requirement, but also a need for companies to forge cross-cycle and long-cycle operational management capabilities. They will take into account scientific management of liability duration and flexible adjustment of asset duration to address the asset-liability matching challenges brought by the low interest-rate environment.

Equity investments deliver high returns

In a market environment where the long-term interest-rate core is trending downward, the investment end has posed a significant test for the seven listed insurance companies last year. Based on annual report data, all seven listed insurance companies seek to improve long-term investment returns by increasing equity asset allocation and optimizing the structure of fixed-income assets.

The seven insurance companies collectively hold roughly RMB 16 trillion in investment assets. By the end of 2025, China Life, China People’s Insurance, China Taibao, New China Insurance, Sun Life Insurance Group, and China Taiping had investment asset scales of RMB 7.42 trillion, RMB 1.90 trillion, RMB 3.04 trillion, RMB 1.84 trillion, RMB 640.2 billion, and HKD 0.174 trillion, respectively. Ping An’s insurance fund investment portfolio had a scale of RMB 6.49 trillion.

Overall, each insurer’s investment return rates are impressive: China Life achieved its best investment performance in recent years, with a total investment return rate of 6.09%; New China Insurance’s total investment return rate rose by 0.8 percentage points year over year to 6.6%; Ping An’s insurance fund investment portfolio’s comprehensive investment return rate was 6.3%; the total investment return rates of China People’s Insurance and China Taibao were both 5.7%.

Actively taking positions in equity investments is a shared choice. As of the end of 2025, China Life’s equity investments in the public market exceeded RMB 1.2 trillion, up more than RMB 450 billion from the start of the year. The allocation proportions of stocks and funds increased from 12.18% to 16.89%. Ping An has stepped up a balanced allocation of dividend-value and technology-growth style equities. China People’s Insurance increased its net purchases of A-shares by more than RMB 40 billion, and the proportion of equity in the secondary market rose by 4.3 percentage points.

Zai Zhizhiwei, deputy general manager of China People’s Insurance, told a reporter from Shanghai Securities News: “This year, on the one hand, the company continues to focus on the allocation of OCI high-dividend stocks; on the other hand, it focuses on growth-oriented investment opportunities embedded in the ‘15th Five-Year Plan and the 5-Year Plan for 2025-2026,’ strengthens research into key industries and key areas of industries, and reasonably plans its TPL stock allocation.”

Fixed-income assets are the foundation of insurers’ invested funds, and companies generally emphasize duration matching and adopt a strategy of “allocating when valuations are high.” Liu Hui, deputy general manager of China Life, said that in the past few years the company seized opportunities when interest rates were high and long-dated bonds were available. It increased long-dated bond allocation across cycles, and has already accumulated RMB 3 trillion in long-term bonds. Ping An actively responds to the risk of falling interest rates and proactively allocates to interest-rate-linked bonds when opportunities arise.

New business value surges significantly

In recent years, regulators have continued to promote reforms in life insurance product assumed interest rates and the “reporting and sales alignment” of sales channels, creating significant transformation pressure for life insurance businesses.

Listed life insurers generally have strongly developed floating return products, further optimizing their business mix: China Life’s floating return business delivered strong growth, with its share of first-year premium payment receipts nearing 50%; Taibao Life’s dividend-linked insurance within new business at the policy inception stage has increased to 50%; and for 2025, Ping An Life’s all-channel dividend-linked premium as a proportion of long-term insurance premium is approaching 90%.

Li Jingsong, general manager of Taibao Life, said: “Looking ahead to 2026, the development of the bank-insurance channel is in a period of strategic opportunity. It will drive ongoing optimization of the business mix, increase the proportion of floating return products, and significantly raise the shares of single-premium and high-value businesses.”

Business transformation drives a significant rise in business value: China Life’s new business value reached RMB 160k in one year, up 35.7% year over year; Ping An’s new business value for life and health insurance grew 29.3% year over year to RMB 74.2k; Taibao Life’s new business value grew 40.1% year over year to RMB 19k; and China People’s Insurance’s new business value for life insurance grew 64.5% year over year to RMB 30.4k.

“‘In 2026, our individual agent channels will continue to push forward a deeper reform of the marketing system, continuously optimize the business structure, and deliver a meaningful improvement in the quality of the full-year business along with steady growth in volume,’” said Lan Yonghong, assistant to the president of China Life.

Auto insurance profit improves; differentiation in non-auto insurance intensifies

Compared with the booming momentum of life insurance business, the property and casualty insurance business as a whole has entered a stage of steady growth and structural optimization. Controlling the combined ratio has become the key test for underwriting profitability of P&C insurers.

Based on the annual reports of various insurers, cost reduction and efficiency improvement effects have become visible. The combined ratios of China People’s Property & Casualty Insurance, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance, Taibao Property & Casualty Insurance, and China Taiping Property & Casualty Insurance were optimized to 97.6%, 96.8%, 97.5%, and 98.8%, respectively, down 0.9, 1.5, 1.1, and 1.3 percentage points year over year, respectively. This, in turn, drove an increase in underwriting profit. China People’s Property & Casualty Insurance, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance, and Taibao Property & Casualty Insurance achieved underwriting profits of RMB 18.4k, RMB 17.4k, and RMB 64.9k, respectively, up 75.6%, 96.2%, and 81.0% year over year, respectively.

Each insurer has effectively managed the claim rate for new-energy vehicle insurance, improving the quality of auto insurance business: Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance’s auto insurance combined ratio was optimized to 95.8%, down 2.3 percentage points year over year; China People’s Property & Casualty Insurance’s auto insurance combined ratio was optimized to 95.3%, with underwriting profit up 53.6% year over year to RMB 12k; Taibao Property & Casualty Insurance’s auto insurance combined ratio fell 2.6 percentage points year over year to 95.6%.

Zhang Daoming, a member of the CPC committee of China People’s Insurance, said: “Due to factors such as improved driving behavior habits and advances in driver-assistance technology, the claim rate for new-energy vehicles has shown a downward trend. We expect that in 2026 the combined ratio for new-energy vehicle insurance will further improve, and profitability will rise.”

Meanwhile, non-auto insurance is at a critical period of restructuring and improving quality: China People’s Property & Casualty Insurance’s share of non-auto insurance business increased to 45.0%. Among this, underwriting profit for accident and health insurance grew 154.1% year over year. Taibao Property & Casualty Insurance sharply reduced the scale of personal credit guarantee insurance business. Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance’s guarantee insurance business turned a loss into a profit.

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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