China Insurance Annual Report⑫ Listed insurance companies ramp up bancassurance: dual focus on scale and value, balancing both periodic and single premium payments

In 2025, against the backdrop of ongoing transformation and adjustment in the individual insurance (I.I.) channel, as well as mounting pressure on both new business and manpower growth, the bancassurance channel has become the core growth driver for leading listed life insurers. With regulatory guidance from the “reporting-to-bank and agent-to-bank alignment” policy layered on top, the industry has effectively reversed the previous development predicament of “prioritizing scale over value,” achieving a dual-wheel drive of both scale and value and raising them in tandem.

That is precisely why, based on the latest 2025 annual reports disclosed by listed insurers, it is not hard to see that leading life insurers are continuing to step up strategic investment in the bancassurance channel.

In terms of branch layout, the partnership scope has expanded from state-owned big banks to joint-stock banks, further extending to high-quality local commercial banks, and even penetrating county-level markets; in product strategies, the bancassurance channel has seized the opportunity of this “deposit reshuffling” wave and has become a key battleground for insurers to advance the transition of floating-income product lines; in ecosystem collaboration, as exemplified by China Life and CEB’s scenario-based service deployment, and Ping An Life leveraging Ping An Bank to build bancassurance as an important engine for growing wealth, competition among leading insurers in bancassurance has fully entered a stage of intense heat.

Specifically regarding operating performance in bancassurance, which insurer achieved double-digit high growth in both new business and value in 2025? What changes and trends are also reflected in its business structure?

China Life and Ping An Bancassurance: New Business Growth Exceeds 90%!

In 2025, the bancassurance channels of listed leading life insurers posted across-the-board red figures, with no exceptions delivering substantial positive growth in premium income, becoming a core driver behind premium growth.

Judging from premium scale and growth rates, data show that in 2025, China Life’s bancassurance premium income was the highest among several listed insurers, reaching 110.87B yuan, up 45.5% year over year. The bancassurance premium growth rate for China Ping An Life and Health Insurance was the most eye-catching, up 50.29% year over year to 71.52 billion yuan.

In addition, in 2025, Taikang Life, New China Life, and PICC Life’s bancassurance premium income increases also exceeded 30%. Among them, Taikang Life’s bancassurance channel premium scale was 61.62B yuan, up 46.4% year over year; New China Life’s bancassurance premium income was 72.1B yuan, up 39.5% year over year; PICC Life’s bancassurance premium income was 68.28B yuan, up 33.5% year over year; and Sunshine Life’s total bancassurance premium income rose 34.8% year over year to 67.46 billion yuan. By contrast, Taiping Life’s growth in the bancassurance channel was smaller: its original premium income grew 7.5% year over year to 63.32B HKD, a growth rate that left other smaller and medium-sized life insurers far behind and envious.

Of note, in terms of the share of premium income, some leading listed life insurers’ bancassurance channels have already surpassed the individual insurance channel, accounting for half the market and becoming an unquestionable main channel. For example, PICC Life’s bancassurance premium income share reached 54.2%; Sunshine Life’s bancassurance premium income share was even as high as 65.7%.

As a “barometer” of channel development, the strong growth trend in bancassurance first-year premiums further confirms the vitality of channel growth. According to annual report data, in 2025, among China Life and Ping An Life & Health Insurance business segments, the growth rates of bancassurance new business premiums (or new business scale premiums) all exceeded 90%. Specifically, China Life’s bancassurance long-term first-year business premium grew 97.1% year over year, while Ping An Life & Health Insurance’s bancassurance new business scale premium grew 92.2% year over year.

Meanwhile, in the same period, Sunshine Life and New China Life’s bancassurance new business premium income grew by more than 50%. For the former, first-year new business premiums rose 69% year over year to 34.09B yuan; for the latter, the long-term first-year premiums in its bancassurance channel grew 52.3% year over year to 37.93B yuan.

