How did New China Insurance under Yang Yucheng transform from quantitative change to qualitative change?!

Ask AI · How Yang Yucheng’s Securities Background Reshapes New China Insurance’s Investment Strategy

Since August 2023, Yang Yucheng has been in charge of New China Insurance for over two and a half years, completing two full operational years.

“Since joining New China Insurance, it has been a process of learning about the insurance industry and deepening my understanding.” As a senior executive transitioning from securities to insurance, Yang Yucheng quickly established a deep understanding of the industry and has been leading reforms and transformations at New China Insurance, with results now gradually emerging.

The “Insurance Industry Advisors” noticed a small detail: shortly after taking office in 2023, Yang Yucheng published a shareholder letter in the company’s annual performance report, which was less than two pages. In contrast, the chairman’s letter to shareholders in 2025 spans over three full pages. This indicates that Yang Yucheng’s understanding of the insurance industry and of New China Insurance’s operations has become even more profound.

Since Yang Yucheng took the helm at New China Insurance nearly two and a half years ago, there have been actions on both the investment and distribution channels.

Once considered a weakness, New China Insurance’s investment capability was a key challenge for Yang Yucheng upon his appointment. In 2023, the company’s equity assets accounted for only 15.5%, with stock fund allocations and returns ranking near the bottom among peers. Strengthening the company’s investment ability became the first major hurdle Yang Yucheng aimed to overcome. Adhering to the strategy of “long-term, broad, and deep” asset allocation, New China Insurance initiated adjustments of “adding equities and reducing non-standard assets”: the third phase of Honghu Fund was launched consecutively, with the company investing nearly 46.25 billion yuan into blue-chip and high-tech sectors, with high-dividend equity assets increasing more than sixfold over two years, and stock fund investment proportion rising to 21.2% in 2025; simultaneously, non-standard assets continued to be reduced, shrinking from 156.9B yuan to 65.54B yuan, with the proportion dropping sharply from 11.7% to 3.6%. The previous investment shortcoming was completely transformed into a growth advantage.

Reforms on the liability side channels were equally sweeping. The individual insurance channel, once plagued by declining renewal rates and low capacity, saw an average monthly per capita comprehensive capacity below 10,000 yuan in 2023, with renewal premiums slightly shrinking year-on-year. Relying on the “XIN Generation” plan, the individual insurance business embarked on a “lean and efficient” transformation, with per capita capacity doubling and new business value soaring over two years.

However, it remains challenging for the individual insurance channel’s renewal business to stay resilient. Meanwhile, the bancassurance channel experienced explosive growth, with new business value surging over 110% in 2025, directly surpassing individual insurance as the main contributor to value, subtly changing the traditional channel landscape.

Overall, the series of reforms at New China Insurance over the past two years effectively responded to industry transformation and demonstrated tangible performance. Perhaps based on full recognition of its strategic direction, operational capabilities, and the results of two years of reform, Yang Yucheng was re-elected as Chairman of the Board at the end of 2025.

Standing at the start of the “14th Five-Year Plan” and on the 30th anniversary of the company’s founding, Chairman Yang Yucheng stated that the company will adopt a competitive stance, pursue excellence with continuous innovation, and strive to enhance long-term competitiveness and operational quality, aiming for a good start to the “14th Five-Year Plan” and embarking on a new journey of high-quality development for the next 30 years.

The core of investment reform: add equities, reduce non-standard assets

When a seasoned industry professional transitions to a new field, their first focus is often on their most familiar territory.

Yang Yucheng, with his background in securities, brought a keen sense of capital markets and immediately targeted the investment side’s weaknesses—after all, this was his most familiar battlefield and a prominent “soft spot” for New China Insurance at the time.

At the 2023 performance briefing, Yang Yucheng said: “Within the industry, New China Asset’s current proportion of equity assets in total assets is quite low, even the lowest among peers.” Data shows that in 2023, equity assets accounted for only 15.5%, with stocks totaling 106.2 billion yuan, up 7.9%; funds totaling 101.6 billion yuan, down 7.5%. Among industry peers, it was at the bottom, making it the “hard bone” Yang Yucheng most wanted to crack upon taking office. “Long-term, broad, and deep” became the key focus for asset-side efforts after his appointment.

He acted swiftly. Over the following two years, New China Insurance made significant adjustments to its asset allocation. From an external perspective, these adjustments can be summarized as “addition” and “reduction.”

