Top five insurers gather to look ahead to 2024: The insurance industry is in a period of important strategic opportunities

Reporter Chen Jingjing reports from Beijing

On the afternoon of January 4, 2024, the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration held a press conference in Beijing on "Giving Play to the Economic Shock Absorber and Social Stability Maker of the Insurance Industry".

The reporter of "China Business Daily" learned on the spot that Chinese Minmin Insurance Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Insurance Group", 601319. SH), Chinese Life Insurance (Group) Company (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Life Group"), China Taiping Insurance Group Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Taiping Insurance Group"), China Export & Credit Insurance Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Sinosure"), China Reinsurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Re Group"), 01508. HK) and other relevant persons in charge introduced the pragmatic measures to implement the spirit of the Central Financial Work Conference and the Central Economic Work Conference, give full play to the functions of the insurance industry as an economic shock absorber and social stabilizer, and look forward to the high-quality development of insurance services in 2024.

The reporter noted that the senior executives of the above-mentioned insurance companies all said that the insurance industry has a great future in serving the national economy and people's livelihood, and the insurance industry will continue to improve in 2024, and the development of the industry is in an important strategic opportunity period.

Help to hold, accurate, and strengthen the bottom line of people's livelihood

How can the insurance industry better play its role as an economic shock absorber and a social stabilizer, and what results have been achieved?

Zhang Baohui, the main person in charge of the strategy department of Chinese Insurance Group, said that in the first 11 months of 2023, Chinese Insurance Group has provided insurance services for more than 900,000 enterprises, with a risk protection amount of more than 900 trillion yuan, and by the end of November 2023, the investment scale of serving the construction of a modern industrial system has exceeded 240 billion yuan.

"We mainly do a good job in the following four aspects: First, improve the level of insurance support for the manufacturing industry and help build a solid foundation for a modern industrial system. The second is to strengthen insurance services for technology-based enterprises and strategic industries, and help build a modern industrial system led by scientific and technological innovation. In the first 11 months of 2023, a total of 106,000 high-tech enterprises were underwritten, with a coverage rate of 22.75%; There are 27,400 specialized, special and new enterprises, with an underwriting coverage rate of 24.21%, providing risk protection of 5.14 trillion yuan. The third is to improve the security level of the industrial chain and supply chain, and help build a modern industrial system that is independent, controllable, safe and reliable, and competitive. Innovative risk reduction services, a total of 633,000 accident prevention services for 226,800 safety liability insurance customers, and 309,600 hidden risks have been assisted, more effectively reducing the overall risk level of the economy and society. Fourth, innovate and promote the supply of green insurance products to help the green upgrading of modern industries. Zhang Baohui said.

"The insurance industry has unique advantages in the design of pension products, long-term fund management, and the integration of the pension industry. Zhao Guodong, vice president and secretary of the board of directors of Chinese Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Life Insurance Company"), said.

According to Zhao Guodong, for a long time, Chinese Life Group has closely focused on the needs of the elderly in pension funds, personal safety, health management, disability care, pension services, etc., enriching the supply of pension financial products and services, helping "the elderly have support, difficulties can be helped, diseases have medical treatment, loss of care, and care for happiness".

"In the first pillar, the pension insurance company under Chinese Life Group, as the first batch of investment managers of the basic pension insurance fund, provides investment management services for the basic pension insurance fund of more than 40 billion yuan. In the second pillar, the scale of enterprise annuity trusteeship and investment management assets of pension insurance companies exceeded 1 trillion yuan, serving more than 35,000 annuity enterprise customers. In the third pillar, Chinese Life Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Chinese Life Group, has formed a full pension product system including annuity, whole life insurance, personal pension, commercial exclusive pension products, etc., which can meet the needs of different groups of pension insurance to the greatest extent. Up to now, the accumulated pension insurance reserves are about 1.8 trillion yuan. Especially in terms of personal pensions, Chinese Life Insurance Company, as the first batch of participating pilot institutions, gave full play to the advantages of outlets and sales teams to achieve the first single in many places. In terms of product design, it highlights the characteristics of insurance, and in addition to emphasizing the steady appreciation of accounts, it also provides customers with risk protection such as accidents, death and disability, and has issued more than 100,000 policies so far. Zhao Guodong further said.