A series of data clearly shows that the bancassurance channel has become the core engine driving premium growth for leading listed life insurers. With both scale and growth momentum increasing, it continues to reshape the competitive landscape of life insurance channels.

Increase Single-Payment (Lump-Sum) Premiums to Seize the “Deposit Reshuffling” Opportunity?

As is well known, the strong rise of bancassurance for leading listed life insurers is inseparable from the effective pull of lump-sum new business. Worth paying attention to is that in 2025, some insurers’ lump-sum bancassurance business also rebounded strongly.

China Taiping’s 2025 annual report shows that in Taiping Life, bancassurance long-term first-year lump-sum premium was 2.27B HKD, surging 541.4% year over year. In addition, New China Life’s bancassurance long-term first-year lump-sum premium scale increased 80.9% year over year to 19.96 billion yuan, and the lump-sum premium scale exceeded that of regular-payment (scheduled) premiums. China Life’s bancassurance long-term first-year lump-sum premiums also grew markedly, with a year-over-year increase of 195.5% to 31.62B yuan.

In fact, the growth momentum of lump-sum bancassurance had already appeared earlier. Industry media analysis previously noted that in the first half of 2025, lump-sum new business premiums in bancassurance for major listed insurers had already surpassed 70 billion yuan, increasing by more than 100% year over year. The growth rate was far higher than that of scheduled (regular-payment) bancassurance business, making it an important force driving growth in bancassurance.

Why did lump-sum bancassurance, which had once fallen somewhat silent, return strongly? What underlying logic lies behind it? A research report recently released by Guotai Junan Securities Research Institute mentioned that since 2023, the rankings of lump-sum bancassurance among major companies have generally been moving upward. This is expected to mainly result from resource-based product injections used to open up new branch locations. As the tightness of cooperation between companies and branches further increases, the enhanced per-branch output of previously newly opened branches has contributed additional incremental growth accordingly.

Indeed, from the perspective of insurers’ operations, lump-sum bancassurance is an important lever for rapidly expanding scale, accumulating customers, and strengthening channel fundamentals. By leveraging the scale effects of lump-sum business, insurers can effectively enhance their bargaining power with banks, laying a solid foundation for subsequent channel deepening and business upgrading.

From the standpoint of market demand, residents’ deposits totaling tens of trillions of yuan are coming due in batches, and coupled with the low interest-rate environment, lump-sum bancassurance products—because they require a one-time investment, lock in long-term returns, and have policy-asset attributes—fit residents’ needs for “preserving and maintaining the value of idle money” even better.

Banks’ business demand further boosts growth in lump-sum business. With banks’ net interest margin continuing to face pressure and profitability space in traditional deposit-and-loan businesses shrinking, banks’ intermediary income has become a breakthrough point for growth in bank earnings. Compared with scheduled-payment products, lump-sum bancassurance products issue faster, involve large premium volumes, and feature high commission settlement efficiency. Under banks’ performance evaluation orientation of “pushing for intermediary income while stabilizing performance,” lump-sum bancassurance products have become a preferred product category for branch distribution.

As can be seen above, at present, the operating strategy of leading listed life insurers in bancassurance is showing characteristics of driving on two fronts—scheduled-payment and lump-sum—supported by coordinated growth. Scheduled-payment business builds the foundation of value, lump-sum business seizes market dividends, and the two complement each other to enable dual improvements in both scale and value for the bancassurance channel.

Breaking the Conventional Notion: “Big in Scale, No Value!”

For a long time, the bancassurance channel has been labeled by the industry as “high in scale, low in value.” It has mainly manifested as high-scale growth but subdued new business value rates, as well as weak profit contribution—thus regarded as a “revenue without profit” channel. However, since the implementation and deepening of the “reporting-to-bank and agent-to-bank alignment” regulatory policy in 2023, the industry landscape has changed significantly. 2025 data show that the bancassurance channels of leading insurers have seen both scale and value erupt in sync.

