Reporter Chen Jingjing reports from Beijing
On April 15, it was reported that Fang Li, chairman of Fude Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fude Life"), resigned, causing heated discussions in the industry.
The reporter of "China Business Daily" verified with Fude Life Insurance and learned that on April 12, 2024, Fang Li submitted a written resignation letter to the board of directors of Fude Life Insurance for personal reasons, resigning from all positions such as the company's director, chairman and legal representative, and relevant matters are subject to regulatory approval.
Industry insiders believe that since entering Fude Life Insurance in May 2011, Fang Li has made a lot of efforts for its transformation and steady development, stable people's hearts during the risk investigation period, and basic business protection, and has served as the chairman of the board for 10 years.
Fude Life Insurance told this reporter that during her tenure as the chairman of the company, Ms. Fang Li bravely shouldered heavy burdens, fulfilled her duties, and faithfully performed her duties as the chairman, which played a key role in the company's steady operation and sustainable development, especially promoted the company to embark on the road of transformation and upgrading, and laid a solid foundation for the company to move towards high-quality development. The Board of Directors of the Company expressed its heartfelt gratitude to Ms. Fang Li for her contribution to the development of the Company. At present, Ms. Fang Li still serves as the vice chairman of Fude Holdings (Group) Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Fude Group") and continues to contribute to the development and growth of Fude Group.
It is worth mentioning that except for the change of the chairman's position, the position of general manager has not been officially settled. At present, Xu Wenyuan is the interim head of Fude Life Insurance, acting as the general manager.
"Veteran" level figures
According to public information, Fang Li was born in January 1965, has a doctoral degree, and has served as the secretary of the former Central Financial Working Committee, the former director of the Supervision Division and the deputy director of the Supervision Department of the Life Insurance Supervision Department of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, the former member of the first China Insurance Solvency Regulatory Standards Committee of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission, a member of the first council of the China Association of Actuaries, and an expert in the qualification evaluation of the second enterprise annuity fund management institution of the Ministry of Labor and Social Security.
It is reported that Fang Li is the only female chairman of the insurance industry with a regulatory background, and she is also the first chairman of Fude Life Insurance after the renaming. In May 2011, Fang Li "went to sea" from the position of deputy director of the life insurance department of the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission and parachuted into Life Insurance as a director, and in August 2014, with the approval of the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission, Fang Li took over Zhang Jun as the chairman of Life Insurance. In the same year, Life Insurance officially changed its name to Fude Life Insurance.
The reporter learned that after Fang Li became the chairman, Fude Life Insurance began its professional transformation in 2015, proposing to get rid of the development model that is highly dependent on investment returns and shareholder investment, and to change the focus of business.
In his internal speech in 2016, Fang Li made it clear that in the next five years, the overall strategic goal of Fude Life Insurance is to "enter the first group in an all-round way and build a first-class industry benchmark". For the problems existing in Fude Life Insurance at that time, Fang Li made a detailed analysis. She said that according to the plan, the company will start with the profit model, cash flow sources, new business value and operational efficiency to solve the current problems to promote the sustainable and healthy development of the company. The company will gradually achieve a balanced development of long-term and short-term interest rate spreads and death and illness differences through 3-5 years of adjustment. As for how to realize the five-year planning strategy, the path is to "fly in the single period, develop both short and long, rise in volume and price, and repair both internally and externally".
According to previous interviews with reporters, in 2020, 35 branches of Fude Life Insurance across the country will collectively carry out transformation, focusing on professional training, resource allocation, cadre appointment, personnel assessment, and technology empowerment. In the same year, the "Basic Law" was amended to comprehensively upgrade the four dimensions of development route, treatment, care and management, aiming to fully implement professional management.
In August 2021, Fang Li said frankly in his public speech that Fude Life Insurance has been transforming since 2015, and the road to transformation is very difficult, with many external difficulties and internal resistance.