“Addition” refers to increasing equity investments, such as establishing private equity funds and taking stakes in quality listed companies, to allocate long-term value investments, high-dividend assets, and ultra-long-term interest rate bonds, gradually turning the “shortcoming” into a “strength.” “Reduction” means shrinking non-standard assets, including a significant contraction of financing from non-bank institutions, infrastructure projects, commercial real estate, and consumer credit products, completing a structural upgrade of assets.

In the first year of Yang Yucheng’s leadership, these strategic adjustments were quickly implemented. In November 2023, New China Insurance and China Life jointly initiated the Honghu Fund Phase I, established in February 2024 with a registered capital of 50 billion yuan, reaching an asset scale of 58.91B yuan by the end of 2025, with an annual investment return of about 8.96%, focusing on large-cap blue chips and emerging industries. The second phase of Honghu Fund was approved in March 2025 with a scale of 20 billion yuan, each side contributing 10 billion yuan, investing in large A+H shares within the CSI A500 index, completed in May, with full positions by the end of the second quarter. The third phase was approved in May 2025, with a scale of 22.5 billion yuan, with New China Insurance investing 11.25 billion yuan, continuing the previous strategies and emphasizing strategic emerging industries and “choke point” technologies. In total, New China Insurance plans to invest 46.25 billion yuan in the Honghu Phase III fund, reflecting firm confidence in long-term value investing.

Meanwhile, the “addition” in equity asset allocation also includes high-dividend equity instruments. By the end of 2024, the company’s high-dividend OCI-type equity investments increased from 5.37 billion yuan at the start of the year to 30.64 billion yuan, a 470.6% increase. By June 30, 2025, this further grew to 37.47 billion yuan, an increase of 6.83B yuan.

Equity allocation steadily increased in 2025. New China Insurance’s stock and fund investments totaled 389 billion yuan, accounting for 21.2% of investment assets. Among them, stock assets reached 216.45 billion yuan, up 19.7% year-on-year, representing 11.80% of total assets, up 0.7 percentage points; fund assets reached 172.57 billion yuan, up 36.6%, accounting for 9.40%, up 1.7 percentage points.

“Reduction” refers to shrinking non-standard assets, both in scale and proportion. By the end of 2023, non-standard assets amounted to 156.9B yuan, accounting for 11.7% of total investment assets, a significant share. Coupled with persistently low 10-year government bond yields in recent years, traditional non-standard assets like bank and real estate investments have seen their financial attributes diminish. Continuing to reduce non-standard investments was a natural step. By December 31, 2024, non-standard assets decreased to 95.13B yuan, down 61.82B from the previous year, representing 5.8% of total assets, a decline of 5.9 percentage points. By the end of 2025, further reduction brought non-standard assets to 65.54B yuan, a decrease of 29.59B from the previous year, accounting for 3.6%, down 2.2 percentage points.

At the 2025 performance briefing, management indicated that in 2026, New China Insurance will continue to respond to the long-term capital market policies, aligning with its asset-liability management needs and market changes, adhering to the principle of steady progress, and balancing the rhythm and structure of equity asset allocation. To address the volatility caused by high equity positions, three mechanisms are proposed: first, maintaining a diversified asset allocation across sectors, A/H shares, active/passive strategies, dividend and growth assets to reduce correlation and volatility; second, strengthening absolute investment capabilities, with ongoing integration of research and investment over the past three years, enabling the team to identify undervalued, high-dividend, and high-growth emerging targets; third, deepening asset-liability management, focusing on transforming liabilities like dividend insurance, improving the interaction between asset and liability immunization under the “14th Five-Year” strategic framework, emphasizing capital adequacy and liquidity safety, and smoothing short-term market fluctuations’ impact on core operations.

Channel transformation results: boosting capacity, increasing value

Two years ago, the life insurance industry faced challenges such as diversified professional customer needs, difficulties in recruiting and retaining agents, and low capacity, which transmitted to insurers, including “streamlining and efficiency improvements.”

Data shows that in 2023, New China Insurance’s individual channel premium income totaled 115.58B yuan, a slight decrease of 0.7% year-on-year. Among them, new long-term insurance first-year premiums reached 102.47B yuan, up 9.7%. Although an increase, the base was small, and renewal premiums declined slightly by 1.30% to 13.72B yuan. Monthly average per capita capacity remained below 10,000 yuan.

