A single "death claim form" reveals a living person underneath. The insured individual was still alive, medical records were invented, death certificates were forged, yet the claims process proceeded as usual—and the masterminds were not professional fraud rings but the insurer's own employees.
On September 10, the administrative penalty disclosure from the Bazhong Regulatory Branch of the National Financial Regulatory Administration pinned down this operation by Funde Sino Life Insurance's Bazhong Central Sub-branch. More striking is the wave of penalties cascading across Funde Sino Life's nationwide branches: penalties exceeded 6 million yuan in total for 2025, and have already surpassed 3 million yuan in the less than nine months since 2026 began.
At the other end of this penalty streak, this life insurer with total assets exceeding 680 billion yuan has left its own financial statements unopened for over five years. The most recent annual report dates back to 2020, and the latest solvency quarterly report stopped at Q4 2021. On one side, grassroots branches face a steady stream of "fraud"-labeled fines; on the other, headquarters-level information disclosure has been dormant for five years. They appear to be two separate issues, but they are two faces of the same coin.
An Unusual Case of Fraudulent Claims: The Perpetrators Were Insiders
Returning to the penalty itself. For fabricating policyholder death and medical records to conduct fraudulent claims, the Bazhong Central Sub-branch of Funde Sino Life was fined 150,000 yuan. Responsible individuals Ang Chunhua, Chen Houfa, and Zeng Teng received warnings and combined fines of 110,000 yuan, while Sun Jian was banned from the insurance industry for life and Zhao Yuqiong received a five-year industry ban.
A lifetime industry ban is one of the heaviest personal penalties in the insurance sector—the regulator's designation here carries far more weight than the monetary fine. The insurance industry has never lacked fraud cases, but most scripts involve customers deceiving companies: concealing pre-existing conditions, fabricating accidents, or forging medical documents. The uniqueness of the Bazhong case is that the direction is reversed: the fraud was orchestrated by the insurer's internal staff, and the "deceased" was the customer.
This kind of fraud has never been a matter of technical sophistication; it demonstrates that multiple defense lines in the claims process were pierced simultaneously. Even more glaring is that the Bazhong Central Sub-branch is not a first-time offender. In May 2023, this same branch was fined 20,000 yuan by the same regulatory branch for "losing an insurance license without reporting and forging the insurance license." The same county-level institution has now stumbled twice over the word "forgery"—from falsifying regulatory licenses to fabricating death documents—an escalation in severity.
Zooming out, this is merely the latest entry in the long scroll of penalties against Funde Sino Life's branches. According to incomplete public statistics, penalties across all branches totaled nearly 6 million yuan in 2025, and have exceeded 3 million yuan since the start of 2026. Breaking down this year: in March, the Anhui Branch was fined 420,000 yuan for false financial data and deceiving policyholders; in April, the Shandong Branch along with the Jining and Binzhou Central Sub-branches were collectively fined 670,000 yuan for sales conduct and information disclosure violations; in July, the Beijing Branch was fined 310,000 yuan for inflated expenses and inadequate claims internal controls; in August, the Guizhou Branch was fined 350,000 yuan for failing to use approved premium rates; and on September 4, the Gansu Branch was fined 100,000 yuan for false financial and business data.
The violations are strikingly repetitive: inflated expenses, fabricated business and financial materials, false financial data—and now fraudulent claims have been added to the list. The word "false" has spread from expense receipts all the way to death certificates. Alongside these penalties, numerous responsible individuals have been held accountable—dozens of branch executives, business personnel, and back-office staff have received warnings, fines, and even industry bans. Under penetrating accountability, governance gaps at the grassroots level are being exposed in concentrated form.
Five Years of Disclosure Silence: The Information Black Box of a Hundred-Billion-Yuan Life Insurer
If grassroots fraud exposes holes in internal controls, the other issue raises deeper concerns: Funde Sino Life's statutory information disclosure has been dormant for years. The last annual report the public can access is from 2020—five consecutive years without updates. The final solvency quarterly report stopped at Q4 2021, leaving 18 consecutive quarters without updates as of Q2 this year.