"Transformation is a systematic project, which is the transformation and upgrading of resource allocation, management methods and business promotion methods. Transformation is not a change at a local point, it is not a matter of a line or a department, and it requires the head office and branch to resonate at the same frequency and the same desire. Fang Li further said that in the past few years, Fude Life Insurance has mainly done several things around the determined transformation goals, including the joint improvement of leadership by the head office and branches, in order to realize the company's transformation from "market-driven" to "leadership-driven" as soon as possible, solve the cognitive problems of senior executives in the transformation process, and solve more problems that come from internal resistance. Landing agent professional operation. Cooperate with training institutions to provide systematic professional training for insurance agents.
Fang Li also proposed: "The head office, branches, front, middle and back offices should focus on transformation and resonance at the same frequency. From the aspects of product, marketing, operation, customer service, brand, science and technology, etc., we will simultaneously promote and establish a standardized and standardized support system. ”
Industry insiders commented on Fang Li to reporters: "From the original expansion style to today's steady operation, Fang Li is an important person in promoting the transformation of Fude Life Insurance to achieve today's results. We all know in the industry that she has made great efforts to the development of Fude Life Insurance in recent years, including the professional transformation she proposed, which is also many years ahead of some other insurance companies. ”
Deepening the transformation proposes to make efforts to recuperate
It is reported that at the end of 2022, Fude Group formulated the development strategy of "Fude New Journey" and put forward the "369" central task, and Fude Life Insurance has also entered a new stage of development of value transformation.
It is reported that in the face of continuous changes in the internal and external situation of the industry, Fude Life Insurance has always maintained its determination and insisted on improving its value creation ability and refined management ability.
The relevant person in charge of Fude Life Insurance told this reporter that in recent years, the members of the management team of Fude Life Insurance have been stable, the road of high-quality transformation has also achieved positive results, and the performance trend of core business indicators is improving. In 2023, Fude Life Insurance achieved a profit attributable to its parent company, with a total premium income of more than RMB110 billion, a year-on-year increase of more than 2 times in the value of new business, a significant increase in the value rate of new orders, and a continuation rate of more than 90% in all four core items.
In 2023, the company's effective per capita standard insurance will be about 36,000 yuan, an increase of 41.3% year-on-year, and the total number of top performers such as IDA and MDRT will exceed 1,600. The bancassurance channel vigorously optimized the structure of single termination, and the value-based futures business continued to grow, with a year-on-year increase of 66.2% in the scale of premiums paid in 2023, resolutely implementing policies such as 'integration of reporting and banking', and strictly adhering to the bottom line of compliance operation. The above-mentioned person in charge further said.
It is reported that recently, Fude Life Insurance also publicly announced the implementation of the health care strategy. On April 2, Fude Life Insurance held the launch ceremony of the "Fude Pension, Better Life" health care project and the unveiling ceremony of the first customer experience hall in Hangzhou, Zhejiang.
Xu Wenyuan said at the launch ceremony that through the in-depth promotion of the optimization of the structure of the debt side and the reduction of costs and efficiency of the company's operation, the results of concept transformation, business transformation, team transformation, management transformation and capability transformation have begun to appear, and in 2023, the company will achieve the profitability of net profit attributable to the parent company, and the momentum of sustainable development will continue to increase. By creating a service model of "insurance products + home care", we have built a professional and comprehensive one-stop home care solution for the main scenarios of home care for the elderly, which further extends the company's customer service chain while continuously empowering the agent's business development and retention, and the optimization of the premium structure.
"The official launch of the 'Fude Pension, Better Life' health care project not only announces the company's 'customer-centric' strategic transformation, but also sounds the clarion call of the times to forge ahead on the new journey of Fude. By connecting physical pension services through intangible financial products, Fude Life Insurance can not only play the role of the third pillar of pension through pension and help customers make pension reserves, but also deeply integrate the resources of the health care industry chain to provide high-quality health care services. Fude Life Insurance said.
Fude Life Insurance further said that within the year, the first batch of 15 customer experience halls of "Fude Pension, Better Life" will be completed and put into use, and in the next three years, it will gradually cover 100 stores nationwide, and simultaneously support the launch of pension insurance and health care services.
(Editor: He Shasha Review: Zhu Ziyun Proofreader: Zhang Guogang)