(Image source: Visual China)
The premium income data of the five major A-share listed insurance companies in the first 11 months has been disclosed recently, and the total premiums collected are 2.52 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 5.3%. In terms of life insurance, the growth rate of monthly premiums has "risen two times and fallen three times", but compared with October, it has generally recovered. The industry expects that the industry's previous demand for product switching overdraft has recovered significantly, and the transformation effect of the agent team is expected to achieve positive growth in 2024. On the property insurance side, the growth of new car sales supported the increase in monthly premiums, but the non-motor insurance business was under pressure.
Life insurance premiums rebounded month-on-month
The first focus is on life insurance companies. In the first 11 months, Chinese's life insurance premium income exceeded 600 billion yuan, with an income of 614.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.9%; Ping An Life Insurance collected premiums of 433.949 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of about 6.8%; CPIC Life Insurance collected premiums of 223.977 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.4%; and Xinhua Insurance achieved a year-on-year increase of 1.91%, and the premium income reached 159.738 billion yuan.
The growth rate of PICC Life Insurance ranked first among listed life insurance companies, with premiums of 97.267 billion yuan in the first 11 months, a year-on-year increase of 9.7%. The first-year premium of long-term insurance was 46.965 billion yuan, an increase of about 14% year-on-year, mainly driven by the first-year premium of regular payment, which was 24.165 billion yuan in the first 11 months, an increase of 35.5% year-on-year, and the single premium decreased by 2.5%.
Judging from the data of a single month, the premium income of five listed life insurance companies showed two increases and three decreases. PICC Life insurance premiums increased by 2.8%, and the industry expects to be mainly due to the improvement in renewal due to the optimization of the premium structure, and the renewal business increased by 16% year-on-year. Ping An Life Insurance grew by 2.5%, which was a year-on-year decline of 0.1% from October, and has turned from negative to positive, and has recovered significantly.
The monthly premiums of the remaining three life insurance companies declined, with Chinese Life falling by 1.2% year-on-year, while Xinhua Insurance and Taibao Life Insurance contracted by 12.2 and 19 percentage points respectively. Liu Xinqi and Xie Yusheng, researchers at Guotai Junan Securities, pointed out that CPIC Life Insurance has a large negative growth, and it is expected that the end of the year in the same period of 2022 will lead to a high base of monthly performance.
Although the three life insurance companies including China Life still declined in a single month, the decline has converged from October. "The decline in the monthly growth rate is expected to be a short transition period for the re-filing of products and the re-signing of outlets due to the integration of bancassurance channels, and although the regulators regulate the behavior of good starts, it is expected that insurance companies will still do a good job in the reserve of customers and the training of their teams while balancing the closure," said GF Securities.
The growth of new car sales drove the performance of motor insurance
In terms of property insurance, the premiums of the three listed property insurance companies rose as a whole in the first 11 months, but at different paces, with the "big brother" PICC property insurance achieving a premium of 472.7 billion yuan, an increase of about 6.8% year-on-year, Ping An property insurance premium income of 273.647 billion yuan, an increase of about 1.4% year-on-year, and CPIC property insurance achieving a premium growth rate of 11.8%, attracting 174.757 billion yuan.
In the single-month data, CPIC P&C's premium income in November increased by 12.1% year-on-year, while PICC P&C and Ping An P&C achieved growth rates of 1.1% and 0.3% respectively.
In terms of insurance types, in terms of motor insurance, PICC's property and casualty insurance auto insurance premiums increased by 5.4% year-on-year in November. Towards the end of the year, the sales stimulus policy of automakers drove the sales of new cars in November to increase by 27% year-on-year, an increase of 14 percentage points from October, which in turn passed on to the performance of the industry's auto insurance. However, in the context of the self-discipline pact reached by leading insurance companies in response to the call of "integration of newspapers and banks", the industry expects the growth of motor insurance premiums to be slightly slower than that of the industry.