For a life insurer emphasizing "total assets exceeding 680 billion yuan," this means external assessments of its true financial condition rely on data that is five years old. And that old data was hardly reassuring. At the end of Q4 2021, Funde Sino Life recorded insurance business income of 80.75 billion yuan with a net loss of 684 million yuan for the period; core solvency adequacy stood at 87%, and comprehensive solvency adequacy at 103%—the regulatory red line is 100%, leaving the company a safety margin of just three percentage points that year.
Since then, around every April 30, the company has dutifully issued a notice explaining why disclosure remains impossible this year. Interestingly, the rationale has shifted three times. The 2021 annual report attributed the delay to pandemic impacts and regulatory permission for deferred filing; from 2022 to 2024, it cited the "one-company-one-policy" transitional period under C-ROSS Phase II, under which the company was permitted to suspend solvency disclosure with the annual report suspended in tandem; by the latest notice on April 30, 2025, the wording had changed to an approved exemption application for the annual information disclosure report.
Deferral—suspension—exemption: the weight of these three terms has escalated step by step, while the standard transition period for C-ROSS Phase II was explicitly set by regulators to end by the close of 2025. Funde Sino Life's disclosure suspension is not an isolated case. Kunlun Health, Pearl River Life, and Shanghai Life have all had solvency reports frozen at Q4 2021; Qiantouhai Life stopped updating at Q1 2022; Junkang Life has gone five consecutive years without disclosure since Q3 2020; and Hexie Health's latest report is frozen at 2017.
Tracing the industry trajectory reveals a nearly cruel pattern: the insurers that truly resumed disclosure almost all followed a different path—control restructuring, regulatory risk disposal, or a new name and a fresh start. Hengda Life became Haigang Life, Tianan Life became Zhonghui Life, Huaxia Life became Ruizhong Life, and Junkang Life was absorbed by Fuze Life. Without a change in the actual controller, there is currently no precedent for a company resuming public disclosure on its own after a long suspension.
What might lie behind this? Market analysts' views converge on several points: first, solvency is already hugging the red line, and under the stricter C-ROSS Phase II measurement standards, the numbers would likely look worse; second, asset-side valuation and impairment pressures—Funde Sino Life's heavy holdings in real estate stocks are long-standing, and how they are measured and provisioned would directly hit the balance sheet. Of course, these are all external speculations. The company's official stance has remained consistent: all suspensions were regulator-approved and publicly announced, policyholder protections are unaffected, and operations remain sound.
Two Decades of the Funde Empire: From Huaqiangbei Electronics Market to Data Center Facilities
To understand Funde Sino Life, one must first grasp the capital story of the Chaoshan businessman behind it. In March 2002, Sino Life was established in Shanghai with registered capital of 1.02 billion yuan. Its shareholder roster included Shougang, the Cheng Yu-tung family, and Dalian Shide—but not Zhang Jun.
From 2006 onward, this reclusive Chaoshan billionaire—who built his fortune on Longgang real estate in Shenzhen and developed the New Asia Electronics City in Huaqiangbei—began acquiring Sino Life shares in tranches: first from Guangsheng Assets under the Guangdong SASAC, then through multiple affiliated platforms in successive transfers and capital increases. In 2008, he persuaded all shareholders to relocate headquarters from Shanghai to Shenzhen, and that August he assumed the chairmanship. By 2012, total assets surpassed 100 billion yuan. In November 2014, Sino Life was renamed "Funde Sino Life," with Funde Insurance Holding established as the parent structure, formally consolidating the "Funde system." The same year, Zhang Jun stepped down as chairman of Funde Sino Life, succeeded by Fang Li, moving away from direct management of the life insurer to serve as chairman of Funde Insurance Holding, controlling the capital-level layout as group actual controller.
The true golden weapon was universal life insurance. With high-crediting-rate universal products attracting massive inflows, Funde Sino Life's premium scale surpassed 100 billion yuan in 2016. Around that time, the Funde system was aggressive in secondary markets: taking the top shareholder position in Gemdale Corporation (600383.SH), heavily holding agricultural products, investing 1.359 billion yuan in a private placement of Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism Co.,Ltd. (000802.SZ)—bringing the producer of "Wolf Warrior 2," "Dying to Survive," and "The Wandering Earth" under its wing—and at one point eyeing ambitions for more licenses.
