The comprehensive strength continued to rise, and the total assets of Chinese Life exceeded 6 trillion yuan for the first time

On the evening of April 26, Chinese Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Life") announced its first quarter 2024 results report. According to the report, the company's total premium, first-year payment, first-year payment for 10 years and above, and total investment income in the first quarter all achieved positive growth. The value of new business has achieved the highest growth rate in recent years, with an increase of 26.3% compared to the reset in the first quarter of 2023.

Since 2024, the mainland's economic operation has started steadily and continued to pick up, but the foundation for promoting the sustained economic recovery needs to be further consolidated. In 2024, Chinese Life will closely focus on the theme of high-quality development, with steady progress in business development, continuous improvement in operating quality and efficiency, more stable market leadership, and continuous enhancement of comprehensive strength.

The insurance business maintained rapid development

The growth rate of total premiums led A-share listed insurance companies

Since the beginning of this year, Chinese Life has fully implemented the spirit of the 20th CPC National Congress and the Second Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee, conscientiously implemented the arrangements of the Central Economic Work Conference, the Central Financial Work Conference, and the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, adhered to seeking progress in stability, promoted stability with progress, established first and then broken, in accordance with the 15-character work requirements of the group company, as well as the company's "three adherences" (strengthening party building, promoting reform, and preventing risks), "three improvements" (stable development, value increase, and heavy team), "three breakthroughs" (excellent service, promoting integration, and cost reduction) business ideas, accelerate the promotion of the company to become better and stronger, and lay a solid foundation for building a world-class life insurance company.

Chinese Life has maintained steady development and continued to lead the industry. In the first quarter of 2024, on the basis of the high base of the same period in 2023, Chinese Life Insurance business continued to achieve rapid development. The company's total premiums were RMB337.638 billion, up 3.2% year-on-year, making it the highest-growing A-share listed insurer. Among them, the renewal premium was RMB225.194 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.5%. New policy premiums were RMB112,444 million, and first-year premiums were RMB74,825 million, up 4.7% year-on-year, of which first-year premiums for ten-year terms and above were RMB25,191 million, up 25.4% year-on-year. The short-term insurance premium was RMB34.804 billion. The surrender rate was 0.26%, down 0.14 percentage points year-on-year.

The quality and efficiency of development continue to improve

The value of new business has achieved the highest growth rate in recent years

The business structure of Chinese Life has been continuously optimized, and the quality and efficiency of development have been further improved. The company continued to strengthen asset and liability management, and actively promoted the construction of a product system with diversified forms, multiple terms and multiple costs. The proportion of first-year premiums paid for ten-year terms and above in the first-year premiums was 33.67%, an increase of 5.57 percentage points over the same period in 2023. Driven by the rapid growth of medium- and long-term delivery business, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, the value of new business in the first quarter of 2024 achieved the highest growth rate in recent years, and increased by 26.3% compared with the value of new business after the reset in the first quarter of 2023.

The quantity and quality of the sales force have increased steadily

The average first-year payment per individual insurance month increased by 17.7% year-on-year

Chinese Life has always adhered to high-quality development. Since 2023, the reform of the marketing system has been implemented, promoting the upgrading of the existing team and the layout of new marketing models, and constantly building a solid foundation for development. The company continued to consolidate the basic management, and the direction of the professional, professional and comprehensive reform of the sales team was further clarified. The existing team has accelerated professional upgrading around six major measures such as structural adjustment, foundation consolidation, urban strengthening, and county-level deep cultivation, and the scale of the sales team has taken the lead in stabilizing, the team structure and quality have been continuously optimized, and the team's production capacity has been greatly improved. As of March 31, 2024, the total sales force of Chinese Life is 679,000.

The individual insurance channel continues to strengthen the optimal increase and optimal education, and strives to create an integrated newcomer breeding system with linkage between the increase and education. The "Normal Operation System for the Construction of Individual Insurance Team", "Zhongxin Plan" and "Strong Foundation Project" continue to stabilize the basic market of the team; the exploration of new marketing models has shifted from the R&D stage to the pilot stage, the "Seed Plan" has laid out new marketing, and the team has created a team of "professional, valuable and integrated" financial and insurance planners to cultivate new momentum in the future.