"Under the situation of strict supervision and control of auto insurance costs, eight leading insurance companies signed the "Auto Insurance Compliance Management Self-Discipline Convention" in November, clarifying the strict control of costs and the business policy of not being scale-oriented, which is expected to guide the auto insurance industry to return to a healthy competitive situation, and it is expected that the comprehensive expense ratio of auto insurance business is expected to enter a period of improvement", Shanghai Shenyin & Wanguo Securities made an optimistic forecast for the performance of the industry's comprehensive cost ratio.
In terms of non-motor insurance, PICC's property and casualty insurance premiums declined in a single month, mainly dragged down by the contraction of premiums for health insurance, agricultural insurance and liability insurance. According to Guotai Junan's analysis, it is expected that the company will take the initiative to reduce the growth of loss-making business in order to achieve the annual breakeven target, such as commercial agricultural insurance and some high-risk liability insurance, while the difference in the underwriting rhythm of policy-related serious illness business in Yijian Insurance in two years and the product switching caused by the new accident insurance policy will cause the monthly premium to decline.
"Looking forward to 2024, the property and casualty insurance premium income is expected to benefit from stable growth through the cycle, from the perspective of comprehensive cost ratio, the return of natural disaster losses to a steady state and the continuous promotion of risk reduction are expected to promote the gradual optimization of the loss ratio, while the expense ratio is expected to benefit from the slowdown in competition brought about by the high-pressure regulatory situation and is expected to decline. GF Securities analysis pointed out.
The two ends of the capital and the negative resonate, and the "good start" performance is expected to exceed expectations
Towards the end of the year, the industry commented that companies are still seeking a balance between the good start of 2024 and the closing of the fourth quarter of 2023.
At present, insurance companies have made a comprehensive progress in promoting the "good start", and according to the regulatory requirement of "not substantially pre-collecting" premiums, many insurance companies are selling in the form of pre-recording. Judging from the specific performance at the end of the year, many industry insiders believe that the industry's previous overdraft demand has recovered significantly, coupled with the precipitation and production capacity improvement of the core agents of various insurance companies, as well as the increase in the value rate under the "integration of newspapers and banks" of the bancassurance channel, will help the industry achieve positive growth in 2024. Many brokerages have given the evaluation that the "good start" business progress is expected to improve and "better than expected", which is further expected to alleviate the market's concerns about the liability side of insurance companies.
In terms of property insurance, listed insurers with a strong Matthew effect are expected to continue their positive trend in terms of motor insurance premium growth and comprehensive cost ratio. Caitong Securities judged that, first, the management and supervision of auto insurance expenses have become stricter, the market environment has improved, and listed insurance companies have obvious advantages in terms of data, services, brands, channels, etc., and second, there will be frequent unexpected natural disasters in 2023, and it is expected that small and medium-sized insurance companies will be under pressure on their current profits, or they will take the initiative to reduce their cost investment.
On the asset side, at the policy level, the convening of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and the Central Economic Work Conference is expected to improve economic expectations and promote the marginal recovery of the asset side. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee proposed to "promote stability by progress", "establish first and then break" and "moderate strengthening", and the researchers of GF Securities proposed that the economic growth target in 2024 is expected to be relatively positive, the expansion of aggregate demand is still the main clue, and the fiscal space is still expanded to a certain extent, while the Central Economic Work Conference further pointed out that "more policies that are conducive to stabilizing expectations, stabilizing growth and stabilizing employment", that is, policies with positive incentives.
"The asset side is facing marginal improvement, and the investment return assumption may usher in an adjustment in the next stage", Shanghai Shenyin & Wanguo Securities researcher also proposed, "The risk of interest rate loss may be alleviated: following the reduction of the scheduled interest rate, it is expected that the actuarial assumption of the investment return rate of some insurance companies may usher in a downward adjustment in the next stage, which is expected to alleviate the investment pressure and the risk of interest rate loss to a certain extent." ”
"At present, the PEV valuation of listed insurance companies is at a historically low level, which fully reflects the pessimistic expectations of the market", and the industry expects that the valuation of insurance stocks is expected to rebound in the context of the "good start" performance exceeding expectations and the economic recovery is good for the improvement of the asset side.
"We are optimistic about the phased market and long-term allocation value of the sector in the context of continuous macroeconomic recovery," Wang Fangchao, a researcher at Cinda Securities, analyzed.