It is worth noting that in recent years, natural disasters have occurred frequently, causing considerable losses to the personal safety and property safety of the people. As an insurance of insurance, reinsurance is an important mechanism for social risk diversification, and plays an important role in maintaining economic and social stability and reducing disaster losses.

Wang Zhongyao, deputy general manager of China Property & Casualty Reinsurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "China Re Property & Casualty"), a subsidiary of China Re Group, said that since 2014, China Re Property & Casualty has actively participated in the catastrophe insurance pilot work in Shenzhen, Ningbo, Xiamen, Yunnan, Guangdong, Sichuan and other places, providing stable reinsurance protection support and technical services for local catastrophe insurance pilots, and the catastrophe insurance projects undertaken by China Re have covered 19 provinces and cities across the country, and have participated in the design, calculation and evaluation of more than 100 administrative regions.

Wang Zhongyao said that on May 21, 2021, a 6.4-magnitude earthquake occurred in Yangbi County, Dali Prefecture, Yunnan Province, and the local index catastrophe insurance triggered the payment, and within 22 hours after the earthquake, the first 40 million yuan compensation of Dali Prefecture Earthquake Index Insurance was settled, and the reinsurer took responsibility for more than 20 million yuan. In 2023, when typhoons such as Sura and Haikui successively hit the southeast coast, China Re Property & Casualty Insurance paid more than 200 million yuan to the local government to respond to the disaster and ensure the basic livelihood of the affected people and post-disaster recovery and reconstruction, fully reflecting the role of the insurance and reinsurance industry as an economic shock absorber and social stabilizer.

Focus on key areas to serve the national strategy

The Central Financial Work Conference proposed to strengthen high-quality financial services, expand high-level financial opening-up, serve the construction of "going out" and "The Belt and Road", and steadily and steadily promote the internationalization of RMB.

Yu Xiaodong, General Manager of the Business Management Department of China Taiping Insurance Group, said that China Taiping Insurance Group resolutely implements the decisions and arrangements of the CPC Central Committee, adheres to the strategic direction of "basing itself on Hong Kong and Macao and deeply cultivating the Greater Bay Area", deeply participates in the construction of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, gives full play to the advantages of cross-border operations, and actively promotes high-level opening-up. As of the end of November 2023, cross-border insurance business provided risk protection of approximately RMB3.3 trillion.

Yu Xiaodong introduced that China Taiping Insurance Group gave full play to the synergistic advantages of overseas direct insurance and reinsurance to provide policy issuance and territorial insurance services for Chinese-funded enterprises "going global". As of the end of November 2023, the Group has a total of 21 overseas institutions, with a total of 441 "Belt and Road" projects, providing risk protection of 506.4 billion yuan, and underwriting overseas business involving 86 countries and regions around the world. As of the end of November 2023, it has provided risk protection of 17.5 trillion yuan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, serving 8.4 million individual customers and 143,000 group and institutional customers.

As the only policy-based insurance company in mainland China, SINOSURE has always been the main force serving foreign trade. Yang Minggang, general manager of SINOSURE's business management department, said that SINOSURE has continuously increased its support for new business formats, new models and service trade, helping to cultivate new momentum for foreign trade development. From January to November 2023, a total of US$17.4 billion was supported for the export of new forms of cross-border e-commerce foreign trade, and US$8 billion for the export of service trade, a year-on-year increase of 18.5%. From January to November 2023, it supported the export of micro, small and medium-sized enterprises to reach US$228.7 billion, a year-on-year increase of 10.3%, and provided services to 176,000 micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, a year-on-year increase of 16.5%, and the average settlement time of small and micro business claims was about 10 days, a year-on-year decrease of 32%, and the support and guarantee for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises continued to increase.

