On September 14th, according to the China Securities News (CSN), the premium income of the top 5 insurance companies in A-share market for the first 8 months was announced. According to statistics from CSN, the 5 listed insurance companies achieved a total of 2.17 trillion yuan in original premium income, a year-on-year increase of 5.6%.

Specifically, the premium income of all 5 companies showed positive growth. Among them, Ping An Insurance achieved a premium income of 620.706 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 7.64%, the highest growth rate among the 5 companies.

The other 4 companies, China Life Insurance, China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance, and New China Life Insurance, achieved original premium income of 564.9 billion yuan, 515.678 billion yuan, 333.964 billion yuan, and 130.282 billion yuan respectively, with corresponding year-on-year growth rates of 5.9%, 5%, 4.1%, and 1.9%.

In terms of life insurance, the total original premium income of Ping An Life Insurance, China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance, New China Life Insurance, and China Pacific Life Insurance reached 1.36 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%; in terms of property insurance, the total original premium income of China Pacific Property Insurance, Ping An Property Insurance, and China Pacific Property Insurance reached 735.386 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%.

Multiple industry insiders told China Securities News that in August, under the effect of the "stop selling" strategy, there was no decrease in the sale of new life insurance policies. Due to the market's anticipation of interest rate adjustments, leading companies took advantage of this opportunity to increase sales efforts, making a final push in the sales of long-term savings insurance and critical illness insurance products. At the same time, new products are also being launched one after another.

Industry insiders believe that in the long run, as bank deposit interest rates have been lowered multiple times and the overall hanging interest rate has entered the "1%" era, combined with the volatility of bank wealth management and public fund products in the capital market, savings-type insurance products with a 2.5% guaranteed interest rate may still have some appeal.

In August, the premium of the top five life insurance companies surged, with New China Life Insurance and China Life Insurance seeing a year-on-year growth rate of over 90% in a single month.

By August 2024, the five major life insurance companies in A-shares had accumulated original premium income of 1.36 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%.

Specifically, the original premium income of the five companies is all growing. Among them, Ping An Life Insurance achieved an original premium income of 384.629 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.1%, ranking first among the five companies in terms of growth rate.

China Life Insurance, PICC Life Insurance, New China Life Insurance, and Pacific Life Insurance achieved original premium income of 564.9 billion yuan, 92.281 billion yuan, 130.282 billion yuan, and 191.729 billion yuan, respectively, with corresponding growth rates of 5.9%, 5.7%, 1.9%, and 1.5%.

In terms of monthly performance in August, the five companies achieved a total of 130.515 billion yuan in original premium income, a year-on-year increase of 48%. Among them, New China Life Insurance and PICC Life Insurance achieved original premium income of 18.408 billion yuan and 7.749 billion yuan, with corresponding year-on-year growth rates of 122% and 95%.

Ping An Life Insurance, China Life Insurance, and Pacific Life Insurance achieved original premium income of 41.826 billion yuan, 41.4 billion yuan, and 21.132 billion yuan, respectively, with corresponding year-on-year growth rates of 38%, 29%, and 53%.

Wang Yifeng, Chief Financial Analyst at Everbright Securities, said that in early August this year, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission issued the "Notice on Improving the Pricing Mechanism of Life Insurance Products", which stated that starting from September 1, the maximum guaranteed interest rate for ordinary insurance products would be 2.5%; starting from October 1, the maximum guaranteed interest rate for participating insurance products would be 2%, and the minimum guaranteed interest rate for universal insurance products would be 1.5%. In the short term, the switch to the guaranteed interest rate is bound to trigger market speculation and suspension of sales.

As the base started to decline gradually from August last year, the early release of demand will boost the performance of new policies in the third quarter. At the same time, due to the different pace of product switching, both traditional and participating insurance products have a maximum guaranteed interest rate of 2.5% in September. The income characteristic of participating insurance products with "2.5% guaranteed minimum + floating" may be more attractive, and the proportion of new policies for participating insurance products is expected to increase.

In the medium term, after the full implementation of new products, the two rounds of product switching operations since 2023 have caused early overdraft of demand, which may have a certain impact on subsequent sales.

In the long term, with the repeated reduction of bank deposit interest rates, the overall listing interest rates for 1Y/2Y/3Y/5Y deposits of the 5 major banks have entered the era of "1%". In addition, bank wealth management and public fund products are susceptible to capital market disruptions, making the 2.5% scheduled interest rate savings insurance products still somewhat attractive.

Furthermore, the dynamic adjustment mechanism for scheduled interest rates will significantly benefit insurance companies by allowing them to timely adjust liability costs in response to market changes. This will contribute to the long-term improvement of the industry's asset-liability management level, effectively mitigating interest rate risk.

The property insurance of the three major insurers maintained steady growth in premiums from January to August, with the property insurance of China Pacific Insurance achieving a leading year-on-year growth rate of 7.7%.

From January to August 2024, the property insurance business of the "three major insurers" maintained steady growth, achieving a total original premium income of 735.386 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.3%.

Among them, China Pacific Property Insurance achieved a premium income of 142.235 billion yuan, with a leading year-on-year growth rate of 7.7%; PICC Property Insurance and Ping An Property Insurance achieved premium income of 382.151 billion yuan and 211 billion yuan respectively, corresponding to year-on-year growth rates of 4.3% and 5.3%.

Looking at different types of insurance, from January to August, PICC Property Insurance achieved a cumulative premium income of 186.469 billion yuan for auto insurance, a year-on-year increase of 3%; and a premium income of 195.682 billion yuan for non-auto insurance, a year-on-year increase of 5.7%.

Breaking it down, from January to August, PICC Property Insurance achieved a liability insurance premium income of 26.855 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.6%; medical insurance premium of 838.61 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.2%; agricultural insurance premium of 50.308 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.7%; corporate property insurance premium of 12.734 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.4%; credit insurance premium of 3.71 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of -8.3%.

Zhou Yingjie, Chief Analyst of Non-Bank at Huafu Securities Research Institute, stated that from the perspective of PICC Property Insurance, its property insurance premium income remained in a steady growth trend, with auto insurance premiums maintaining a low-level positive growth, and non-auto insurance growing at a better rate than auto insurance. She expects that with the formal introduction of the second policy on the replacement of old cars with new ones, auto insurance premiums will continue to grow positively.

CEO Zhang Lei of Cheche Technology stated to Caijing News that the growth rate of auto insurance business has generally slowed down due to the impact of the integration of insurance and banking services, and the expense ratio has significantly decreased. Currently, new energy auto insurance is becoming a new growth pole in the auto insurance market.

From the perspective of large insurance companies, the scale of new energy auto insurance is rapidly expanding. For example, in the first half of this year, PICC P&C saw a year-on-year increase of 59.3% in the number of new energy vehicles insured, and CPIC P&C saw a year-on-year increase of 41.7% in premiums for new energy auto insurance. By optimizing the operation of new energy auto insurance and improving management through new models, the cost ratio of new energy auto insurance policies is reduced. Although the overall new energy auto insurance business of large insurance companies is not yet profitable, the comprehensive cost ratio continues to decline.

According to Zhang Lei, in the future, automotive companies will play an increasingly important role in the auto insurance market, becoming the main entry point for auto insurance. Currently, the scale of China's auto insurance market is about 800 billion yuan, and about one-third of the market share is controlled by 4S dealerships, with automotive companies contributing very little. He predicts that with the growth of new energy vehicles, automotive companies will gradually replace 4S dealerships as the main sales channel for insurance within the next 5 years, contributing at least 20% to 30% of the market share, while the market share of 4S dealerships will decrease to below 20%.