Starting with a bachelor's degree, is an annual salary of 400,000 yuan just the threshold? Insurance companies are competing for talent in "new life insurance," where expertise in finance, healthcare, and elderly care has become standard.

As China’s aging population continues to grow rapidly, residents’ needs for health management and elder care planning are becoming increasingly diverse. The traditional agent model, which focuses solely on policy sales, can no longer meet market changes. Insurance companies are beginning to recruit and develop diverse insurance sales talents.

Recently, Ping An Life held the “Good Development with Ping An” Insurance and Elderly Care Advisor Anniversary and Talent Plan Launch Event in Shenzhen, officially announcing the full launch of the “Top Talent Plan.” Through a professional and specialized talent development system, the goal is to build a top insurance and elder care advisory team with the triple value of “financial advisor, family doctor, and elder care manager.”

It is understood that the “Top Talent Plan” focuses more on the role of “elder care advisor” within the sales team. This also means that insurance agents in the “Top Talent Plan” are no longer limited to traditional marketing and management paths but are becoming stewards capable of providing comprehensive solutions for family wealth, elder care, and medical needs.

This move is not an isolated case. As the era of longevity advances, the public’s demand for elder care and health management continues to rise. Driven by these needs, insurance institutions are exploring the deep integration of “insurance” and “elder care.” A review by the Daily Economic News found that Taikang Life’s “Health Wealth Planner (HWP),” Taiping Life’s “S Plan,” and AIA’s “HEA (Elite Wealth Planner) High-End Talent Recruitment Program” all focus on recruiting and developing versatile professionals. By reshaping the insurance agent team, they aim to meet the increasingly diverse health and wealth management needs of high-net-worth clients.

By 2025, Ping An Life first launched the “Insurance Elder Care Advisor” program, positioning agents as “financial advisors + family doctors + elder care managers”—multi-skilled talents who not only sell insurance but also connect medical and elder care resources. Recently, based on the “Insurance Elder Care Advisor,” Ping An Life upgraded and launched the “Top Talent Plan.”

As the top-level design of Ping An Life’s “Insurance Elder Care Advisor” talent strategy, the “Top Talent Plan” targets elites with a bachelor’s degree or higher, aged 28 to 55, with previous annual income exceeding 400,000 yuan. The aim is to build a top team to serve high-net-worth clients in depth. Tao Ben, Deputy General Manager of the Human Resources Development Team at Ping An Life, stated that since the pilot started in June 2025, over 800 high-caliber professionals from banking, financial management, and technology fields have joined, with more than 80% holding a bachelor’s degree or higher, nearly 10% holding a master’s degree, and nearly 30% earning over one million yuan annually before joining.

From the positioning and recruitment groups of Ping An Life’s “Top Talent Plan,” it is clear that these agents are no longer traditional insurance salespeople but are being assigned three roles: financial advisor, family doctor, and elder care manager. This means agents need to deeply meet clients’ needs across their entire life cycle for wealth, health, and elder care.

It is worth noting that Ping An Life’s initiative is not unique. Similar role transformations are happening at other insurance companies, each with different focuses: some emphasize health management by collaborating with medical institutions for professional training; some focus on elder care scenarios by integrating elder care community resources and cultivating professionals with elder care planning and care coordination skills; others strengthen the integration of finance and elder care, requiring advisors to have skills in insurance planning, wealth management, and elder care services.

For example, Taikang Life’s “Health Wealth Planner (HWP)” combines the roles of insurance advisor, medical and elder care advisor, and financial advisor; AIA’s “HEA Talent Program” positions marketers as lifelong “health and wealth management partners” and “insurance entrepreneurs” with leadership qualities.

Overall, the cultivation of high-end agents and elder care advisors in the industry shows three distinct features: first, the talent threshold continues to rise, with high education levels and cross-disciplinary elites becoming key recruits; second, training systems are becoming more comprehensive, covering financial, health, and elder care knowledge through a “three-in-one” guidance model; third, career development paths are clearer, with most insurance companies restructuring “individual sales + organizational development” dual-track channels, providing ladder-like promotion opportunities and competitive reward systems.

