Abstract: After more than three years of promoting the transformation of CPIC Life's "Long Voyage Action", Cai Qiang, who led the transformation, left office
Text: Ding Yan
Editor|Yang Rui Yuan Man
On April 15, CPIC Life Insurance disclosed that Cai Qiang no longer served as the company's general manager (CEO) after deliberation and approval at the 43rd meeting of the 7th board of directors (provisional). During the vacancy of the position of general manager of CPIC Life, Pan Yanhong was appointed as the interim person in charge and acted as the general manager.
CPIC said that the above adjustments will not have a significant impact on the company's business operations and financial condition.
According to a person familiar with the matter, the successor of the general manager of CPIC Life Insurance has been determined and has been announced within the company. The person familiar with the matter said that Cai Qiang, as a professional manager, went to CPIC Life Insurance to promote life insurance reform, and his resignation was expected, after he cooperated well with Pan Yanhong, chairman of life insurance.
It is understood that at the beginning of this year, Cai Qiang also went to some areas to investigate the latest progress of the second phase of the "Long Voyage Action" of life insurance transformation. For Cai Qiang's next stop, a person familiar with the matter revealed that it may be a large foreign-funded insurance institution.
At the end of 2023, the top management of CPIC will be smoothly handed over, with the former chairman Kong Qingwei retiring and former president Fu Fan taking over as the secretary of the party committee and taking over as the chairman of the group, and Zhao Yonggang, who grew up in CPIC and transferred to the deputy secretary of the party committee of Haitong Securities two years ago, returned to the post of president. Regarding the strategic arrangements for CPIC in the future, Fu Fan, Chairman of CPIC, said that high-quality development is the key direction of CPIC's current transformation, and it will continue to adhere to the three strategic directions of "large region", "big health" and "big data" in the future.
As for the continuity of CPIC's life insurance reform, according to a senior executive close to CPIC, CPIC's board of directors is not based on a single person's mechanism, but on a corporate governance structure. At present, CPIC's board of directors has gathered many directors with an international vision, so the continuity of life insurance reform can be guaranteed.
The transformation "helmsman" is leaving
After more than three years of promoting the transformation of CPIC Life's "Long Voyage Action", Cai Qiang resigned. Three years ago, Cai Qiang went to CPIC Life Insurance to lead the transformation, and many industry insiders said that he had led AIA on the road to a high-quality life insurance company, focusing on protection insurance and high-value business, and if he joined CPIC, it would be helpful for the management and reform of CPIC's entire agency system.
Guo Zhenhua, director of the insurance department of the School of Finance of Shanghai University of International Business and Economics, once said that Cai Qiang has led AIA on the road to the best life insurance company, at least in the past ten years, it is the best growth path for life insurance, that is, focusing on protection insurance, focusing on high-value business, and creating a high-quality marketer system. However, at that time, Guo Zhenhua reminded, "Of course, CPIC is different from AIA, and CPIC is larger in scale, and reform is more difficult." ”
From Cai Qiang's transformation achievements in AIA, the data shows that under his helm, the value of AIA's new business tripled from 2009 to 2013; from 2014 to 2018, AIA's after-tax operating profit in Chinese mainland business increased by 38%, 28%, 29%, 39% and 32% respectively, and the value growth far exceeded the industry average.
Looking at the transformation path of CPIC Life Insurance, under the interweaving of the epidemic and the transformation of the life insurance industry, from 2021 to 2023, the insurance business revenue of CPIC Life Insurance will be 211.685 billion yuan, 225.343 billion yuan and 252.817 billion yuan respectively, which will be -0.1%, +6.5% and +3.2% year-on-year respectively, and the value of new business will be 13.412 billion yuan, 9.205 billion yuan and 10.962 billion yuan respectively, -24.8%, -31.4% and +19.1% year-on-year respectively.
(Data source: CPIC's performance report in the past three years)
According to CPIC's 2023 performance report, CPIC's new business value ratio was 13.3%, up 1.7 percentage points year-on-year. The agent channel achieved a scale premium of 195.478 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.0%, of which the regular payment of new insurance scale premium was 26.175 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 32.3%.