Specifically, the new business value of the bancassurance channel in China Ping An Life and Health Insurance increased 138% year over year. New China Life’s bancassurance new business value rose 110.2% year over year. In addition, the bancassurance new business value of Taikang Life and PICC Life also achieved double-digit growth, increasing by 102.68% and 102.3% year over year, respectively. Sunshine Life’s bancassurance new business value grew 64.57% year over year.

Although China Life has not disclosed the specific data for bancassurance new business value, it describes in its annual report that by actively implementing the “reporting-to-bank and agent-to-bank alignment” policy, it has improved channel cost control and efficiency, achieving a significant increase in both premium scale and new business value.

Looking at the 2025 annual reports, it is not hard to see that the operating results brought about by a dual drive of scale and value further solidify leading insurers’ resolve to increase investment in the bancassurance channel. Especially under the policy tailwind of loosening the “1+3” branch restrictions, insurers are accelerating efforts to expand the coverage, improve quality, and enhance efficiency of bancassurance cooperation branches.

China Life President Li Mingguang also mentioned at China Life’s 2025 results briefing that, by adhering to comprehensive layout of bancassurance, expanding branch operations to enhance quality, the number of new-business issuing branches and star branches have both achieved double-digit growth. At the same time, focusing on specialized capability building, promoting stable manpower growth with improved quality, the first-year scheduled-payment per customer manager productivity increased 53.7% year over year.

Data show that by the end of 2025, China Life’s cooperative banks exceeded 100. The number of new-business issuing branches reached 77k, up 25.9% year over year, among which the number of star branches increased 49.1% year over year.

Taikang Life General Manager Li Jingsong also disclosed at the results briefing that, on the one hand, the company continues to promote optimization of channel structure, establishing comprehensive business cooperation with all state-owned big banks, and deepening the channel operating and management system that is better aligned with how state-owned big banks run; Taikang’s share among the six major state-owned banks improved by 3 percentage points year over year. On the other hand, it strengthens deep cooperation with joint-stock banks. Relying on the advantages of Taikang’s “product and services” platform and high-customer operation system, it promotes refined management of branches and teams, and explores integrated development with joint-stock banks. With the share in joint-stock banks continuing to stay in the lead, the overall channel structure becomes more balanced.

“In terms of cooperation, there are as many as 56 banks involved in bancassurance cooperation. On the basis of broad coverage, in 2025 we place more emphasis on deep cultivation. Working together with cooperative banks to leverage their resource endowments, we expand multi-dimensional coordination and deliver the effect that ‘1+1>2.’” Wang Lianwen, vice president of New China Life, also introduced this at the company’s 2025 results briefing.

Team building for bancassurance and productivity improvement are also key directions for leading insurers to step up efforts. Wang Lianwen pointed out that in team building, closely centering on the company’s “Strong Foundation Project 2.0,” bancassurance headcount growth exceeded 20%, and productivity improved by 17%. Li Mingguang also said that going forward, the bancassurance channel will focus on channel deepening and a leap in branch productivity as key breakthroughs, to strengthen team strength as an effective support, upgrade professional capabilities, deepen the cooperation ecosystem, and continuously enhance the channel’s contribution.

Of note, around implementing the “reporting-to-bank and agent-to-bank alignment” policy in bancassurance channels, recently the Financial Regulation Administration’s General Office of Life Insurance Supervision issued the “Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Fees Charged by Bank-Agency Channels” and supporting Q&A materials. Building on the 2023 life insurance “reporting-to-bank and agent-to-bank alignment,” fee management for bancassurance channels has been further tightened. The focus has shifted from cutting down overt cost items to rectifying the room for hidden accounting (“small ledgers”) fees.

It can be expected that the new rules, by comprehensively blocking “fee back doors,” will push the industry from “competing on fees” toward a higher-quality development path of “competing on products and competing on services.” The advantages of leading insurers will become even more prominent, and the contribution of new business value in bancassurance may be expected to continue to rise.