From the recruitment and training directions of these institutions, it is evident that insurance agents in the HWP and elder care advisor training systems are no longer just single-product salespeople but providers of full lifecycle services and one-stop solutions. This means that, in the past, becoming an insurance agent might have only required understanding basic insurance terms and sales scripts, with low educational and professional knowledge requirements. Now, to join these elite teams, one may need to be proficient in insurance, financial planning, healthcare, elder care planning, taxation, and law—playing multiple roles as a financial advisor, family doctor, and elder care manager.

The core reason driving insurance companies to focus on developing elder care advisors and actively recruit and cultivate high-end talents is closely related to the evolving industry landscape.

At the turn of the millennium, consumers’ understanding of insurance was limited to policies and claims. At that time, consumers only needed to purchase policies with relevant coverage based on their needs, and agents only needed to sell appropriate products. The connection and service between the two generally ended after the policy transaction, with many agents only contacting clients again when claims were needed.

However, with economic development and increasing average lifespan, consumer needs have shifted. Insurance no longer only addresses protection but also includes wealth planning, medical care, and elder care. Under this concept, policies are no longer just proof of a contract between insurer and client but serve as a bond, allowing clients to access health management services, elder care community admission, and retirement experiences provided by insurance companies.

This is called the “New Life Insurance” model. Chen Dongsheng, founder, chairman, and CEO of Taikang Insurance Group, once stated that traditional life insurance only covers life and investment, while “New Life Insurance” adds medical and elder care services, forming a structure supported by insurance payments, investment assets, and medical and elder care services.

To meet consumer needs and provide personalized services under this model, insurance agents need to enhance relevant skills.

According to Tao Junqing, Deputy General Manager of Taikang Life’s Health Wealth Management Division and national head of the HWP project, the core of “New Life Insurance” is adding medical and elder care services on top of the existing two pillars. Since these services often need to be conveyed to clients through agents, agents must understand not only insurance but also possess some medical and elder care knowledge.

With continuous improvement of training systems and active recruitment efforts by insurance companies, the growth of elder care advisors is also very noticeable.

“Taikang HWP’s compound growth rate is higher than that of regular agents because the dropout rate of regular agents is relatively high,” Tao Junqing told the Daily Economic News. “In first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai, Taikang basically no longer has regular agents; all business is conducted through HWP. In markets like Ningbo, 80% to 90% of newly recruited personnel are HWP.”

However, Tao Junqing also pointed out that in terms of overall numbers, HWP still lags behind regular agents. “In some less developed insurance markets or third- and fourth-tier cities, there is still a need for a certain number of regular agents: on one hand, they lack the extensive resources that HWP in big cities has; on the other hand, clients in these areas have insurance needs that require regular agents’ services.” He added that, regarding agent development, it is difficult for all regions in China to follow a uniform approach, even for Taikang.

Nevertheless, it cannot be denied that under the increasingly complex market environment and the more diverse and personalized client needs, the professional ability and continuous learning capacity of insurance agents will become crucial to coping with the market’s complexity. In this context, many insurance companies are continuously promoting and improving relevant training systems to build a high-quality talent pool.

Dr. Zhu Junsheng, postdoctoral fellow and professor of applied economics at Peking University, pointed out that salespeople are shifting from traditional “relationship-driven” approaches to “professional and service-driven” models. By leveraging digital tools, they improve customer acquisition and management efficiency through social fission, private domain operations, and customer tagging, expanding service coverage. Salespeople are gradually transforming from single-product sellers into “family risk management advisors,” providing systematic and customized protection plans around family life cycles, extending to health management, elder care planning, and wealth inheritance—strengthening customer loyalty and creating a positive cycle of referrals based on professionalism, trust, and personalized service.