In April 2023, in a dialogue with Cai Qiang on the topic of life insurance reform, Cai Qiang said that the transformation of life insurance will generally go through four stages: "volume and price increase", "volume and price fall", "volume and price increase", and "volume and price rise". The United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Japan and other countries have all followed the same trajectory, and so has China, but China's transition trajectory curve has been compressed faster and shorter.
Cai Qiang concluded that the most difficult aspects of life insurance transformation are three aspects: first, top-level design, the determination of the board of directors is to maintain strategic focus, which is the core of transformation. The main reason why most of the transformation cannot take a step forward and give up halfway is the problem at the top level; second, the business model is difficult. The vast majority of reformers hope to solve structural problems with a partial improvement, which cannot solve the fundamental and overall problems. Third, the most difficult thing about transformation is people's hearts, that is, the unity of thought and concept, depending on whether everyone agrees that transformation is the right thing to do, and then work together to do things right.
According to the data, Cai Qiang worked in a foreign-funded insurance institution for a long time before joining CPIC Life Insurance. He has served as a personal insurance marketer, regional manager and regional director of AXA General Insurance Group (USA), general manager and chief executive officer of individual insurance of AXA General Insurance Group (Hong Kong), CEO of AIA China, regional CEO of AIA Group, vice chairman and president of WeDoctor Group, etc.
At CPIC's 2023 results conference, when asked whether Cai Qiang would continue to perform his duties, Fu Fan, chairman of CPIC, said that in April 2021, the board of directors of CPIC appointed Cai Qiang as the CEO of CPIC Life Insurance in accordance with the principle of specialization and marketization, and at the same time in accordance with the tenure system and contractual rules. After Cai Qiang joined CPIC Life, he brought advanced life insurance marketing concepts, and worked with the company's existing management team to promote the construction of a high-quality agent team, making positive contributions to the "long-term transformation" of life insurance. "The selection and appointment of the new management of life insurance will continue to uphold the principles of professionalism and marketization. ”
Pan Yanhong temporarily "took over"
Pan Yanhong, who is the interim head of CPIC Life, is the chairman of CPIC Life, and has served as the deputy chief financial officer, chief financial officer, deputy general manager, vice chairman and general manager of CPIC Life, and the chief financial officer, vice president and executive vice president of CPIC Group. At the beginning of 2021, when Cai Qiang became the general manager of CPIC Life, Pan Yanhong was promoted to the chairman of CPIC Life.
Before Cai Qiang joined CPIC Life, CPIC Life had already released the "Long Voyage Action" plan. Judging from the latest progress of the current plan, according to Pan Yanhong at the 2023 results conference, in the second half of 2023, the entire life insurance company, with the strong support of the group, implemented the largest and most extensive organizational change in history. By streamlining various structures, optimizing organizational structures, and managing the market-oriented selection and recruitment of cadres, the organizational efficiency has been significantly optimized, and the organizational vitality has been further stimulated. At the same time, the company launched the second phase of the "Long Voyage" project, guided by organizational reform, focusing on customer-centric value creation, and continuing to promote the "Long Voyage" action in depth.
"After the practice of CPIC Life's long-term transformation in the past three years, the company's consensus on the direction of transformation has become more consistent, and the direction of transformation will continue to be adhered to, the direction will be firmer, and the path will be clearer. Pan Yanhong said.
At the end of 2023, the change of CPIC's top management has attracted the attention of investors, with the former chairman Kong Qingwei retiring and former president Fu Fan taking over as the group's party secretary and taking over as chairman, and Zhao Yonggang, who grew up in CPIC and transferred to Haitong Securities as deputy secretary of the party committee two years ago, returned to the position of president.
After the change of senior management, how will CPIC, which is in the year of adjustment, move?
Fu Fan said that high-quality development is the key direction of the current transformation of CPIC, and the current "large region", "big health" and "big data" strategies are being promoted in an orderly manner. "Although the process of insurance transformation will be very tortuous and the challenges will be uncertain, we will continue to adhere to these three strategic directions in the future. ”
Judging from the performance of CPIC from 2020 to 2022, its operating income was 422.18 billion yuan, 440.64 billion yuan, and 455.37 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year increase of 9.5%, 4.4%, and 3.3%, and the net profit attributable to the parent company was 24.58 billion yuan, 26.83 billion yuan, and 24.61 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year increase of -11.4%, 9.2%, and -8.3%.
(Source of this article: Finance and Economics)