Dialogue with Ping An China, Fu Xin: Residents' asset and liability structures are undergoing reconstruction, and the life insurance industry is entering a golden development period.

Ask AI · How does asset-liability restructuring catalyze long-term growth in life insurance demand?

Against the backdrop of continued low interest rates and increased volatility in capital markets, the linkage between the investment side and the liability side is becoming an important dimension for observing the resilience of insurance company performance and the space for valuation recovery.

Recently, Ping An Insurance’s Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Fu Xin stated in an interview with The Paper that in 2025, Ping An’s investment performance both in the short and long term was good, effectively supporting steady growth in the group’s profits and net assets, and also reflecting the company’s capabilities in long-term investing, asset-liability matching, and dynamic portfolio adjustment.

Ping An’s annual report shows that in 2025, the company’s comprehensive investment return rate for its insurance fund investment portfolio was 6.3%, up 0.5 percentage points year-on-year, the best in nearly five years; the average comprehensive investment return over the past 10 years was 4.9%, with an average net investment return of 4.8%, both exceeding the long-term investment return assumptions of embedded value.

Regarding the life insurance business, Fu Xin told The Paper that the current rise in insurance demand is still fundamentally supported by residents’ asset-liability structure adjustments, as well as the ongoing recovery of long-term protection and stable savings needs such as pension and medical care. She believes that, in this context, the life insurance industry is entering a golden development period. Behind this judgment is the continuous recovery of Ping An Life’s operating fundamentals.

In 2025, Ping An Life and health insurance’s new business value for individual business reached 36.9 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 29.3%; the group’s attributable operating profit increased by 10.3% from the beginning of the year to 134.4 billion yuan; attributable net assets grew by 7.7% year-on-year to 1 trillion yuan.

In Fu Xin’s view, what Ping An needs to do next is to continuously enhance channel, product, and service capabilities through “comprehensive finance + medical and elderly care,” further transforming the concept of “insurance + services” into operational capabilities that customers can perceive and reuse.

Behind the phased improvement on the investment side: market factors and allocation capabilities support

In the current context of the insurance industry, the importance of investment performance is not only reflected in the profit statement but also in the stability of net assets and expectations for valuation recovery.

Fu Xin told The Paper that, based on the performance in 2025, Ping An’s investment side provided good support for the group’s income, profits, and net assets. But she also emphasized that this performance should not be simply attributed to market recovery; more importantly, it reflects the company’s strategic asset allocation ability to navigate cycles and disciplined tactical asset allocation.

Looking over a longer cycle, from 2016 to 2025, Ping An’s average net investment return was 4.8%, and the average comprehensive investment return was 4.9%, both exceeding the long-term investment return assumptions of embedded value.

Fu Xin told The Paper that, of course, there are cyclical factors—2025’s relatively strong equity market performance provided some boost to investment returns; but from an ability perspective, Ping An adheres to long-term investing and asset-liability matching principles, accumulating relatively high-yield long-duration bonds early on, and proactively increasing equity allocations to seize structural market opportunities. She mentioned that long-duration fixed income assets serve as a “ballast” for stable returns, while equity investments balance high-dividend value stocks and growth sectors. The company also actively increases allocations to quality alternative assets, expanding project sources and diversifying asset allocation.

Performance-wise, the improvement on the investment side has indeed become an important support for net asset growth. In 2025, Ping An’s attributable net assets increased by 7.7% from the beginning of the year to 1 trillion yuan; among them, unrealized gains on OCI-type stocks significantly contributed to net asset growth. Fu Xin candidly said that the high proportion of FVOCI stock holdings, although unrealized gains do not directly enter the profit and loss statement, will directly increase net assets and help enhance report stability.

Regarding sustainability, Fu Xin told The Paper that Ping An will continue to adhere to a prudent investment strategy, effectively coordinating strategic asset allocation, tactical asset allocation, and investment in various products, aiming for steady long-term cycle-crossing returns.

