Listed insurance companies posted their first quarter report cards, and the performance of Chinese Life rose against the market!

"Investor's Network" Cui Yuechen

On April 17, with the release of the premium income announcement of New China Insurance in the first quarter of 2024, the premium income of the five A-share listed insurance companies in the first quarter of 2024 has all surfaced.

According to statistics, in the first quarter of this year, Chinese Life, Ping An of China, Chinese People's Insurance Company, China Pacific Insurance and Xinhua Insurance achieved a total premium income of 1,066.423 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.96% over the same period last year. Affected by external factors, the premium income of listed insurance companies fluctuated in the first quarter. However, Chinese Life's performance has taken the lead, injecting a shot of strength into the insurance industry.

Specifically, the performance of Chinese Life is the most eye-catching, showing a trend of rising against the market. In the first quarter of this year, Chinese Life achieved a cumulative premium income of 337.6 billion yuan, an increase of 3.2% over the same period last year, becoming the listed insurance company with the highest growth rate.

Ping An of China and Chinese Insurance also achieved a slight increase in premium income, with premium income of 264.422 billion yuan and 253.031 billion yuan in the first quarter of this year, an increase of 1.6% and 1.3% respectively over the same period last year.

On the other hand, CPIC and Xinhua Insurance saw a decline in premium income. In the first quarter of this year, the premium income was 154.177 billion yuan and 57.193 billion yuan respectively, down 0.18% and 11.7% respectively from the same period last year.

The life insurance business grew steadily

Under the influence of factors such as the reduction of bancassurance and delivery, the life insurance industry is facing a weakening growth momentum, and the overall industry is showing a slowdown in growth, while Chinese Life, whose main business is life insurance, still maintains stable business growth.

According to the data, the premium income of Chinese Life in the first quarter of 2024 was 337.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 3.2%, and it is the only enterprise in the industry with a premium scale of more than 300 billion yuan.

Compared with peers, Ping An Life's premium income in the first quarter was 173.302 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.9%. The premium income of CPIC Life, PICC Life Insurance and Xinhua Life Insurance in the first quarter was 91.686 billion yuan, 54.518 billion yuan and 57.193 billion yuan respectively, down 5.4%, 8.2% and 11.7% year-on-year respectively.

Behind the steady growth of Chinese life's performance, it is inseparable from the upgrading of the sales force and the layout of the new marketing model.

The 2023 annual report shows that in the past year, Chinese Life actively promoted the reform of the marketing system, continuously optimized the structure and quality of the sales force, and greatly increased the production capacity of the team. By the end of 2023, the total sales force of Chinese Life has increased to 694,000.

At the same time, Chinese Life actively builds a "life insurance +" integrated financial ecosystem to empower high-quality development. In 2023, Chinese Life Collaborative Sales of Property and Casualty Insurance Products achieved premium income of RMB23.6 billion, with a year-on-year increase of 6.5% in the number of policies, enriching customer acquisition channels and promoting sales force revenue growth.

In addition, Chinese Life actively explores the synergy between insurance and investment business, and continues to deepen cooperation with Chinese Life Asset Management Co., Ltd. and China Life Investment Insurance Asset Management Co., Ltd. to innovate and explore new models of insurance investment interaction.

The individual insurance sector continues to recover

Individual insurance is the main source of Chinese life premium income. In the past year, Chinese Life has focused on value creation, promoted channel transformation, significantly optimized its business structure, and showed a recovery trend in personal insurance income.

According to the annual report, in 2023, Chinese Life will achieve premium income of 641.38 billion yuan, of which the income of the individual insurance sector will be 501.58 billion yuan, accounting for 78.2%, an increase of 1.9% compared with the income of the individual insurance sector of 492.439 billion yuan in 2022.

The premium income of bancassurance channel, group insurance channel and other channels was 78.748 billion yuan, 28.154 billion yuan and 32.898 billion yuan respectively, accounting for 12.3%, 4.4% and 5.1% respectively.

In terms of the personal insurance sector, Chinese Life has promoted the establishment of a customer-centered personal insurance management system around the concept of "customer capital building team", promoted the professional upgrading of the existing team, and created an integrated new cultivation system with linkage between breeding and breeding. By the end of 2023, the sales force of Chinese Life Insurance reached 634,000, and the average monthly first-year premium per capita increased by 28.6% year-on-year.

In terms of bancassurance channels, Chinese Life continued to strengthen cooperation with banks, and the scale and value of premiums increased rapidly. By the end of 2023, the number of account managers in the bancassurance channel reached 23,000, with an average quarterly increase of 8.5% year-on-year, and a significant year-on-year increase in per capita delivery capacity.

In terms of group insurance channels, the size of the sales force will reach 37,000 in 2023, and the proportion of high-performing manpower will increase by 4.7 percentage points compared with 2022, and the per capita production capacity will grow steadily.

In terms of other channels, Chinese Life actively carries out various policy-based health insurance businesses. By the end of 2023, the company has run more than 200 critical illness insurance projects, covering nearly 350 million people, undertaken more than 70 policy-based long-term care insurance projects, covering more than 38 million people, and has implemented more than 120 customized commercial medical insurance projects in cities.

Digital transformation strategy

Chinese Life's strategic layout in product innovation, channel expansion and digital transformation is also worth paying attention to.

In the past year, Chinese Life has fully launched the construction of financial technology digital projects, effectively promoting the company's high-quality development with high-quality scientific and technological capabilities. For example, a distributed data center is built to ensure the continuity of the company's business, and a digital risk control system is built based on big data analysis to quickly identify and accurately capture key business risks, so as to realize the forward movement of risk control gates and real-time dynamic monitoring.

On the other hand, Chinese Life continues to strengthen product supply research and strengthen product diversification. By the end of 2023, the company has developed and upgraded a total of 196 products.

The above business layout has become the key to supporting the company's profitable growth. In 2023, the net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of Chinese Life will be 21.110 billion yuan, and the company will distribute cash dividends of RMB 0.43 per share (including tax) to all shareholders, totaling about RMB 12.154 billion, with a dividend rate of 57.57%. The increase in the dividend ratio reflects the importance that Chinese Life attaches to shareholder returns, and at the same time shows confidence in future profits.

The analysis of the non-bank financial team of Pacific Securities predicts that from 2024 to 2026, the operating income of Chinese Life will increase by 7.44%, 7.47% and 7.19% year-on-year, and the net profit attributable to the parent will increase by 23.89%, 17.06% and 12.67% year-on-year, with EPS of 0.93 yuan, 1.08 yuan and 1.22 yuan per share. Overall, earnings will remain positive in the next two years.

Chinese Life said in the annual report that the focus of work in 2024 will be to adhere to the customer-centric, adhere to the stability of progress, to promote stability, first establish and then break, to achieve stable development, value increase, heavy team "three improvements", strengthen excellent service, promote integration, cost reduction "three breakthroughs", promote the company's scale, value, efficiency, performance of manpower in the long cycle to achieve steady growth, and continue to consolidate the market dominance.

As far as the industry as a whole is concerned, the growing demand for multi-level and high-quality health, medical care, pension and other aspects has provided and created huge market space and growth potential for the development of the insurance industry. With the first quarter results conference of Chinese Life coming to be held at the end of this month, Investor.com will continue to pay attention to the report. (Produced by Thinking Finance)■