The scale of the Chinese life team has stabilized and the situation has been consolidated. As of March 31, 2024, the company's individual insurance sales workforce was 622,000. The quality of the team has improved significantly, the number and proportion of high-performing people have continued to increase, the average monthly first-year premium paid in the individual insurance sector has increased by 17.7% year-on-year, and the production capacity of the team has continued to grow on the basis of a high base. The pilot of the new marketing model of individual insurance has been rapidly promoted, and the pilot of the "Seed Plan" has been launched in Jiangsu, Guangdong, Shenzhen and other provincial institutions.

Maintain long-term asset allocation focus

Total investment income increased by 7.2% year-on-year

Chinese Life adheres to the concept of long-term investment, value investment and stable investment, and takes multiple measures to stabilize investment returns. In the first quarter of 2024, the interest rate pivot continued to decline, the A-share market fluctuated at a low level, and the structural differentiation continued. Chinese Life achieved a total investment income of RMB64.657 billion, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%, with a simple annualized total investment return of 3.23%, and a net investment income of RMB42.681 billion, with a simple annualized net investment return of 2.82%.

The comprehensive strength continued to rise, and the total assets of Chinese Life exceeded 6 trillion yuan for the first time. As of March 31, 2024, the total assets of Chinese Life reached RMB6,070.843 billion and the investment assets reached RMB5,931.895 billion, an increase of 4.6% and 4.8% respectively from the beginning of 2024. The Company's solvency continued to maintain a high level, with a core solvency adequacy ratio of 154.97% and a comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio of 209.17%. In the first quarter of 2024, the Company achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of RMB20.644 billion, demonstrating strong resilience. As of March 31, 2024, the company's shareholders' equity attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 480.406 billion yuan, an increase of 46.6% from the end of the previous year.

The pace of construction of the big health and big pension service system has been accelerated

The scale of personal pension business ranks among the top in the industry

Chinese Life fully integrates internal and external high-quality resources, continuously improves health management service capabilities, and creates a high-quality, efficient, online and offline integrated health management service system. As of December 31, 2023, the number of service items on the China Life Health Platform exceeded 100, covering seven categories of health management services, including health examination, health consultation, health promotion, disease prevention, chronic disease management, medical services, and rehabilitation nursing, with a cumulative increase of 20.0% in registered users compared with the end of last year, ranking among the top in the industry.

Adhere to customer-centricity, clarify the medium- and long-term development goals and plans of Chinese life's characteristic pension ecology, dynamically evaluate the implementation of the strategy and continuously optimize the development strategy. Chinese Life follows the four principles of long-termism, customer-centric, market-oriented operation and rolling development, accelerates the pace of elderly care ecological construction, gradually expands the layout of elderly care projects in key cities, and continuously improves the supply capacity of diversified services, providing customers with full-life cycle elderly care services that "reassure children and the elderly". In 2023, 7 new institutional elderly care projects will be deployed and 5 urban home-based elderly care model pilots will be added. We will build a new team of exclusive planners for the elderly of China Life, enrich the product docking system, and better meet the needs of pension planning and security with professional services. The company actively participates in the construction of the third pillar of the national pension insurance system and continuously introduces new products and services. As of December 31, 2023, the scale of Chinese Life's personal pension business ranks among the top in the industry.

2024 is the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, a key year for achieving the goals and tasks of the 14th Five-Year Plan, and an important year for the reform of Chinese's life cycle. Chinese Life will adhere to the customer-centric, adhere to the stability of progress, to promote stability, first establish and then break, practice the "three persistence", "three improvement" and "three breakthrough" business ideas, strengthen the linkage of capital and liability, accelerate transformation and upgrading, optimize customer service, deepen resource integration, strengthen cost control, keep the bottom line of risks, and effectively promote the company's high-quality development to a new level. (Yu Jianglian, Liu Hui)