Breaking through the era of low interest rates, publicly listed insurance companies are using dividend insurance to implement a "combination punch" strategy

Ask AI · How can dividend insurance become a risk hedging weapon for insurance companies under the low interest rate environment?

In 2025, the annual reports of the five major listed insurance companies on the A-share market have all been released, revealing a clear signal of transformation: against the backdrop of long-term declining interest rates and narrowing yields on fixed income products, leading insurance companies are unanimously pushing dividend insurance to the forefront. On April 2, Beijing Business Daily reporters found that in 2025, China Life’s floating yield business accounted for nearly 50% of the first-year premium payments; China Pacific Life’s new premium for dividend insurance in 2025 has increased to half of the total; Ping An Life and Health Insurance’s dividend insurance premiums reached 91.89B yuan, a year-on-year increase of over 40%; New China Insurance’s proportion of dividend insurance in the overall regular premium business has been rising quarter by quarter, reaching 77% in the fourth quarter of 2025.

Industry insiders believe that behind these figures is a shift from “rigid payment” to “shared returns.” Dividend insurance, a “guaranteed + floating” product, is becoming a new pillar on the liability side for insurance companies.

Dividend insurance sales in 2025 are booming

In the face of a market environment with long-term declining interest rates, listed insurance companies have significantly accelerated their business transformation in 2025, focusing on floating yield products such as dividend insurance.

According to China Ping An’s performance report: in the life and health insurance business, the scale of dividend insurance premiums reached 11.93B yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.28%.

China Pacific Insurance stated that it is strengthening the development of floating yield products, with a significant increase in new premium for dividend insurance in 2025, and the proportion of dividend insurance in new premiums has risen to 50%, with the agent channel’s new premium share reaching 61.4%.

Undoubtedly, the exponential growth reflects that consumer acceptance of dividend insurance is rapidly warming.

“The characteristics of dividend insurance—‘principal safety and floating returns’—precisely match the needs of moderate risk-averse savers,” an industry insider analyzed. This is also why the industry generally views insurance as a way to “move deposits,” with “stable returns” becoming a rare feature.

According to the 2025 annual report from New China Insurance, the company stated: “We focus on product leadership, enhance product competitiveness, and fully launch the transformation of dividend insurance, achieving a first-year premium of 110.87B yuan for long-term dividend insurance; the transformation of dividend insurance products has achieved phased results, with the proportion of dividend insurance in overall regular premiums increasing quarter by quarter, reaching 77% in the fourth quarter of 2025.”

It’s clear that the growth curves of dividend insurance for various insurers outline a proactive adjustment of product structures. So why has dividend insurance become a consensus for development among insurance companies? Wang Peng, deputy researcher at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, believes that the core driving force behind the current transformation of dividend insurance lies in risk hedging and shared returns. In a context of long-term declining interest rates, insurance companies use the floating yield mechanism of dividend insurance to share investment pressure with clients moderately, effectively mitigating the interest margin loss risk caused by rigid payment obligations and enhancing the resilience of liabilities.

Banking and individual insurance: two legs of dividend insurance

The popularity of dividend insurance sales depends on the joint efforts of the bancassurance and individual insurance channels. In the bancassurance channel, dividend insurance has become an undisputed main product.

Recently, Beijing Business Daily reporters found that at bank counters, more and more financial managers are recommending this “bottom-guaranteed, top-floating” dividend insurance to clients.

Looking at China Life’s data from the past year, in 2025, the company’s bancassurance channel’s total premiums reached 58.51B yuan, surpassing 100 billion yuan for the first time, a year-on-year increase of 45.5%; new single premiums reached 58.506 billion yuan, up 95.7%, with the proportion of new single premiums for dividend insurance increasing by about 15 percentage points year-on-year.

“Channels are not just sales paths but also value filters,” Wang Peng analyzed. In the bancassurance channel, leveraging the bank’s natural affinity for wealth management allows for low-cost, efficient outreach, accelerating both scale and value. The individual insurance channel, as a core focus, relies on professional agents who can communicate deeply and explain complex floating logic, serving as the foundation for maintaining customer stickiness and long-term order management.

Another key force comes from the continuous efforts of the individual insurance channel. Ping An’s Vice President and CFO Fu Xin stated at the earnings conference that in 2025, about 30% of the company’s individual insurance dividend insurance business will be contributed. China Life said that in 2025, the proportion of dividend insurance in the first-year premiums of individual insurance channels surged to nearly 60%, becoming an important support for new single premiums.

Currently, for listed insurance companies, transformation is still ongoing. At New China Insurance’s 2025 performance briefing, President and CFO Gong Xingfeng said the company will continue to deepen the transformation of dividend insurance in 2026, focusing on expanding product types, increasing sales of dividend annuities, and strengthening product innovation. The company will seize the policy redemptions of dividend health insurance, improve product suitability management, ensure that suitable products are sold to suitable clients, and resolutely avoid sales misguidance, so that customers gain more satisfaction and sense of gain. Ping An also stated that in 2026, dividend insurance will be a core product for the year, with its related business expected to further increase.

It is worth noting that as the guaranteed interest rate is lowered, dividend insurance has replaced traditional fixed income products as the main “kickoff” product, but this “guaranteed + floating” yield mechanism places higher demands on agents’ professional explanation skills. The previous demand overshoot has made sales even more difficult.

Furthermore, before the policy of lowering the guaranteed interest rate takes effect, many customers have already purchased products like increasing-endowment whole life insurance, further complicating the next phase of dividend insurance sales. Meanwhile, industry insiders say that achieving a “status upgrade” for dividend insurance still requires time, possibly 3 to 5 years.

However, in the context of dividend insurance’s popularity, agents need to focus more on enhancing their product interpretation and communication skills—such as clearly explaining the yield logic, risk features, and differences from other financial products—to help clients establish reasonable expectations. Wang Peng believes that the core of selling savings insurance like dividend insurance is “precise matching,” ensuring product attributes align with clients’ risk tolerance, and avoiding false promises. Additionally, companies need to strengthen their investment capabilities, as sales confidence stems from backend investment strength; only with steady profitability can dividend expectations be supported. To avoid service premiums, companies should take measures to move away from price wars, transforming insurance from a “thin contract” into a comprehensive ecosystem of “protection + retirement/medical care,” thereby enhancing product competitiveness.

Beijing Business Daily reporter Hu Yongxin