In 2025, as the individual agent channel continues to undergo transformation and faces pressure on new policy and manpower growth, the bancassurance channel has become the core growth driver for leading listed life insurance companies. Enhanced by the standardization and guidance of the "compliance unification" policy, the industry has effectively reversed the previous development dilemma of prioritizing scale over value, achieving a dual-wheel drive and simultaneous improvement in both scale and value.
Consequently, the latest 2025 annual reports from listed insurers clearly show that leading life insurers are continuously increasing their strategic investment in the bancassurance channel.
Regarding branch network layout, the scope of cooperation has expanded from major state-owned banks to joint-stock banks, extending to high-quality local commercial banks and even penetrating county-level markets. In terms of product strategy, the bancassurance channel is seizing the opportunity presented by the shift of deposits, becoming a key battleground for insurers to advance the transition to floating-income products. In ecological synergy, exemplified by China Life Insurance's scenario-based service layout with China Guangfa Bank and Ping An Life Insurance leveraging Ping An Bank to make bancassurance a major engine for wealth management growth, competition among leading insurers in the bancassurance channel has fully entered an intense phase.
Specifically, regarding the operational performance of the bancassurance channel in 2025, which insurer achieved high growth in both new policies and value? What changes and trends are evident in the business structure?
China Life and Ping An See Bancassurance New Premium Growth Exceed 90%!
In 2025, the bancassurance channels of leading listed life insurers performed exceptionally well across the board, without exception achieving substantial positive growth in premium income, becoming the core force driving overall premium growth.
In terms of premium scale and growth rate, data shows that China Life Insurance had the highest bancassurance premium income among the listed insurers in 2025, reaching 110.874 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 45.5%. The bancassurance premium growth for Ping An Insurance's life and health insurance business was the most remarkable, surging 50.29% year-on-year to 71.52 billion yuan.
Furthermore, in 2025, the bancassurance premium income growth for CPIC Life, New China Life, and PICC Life also exceeded 30%. Specifically, CPIC Life's bancassurance scale premium was 61.618 billion yuan, up 46.4% year-on-year; New China Life's bancassurance premium income was 72.102 billion yuan, up 39.5% year-on-year; PICC Life's bancassurance premium income was 68.278 billion yuan, up 33.5% year-on-year; Sunshine Life's total bancassurance premium income grew 34.8% year-on-year to 67.46 billion yuan. In contrast, China Taiping Life experienced smaller growth, with original premium income increasing 7.5% year-on-year to 63.319 billion Hong Kong dollars, a growth rate that remains enviable and hard to match for other small and medium-sized life insurers.
It is noteworthy that, in terms of premium income contribution, the bancassurance channel has already surpassed the individual agent channel for some leading listed life insurers, supporting more than half of the business and becoming the undisputed main channel. For instance, the bancassurance channel contributes 54.2% of PICC Life's premium income; for Sunshine Life, the bancassurance channel's contribution is as high as 65.7%.
As a barometer of channel development, the strong growth trend in new bancassurance premiums further confirms the channel's vitality. Annual report data indicates that in 2025, the growth rates for new premium income or new business scale premium in the bancassurance channel for both China Life Insurance and Ping An's life and health insurance business exceeded 90%. Specifically, China Life's first-year regular premium business in bancassurance grew 97.1% year-on-year, while Ping An's new business scale premium in bancassurance for life and health insurance grew 92.2% year-on-year.
During the same period, Sunshine Life and New China Life saw their new premium income in the bancassurance channel grow by over 50%. The former's new premium income surged 69% year-on-year to 34.087 billion yuan, while the latter's first-year regular premium in bancassurance grew 52.3% year-on-year to 37.934 billion yuan.
This series of data clearly confirms that the bancassurance channel has become the core engine for leading listed life insurers to drive premium growth. Its dual enhancement in scale and growth momentum is continuously reshaping the channel competition landscape of the life insurance industry.
Capitalizing on Deposit Shifts with Increased Single Premium Focus?
It is well known that the strong rise of the bancassurance channel for leading listed insurers is closely linked to the effective pull from new regular premium business. Notably, in 2025, the single premium bancassurance business of some insurers also experienced a strong recovery.
China Taiping's 2025 annual report shows that the single premium for first-year regular policies in Taiping Life's bancassurance channel was 2.273 billion Hong Kong dollars, a substantial surge of 541.4% year-on-year. Additionally, the scale of single premium for first-year regular policies in New China Life's bancassurance channel increased significantly by 80.9% year-on-year to 19.96 billion yuan, with the single premium scale exceeding that of regular premiums. China Life's single premium for first-year regular policies in bancassurance also showed impressive growth, with a year-on-year growth rate of 195.5% to 31.619 billion yuan.
In fact, the growth momentum of bancassurance single premiums had already emerged. Previous industry analysis pointed out that in the first half of 2025, the new single premium for bancassurance from large listed insurers had exceeded 70 billion yuan, growing over 100% year-on-year, a rate far higher than that of bancassurance regular premium business, making it an important force driving bancassurance channel growth.
Why has the once-quiet single premium bancassurance business made a strong comeback, and what is the underlying logic? A recent related research report from Sinolink Securities Institute mentioned that since 2023, the rankings for single premium bancassurance among major companies have mostly risen, which is expected to be primarily due to the placement of resource-oriented products for expanding into new bank branches. As the closeness of cooperation between companies and branches further increases, the average productivity per newly expanded branch correspondingly contributes more incremental growth.