Faced with these challenges, reforms were prioritized. The first change was in mindset. Yang Yucheng stated at the 2023 performance briefing that, previously, the liability side focused more on product sales, but now New China Insurance aims to truly “put the customer at the center.”

Next, the company relied on the new fundamental law to promote the transformation of the sales team toward professionalism, specialization, and elite status. The “XIN Generation” plan is a key part of this phased transformation. It is a comprehensive, systematic, and leapfrogging overhaul covering system upgrades, business model innovations, team development, and platform empowerment.

The transformation’s positive effects became evident. In 2024, the individual channel’s total premium income was 115.97 billion yuan, up 0.3%; long-term insurance first-year premiums reached 13.24B yuan, up 17.20%; first-year premium payments were 4.03B yuan, up 19.70%; new business value increased by 37.19% to 120.58B yuan.

In 2025, leveraging the “XIN Generation” plan, the company launched the “Whole Life Cycle Planner (WLP)” training system, continuously promoting high-quality marketing teams, further improving the quality of the individual channel. Total premiums reached 19.65B yuan, up 3.98%. New single premiums were 19.03B yuan, up 43.22%, with first-year premiums at 4.81B yuan, up 43.76%. New business value increased by 19.38% to 11.2k yuan; monthly average per capita capacity exceeded 10,000 yuan, reaching 11.2k yuan, a 43.59% increase.

Thus, the transformation of the individual insurance channel has nearly completed its evolution from “shrinking volume and improving quality” to “elite and efficient,” with both total premiums and long-term premiums growing. However, renewal premiums still face pressure similar to two years ago. In 2024, renewal premiums were 10.1071 billion yuan, down 1.40%; in 2025, renewal premiums declined to 101.07B yuan, down 1.23%.

Further quarterly analysis shows that the major growth in 2024 occurred in the second half, driven partly by product switching. Data indicates that in the first half of 2024, New China Insurance’s original insurance premiums were 99.83B yuan, down 8.4% year-on-year, with individual channel premiums totaling 68.72 billion yuan, down 0.7%.

Despite this, the reform of the individual insurance channel remains promising. From the data, the capacity and value contribution of the team have genuinely improved—monthly per capita capacity increased from 6k yuan in 2023 to 11.2k yuan in 2025, and new business value rose from 407 million to 98.83B yuan, indicating the “elite” strategy is aligned with industry transformation.

However, just as the reform shows results, the channel experienced a major reversal: bancassurance value returned to the “C position.” Industry-wide data aside, for New China Insurance specifically, in 2025, bancassurance premiums surged 39.53% year-on-year to 6k yuan; new single premiums reached 11.2k yuan, up 52.31%, with first-year premiums at 4.81B yuan, up 29.56%; renewal premiums increased 27.65% to 72.1B yuan; new business value skyrocketed 110.16% to 37.93B yuan, directly surpassing individual insurance as the main contributor to new business value. The per capita capacity also increased by 17.90%, making bancassurance the core engine of both scale and value growth, while the position of individual insurance subtly loosened.

In response, President and CFO Gong Xingfeng stated at the 2025 performance briefing: “The positioning of the individual insurance channel as the company’s core remains unchanged now and in the future.” He emphasized that the individual insurance team is a partner and entrepreneur for New China Insurance, with strong customer loyalty and irreplaceable advantages in selling long-term, complex products, serving as the company’s key pillar through economic cycles. The company will continue to invest resources to nurture and lead this team’s development.

New China Insurance plans to implement a comprehensive modern marketing model from three dimensions, as Gong Xingfeng introduced: first, service dimension—beyond simple insurance services, integrating legal, trust, education, and other high-quality resources to build a full lifecycle service system covering health, wellness, finance, business, taxation, law, education, entertainment, and culture, transforming ecological advantages into a competitive moat; second, scene dimension—upgrading traditional “strong promotion, weak participation” scenarios into “weak promotion, strong participation,” enhancing customer experience and engagement, smoothly completing the process from scene perception to consensus and purchase decision; third, technology dimension—leveraging AI and big data to accelerate digital transformation of the entire marketing process, accurately profiling customers, reducing sales difficulty, and improving service matching efficiency. Ultimately, this will shift the team from mere insurance sellers to a professional, solution-providing, and entrepreneurial force.

Source: Insurance Industry Advisors