Diversified household asset allocation and deeper demand-driven growth in life insurance

Compared to the investment side, the market’s concern about Ping An Life’s business is whether this demand increase is merely a short-term replacement under low interest rates or a longer-term shift in asset allocation logic.

Fu Xin told The Paper that as deposit and wealth management yields continue to decline, some life insurance products with stable returns and the ability to lock in long-term yields are becoming more attractive to residents’ funds. Essentially, this is an asset reallocation under a low-interest-rate environment.

But she also pointed out that from a medium- to long-term perspective, this change should not be simply viewed as a temporary phenomenon. More importantly, residents’ asset-liability structures are undergoing reconstruction. On one hand, the traditional configuration model based on “real estate + deposits” is being adjusted; on the other hand, with aging populations and rising expectations for pension and medical expenses, residents’ demand for long-term protection and stable savings is gradually increasing. Therefore, Ping An’s outlook on the life insurance industry is not limited to short-term interest rate changes but sees a longer-term demand recovery.

“In this context, we believe the life insurance industry is entering a golden development period,” said Fu Xin. From operational data, Ping An Life’s recovery is no longer just about market sentiment. In 2025, Ping An Life and health insurance’s first-year premiums reached 157.9 billion yuan, a 2.5% increase; the new business value for the year was 36.9 billion yuan, up 29.3%. This indicates that demand recovery is reflected not only in scale but also in value.

Previously, Fu Xin told The Paper that Ping An Life’s channel transformation was generally on track, with rapid growth in bancassurance, community finance, and other non-agent channels, and that the “insurance + services” layout would continue to deepen. By 2026, this logic extends further into emphasizing a “service year,” transforming past sporadic services like companion diagnosis, medical green channels, and doctor searches into a more complete, tradable, and perceptible service closed-loop.

Fu Xin pointed out that the core of Ping An’s response to this demand growth in life insurance remains in channel management and product services. On one hand, continuing to deepen the “4+3” reform to build multi-channel professional sales capabilities; on the other hand, leveraging the group’s medical and elderly care ecosystem to further develop the “insurance + services” product system, providing richer products and more specific services to meet customer needs.

She revealed that since the beginning of 2026, Ping An’s individual life new business premiums increased by about 50% year-on-year, and new business premiums from bancassurance channels increased by over 100%, laying a solid foundation for the year’s development.

Further embedding medical and elderly care ecosystems into core financial operations

In addition to changes in the investment side and life insurance demand, the medical and elderly care ecosystem’s contribution to the financial core business has also become another main line of Ping An’s recent operational logic.

Fu Xin said that from the perspective of changing customer needs, wealth management and health elderly care are not two separate demands but are mutually complementary throughout the lifecycle. Based on this, Ping An continues to promote the “comprehensive finance + medical and elderly care” strategy, not only to expand service boundaries but also to enhance customer management and product delivery capabilities through the development of medical and elderly care services.

This role first manifests in customer value. Fu Xin pointed out that services such as medical health, home-based elderly care, and high-quality senior living can improve customer experience and satisfaction, and also help strengthen customer recognition of insurance products and comprehensive financial services. For the life insurance business, these services are no longer just ancillary rights but also influence customers’ willingness to purchase, increase coverage, and deepen protection allocation.

The annual report shows that in 2025, the number of new life insurance policies with medical health, home-based elderly care, and high-quality senior living benefits increased by 1.5 times, 5.2 times, and 23.4 times respectively; at the same time, Peking University Medical’s revenue was 5.72 billion yuan, and Ping An Health’s revenue was 5.47 billion yuan. Overall, the medical and elderly care ecosystem’s support for the core life insurance business is no longer just strategic coordination but has begun to translate into customer value enhancement and business quality improvement.

From the group’s operational logic, the significance of this part of the business is not only in its contribution to revenue but also in becoming an important carrier connecting insurance protection, health management, and elderly care arrangements, continuously feeding back into the development of the core financial business.

Fu Xin said that in the future, Ping An will continue to focus on customer lifecycle needs, advancing channel, product, and service capability building.