Indeed, from the perspective of insurer operations, single premium bancassurance is an important tool for rapidly scaling up, accumulating customers, and solidifying the channel foundation. Leveraging the scale effect of single premiums, insurers can effectively enhance their bargaining power in cooperation with banks, laying a solid foundation for subsequent channel deepening and business upgrading.
From the perspective of market demand, with tens of trillions of yuan in resident deposits maturing and the low-interest-rate environment, single premium bancassurance products, characterized by a one-time investment, locked-in long-term returns, and policy asset attributes, better meet residents' needs for preserving idle funds.
Business demand from the bank side further fuels the growth of single premium business. Currently, with net interest margins under continuous pressure and profitability from traditional deposit and loan businesses narrowing, intermediary business income has become a breakthrough for bank profit growth. Compared to regular premium products, bancassurance single premium products offer faster policy issuance, larger premium scales, and higher commission settlement efficiency. Under the performance assessment orientation of banks to boost intermediary income and stabilize performance, they have become the preferred category for branch sales.
As evident above, the current operational strategy of leading listed life insurers for the bancassurance channel is characterized by a dual focus on both regular and single premiums, driving synergistic growth. Regular premium business solidifies the value foundation, while single premium business captures market opportunities, working together to promote the dual enhancement of scale and value in the bancassurance channel.
Shattering the Perception of Scale Without Value!
For a long time, the bancassurance channel has been labeled by the industry as having "scale without value," primarily manifested as high growth in scale but low new business value margins and weak profit contribution, seen as a channel that increases revenue but not profits. However, since the implementation and deepening of the "compliance unification" regulatory policy in 2023, the industry landscape has significantly improved. 2025 data shows that leading insurers are experiencing simultaneous explosions in both scale and value in their bancassurance channels.
Specifically, the new business value of Ping An's life and health insurance bancassurance channel grew 138% year-on-year; New China Life's bancassurance new business value grew 110.2% year-on-year. Furthermore, the bancassurance new business value of CPIC Life and PICC Life also achieved doubling growth, increasing 102.68% and 102.3% year-on-year, respectively; Sunshine Life's bancassurance new business value grew 64.57% year-on-year.
Although China Life did not disclose specific new business value data for its bancassurance channel, it stated in its annual report that by actively implementing the "compliance unification" policy and promoting cost control and efficiency enhancement in the channel, it achieved significant increases in both premium scale and new business value.
Reviewing the 2025 annual reports, it is clear that the operational results driven by the dual forces of scale and value have further solidified leading insurers' determination to increase investment in the bancassurance channel. Especially under the policy benefit of loosening the "1+3" branch restrictions, insurers are accelerating efforts to expand, improve quality, and increase efficiency in bancassurance cooperation branches.
Li Mingguang, President of China Life, mentioned at the 2025 results presentation that they adhere to a comprehensive layout of the bancassurance channel, expanding coverage and improving quality in branch operations, with both new policy issuing branches and star-rated branches achieving double-digit growth. Simultaneously, focusing on professionalization, they are driving steady quantity and improved quality of the sales force, with the average first-year regular premium productivity per account manager increasing 53.7% year-on-year.
Data shows that by the end of 2025, China Life cooperated with over a hundred banks, had 77,000 new policy issuing branches, a 25.9% year-on-year increase, among which the number of star-rated branches grew 49.1% year-on-year.
Li Jinsong, General Manager of CPIC Life, also revealed at the results presentation that the company is continuously optimizing its channel structure, having established comprehensive business cooperation relationships with all major state-owned banks, and deepening a channel management system more aligned with the operating mechanisms of these large banks. CPIC's market share in the six major state-owned banks increased by 3 percentage points year-on-year. At the same time, they are consolidating in-depth cooperation with joint-stock banks, leveraging the advantages of CPIC's service system and high-net-worth client management system to promote refined management of branches and teams, and exploring integrated development with joint-stock banks. They maintain a leading share in joint-stock banks, resulting in a more balanced overall channel structure.
"In terms of cooperation, the bancassurance channel collaborates with as many as 56 banks. On the basis of wide coverage, 2025 placed greater emphasis on deepening these relationships, working with partner banks to leverage their resource advantages, expand multi-dimensional synergies, and achieve a '1+1>2' effect," Wang Lianwen, Vice President of New China Life, similarly stated at the company's 2025 results presentation.
Team building and productivity enhancement in bancassurance are also key focus areas for leading insurers. Wang Lianwen pointed out that in team construction, closely aligned with the company's "Foundation Strengthening Project 2.0," the bancassurance workforce size growth exceeded 20%, and productivity increased by 17%. Li Mingguang also stated that the next step for the bancassurance channel will focus on channel deepening and branch productivity leap as key breakthroughs, supported by enhancing team strength, upgrading professional capabilities, deepening the cooperative ecosystem, and continuously increasing channel contribution.
It is worth mentioning that regarding the implementation of the "compliance unification" policy in the bancassurance channel, the Personal Insurance Department of the National Financial Regulatory Administration recently issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Management of Bank Agency Channel Expenses" and accompanying Q&A. Building on the 2023 life insurance "compliance unification," this further strengthens expense management for the bancassurance channel, shifting from reducing explicit costs to tackling the space for hidden "side account" expenses.
It can be foreseen that by comprehensively blocking the "back door" for expenses, the new regulations will push the industry from "competing on costs" towards a high-quality development path of "competing on products and services." The advantages of leading insurers will be further highlighted, and the new business value contribution of the bancassurance channel is expected to continue rising.
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