Yang Minggang said: "Focusing on the strategic deployment of building a new development pattern, we are actively building an industrial chain service support system with credit insurance characteristics. From January to November 2023, a total of US$332.9 billion in exports and 265.7 billion yuan in domestic trade were underwritten in seven industrial chains, including electronic information, home appliances, vehicle construction machinery, biomedicine, new energy, textiles and garments, and modern agriculture, accounting for nearly 50% of the company's business, effectively helping to ensure the stability and smoothness of key industrial chains. ”

In 2024, it will become a consensus to do a good job in the "five big articles".

Looking forward to 2024, the senior executives of the above-mentioned insurance companies all said that the current insurance industry has great potential, and 2024 will be an important period of development opportunities for the insurance industry, and they are firmly optimistic about the development prospects of the insurance industry.

Zhang Baohui said that looking forward to 2024, the insurance industry will continue to improve and is still in an important period of strategic opportunities.

At the same time, Zhang Baohui pointed out three sources of confidence: First, the basic trend of China's long-term economic improvement, high-quality economic development and the in-depth promotion of Chinese-style modernization will bring new development space and new development momentum to the industry. Second, the state supports the development of the insurance industry's policy orientation, the central financial work conference emphasized the role of the insurance industry as an economic shock absorber and social stabilizer, and clearly put forward the need to do a good job in the "five major articles", insurance will increasingly become an important means of the policy "toolbox" of governments at all levels. Third, the good regulatory environment created by the financial management department, strengthening product supervision, standardizing sales channels and behaviors, and preventing industry risks will further enhance the awareness of compliance management of market entities and be more conducive to the healthy and stable operation of the industry.

Zhao Guodong said that he is firmly optimistic about the prospects of the insurance industry. He further pointed out that the mainland's economic development has provided very good market space and policy conditions for the development of the insurance industry. He also said that the potential of the mainland insurance market is very huge, and there is still a lot of room for growth in insurance depth and insurance density; from a practical point of view, the people's demand for pension, health and even wealth management is gradually expanding, and these needs will gradually turn into reality. In recent years, the transformation of the insurance industry around the goal of high-quality development has also begun to show results.

So what are the key areas that the insurance industry will focus on in 2024? Science and technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance, and digital finance have become the consensus of the industry.

Yang Minggang said that in 2024, SINOSURE will focus on the "five major articles" to do its homework: it will strengthen the resource tilt of projects in the field of strategic emerging industries with high-tech and high value-added characteristics, and give priority to supporting scientific and technological innovation and advanced manufacturing; will continue to increase support for the "going out" of new energy and green industries and the green transformation of traditional industries; will expand the coverage of underwriting for small, medium and micro enterprises, continue to increase the supply of financial services for small and medium-sized enterprises and private enterprises; The underwriting support of "going global" in health-related fields will give full play to the long-term financial advantages of the insurance industry, actively participate in the development of the health and pension industries, and continuously improve the capabilities of digital financial services, build internal "digital credit insurance", and build an external digital ecosystem.

Wang Zhongyao said that in the field of science and technology finance, China Re Group and China Re Property & Casualty Insurance will increase the protection of "big country heavy weapons" and accelerate the promotion and implementation of the cyber security insurance model of "insurance + risk management + service"; in the field of green finance, it will continue to play the role of China's nuclear community platform and increase investment in emerging fields such as new energy insurance and carbon sink insurance; in the field of inclusive finance, it will promote the upgrading of a series of products and services that benefit the people, and promote the expansion of the protection in the field of "three rural" areas; and in the field of pension finance, it will promote "insurance +". In the field of digital finance, it will accelerate digital transformation, enhance scientific and technological service capabilities, and provide richer digital infrastructure for the industry.

Yu Xiaodong also pointed out that looking forward to 2024, with the full recovery of China's economy, the insurance industry is expected to continue the current trend of steady and positive development.

"Especially after the Central Financial Work Conference and the Central Economic Work Conference made clear instructions for the next development of financial work, stabilizing growth, preventing risks, and increasing services to the national strategy and the real economy will become the mainstream trend of the industry. Against this backdrop, it is expected that China's insurance industry will usher in new development opportunities in 2024 in terms of cross-border insurance demand and linkage between domestic and foreign insurance markets. Yu Xiaodong said.

(Editor: He Shasha Proofreader: Yan Yuxia)