The turning point came in February 2016, when Zhang Jun was taken away by authorities for investigation, ushering in a prolonged phase of heightened regulatory scrutiny. Combined with strict supervision of universal life products and investment losses from capital market volatility, Funde Sino Life quickly showed signs of strain. By insurance business income (original premium) metrics, premiums slid from 102.2 billion yuan in 2016 to 80.4 billion in 2017, 71.7 billion in 2018, and 51.3 billion in 2019—nearly halving in just three years. Net profit trends were more delicate: on a parent-company basis, 2016 alone posted a loss of 5.061 billion yuan, followed by losses of 779 million and 501 million in 2017 and 2018—three consecutive losing years; however, on a consolidated basis, 2017 had already returned to profitability.
The latter half of the story is a slow pivot. After regulators halted short-to-medium-duration universal life products, Funde Sino Life shifted its flagship products to increasing whole-life insurance and annuity pensions—the market-popular "Xin Xi Nian Nian" and "Rui Xiang Ren Sheng" series are both its creations. Its premium scale remains solidly in the industry's second tier. According to company disclosures, by 2025, total scale premiums stood at the 100-billion-yuan platform for the tenth consecutive year, renewal premiums accounted for over 70%, new business period-premium ratio exceeded 85%, and new business value grew over 50% year-on-year.
After the regulatory workgroup withdrew at the end of 2022, business registrations show Zhang Jun returned to Funde Group management, now holding the title of Chairman of the Board of Funde Holdings. Control of Funde Sino Life remains enshrined in its shareholder register: Funde Industrial Investment Holding (20%), Houde Industrial Investment Holding (17.93%), National Investment Development (16.77%), Yingde Land (15.27%), and Funde Insurance Holding (10.57%)—five entities all under the "Funde system," together holding 80.54%, while Funde Insurance Holding's shareholders are the first four entities themselves. Penetrating through, Zhang Jun holds 94% of Funde Industrial, representing approximately 20.79% through penetration, with the remaining natural-person shareholders above mostly bearing the Zhang surname. A 2026 Hong Kong IPO prospectus describes Funde Sino Life as having "no controlling shareholder," yet a 2016 Caixin investigation claimed Zhang Jun and his concert parties "effectively controlled over 90% of Sino Life's shares."
The Funde empire's map has also taken on new colors in recent years. The old parts remain heavy: the holding in Gemdale Corporation still sits across three Funde Sino Life accounts totaling approximately 29.83%, with the 2026 interim report showing not a single share sold even as the stock price has fallen sharply in recent years; the Beijing Jingxi Culture & Tourism placement priced at 8.94 yuan now trades around 3 yuan, with the position nearly halved and no dividends in sight. The new parts reflect an intent to chase emerging trends: since 2024, three energy companies have been rapidly registered in Xinjiang with combined registered capital exceeding 20 billion yuan, planning a 6-million-ton-per-year coal-to-methanol project; in May 2025, Funde Sino Life partnered with Funde Industrial Investment to spend 6.2 billion yuan acquiring a 15.03% stake in Guanghui Energy Co.,Ltd. (600256.SH) with a 60-month lock-up; and in February 2026, Funde (Hong Kong) spent HK$175 million—at a discount exceeding 80%—to take control of Hong Kong-listed pharmaceutical company GUANZE MEDICAL.
By July 2026, Funde Property & Casualty Insurance, acting with concert parties, launched a stake-building campaign in computing power services provider Beijing Asiacom Information Technology Co.,Ltd. (301085.SZ), spending approximately 518 million yuan with an 18-month lock-up—the Funde system's first listed-company stake-building in years. On the same day, its affiliate Funde Digital Intelligence signed a strategic cooperation with Isoftstone Information Technology (Group) Co.,Ltd. (301236.SZ), diving headfirst into the hottest computing power track.
On the same balance sheet, old real estate positions still weigh on the books, while new bets on coal chemicals and computing power emerge at the other end. The story has run for two decades, from a collective electronics factory in Longgang to coal chemical parks in Xinjiang and data center facilities. Yet no matter how the map expands, one number has never moved: Funde Sino Life's registered capital of 11.752 billion yuan, with the last capital increase frozen back in March 2013. For thirteen years, shareholders have not injected a single yuan of new capital into the company. For a life insurer running on a razor-thin solvency margin, that silence speaks louder than any disclosure.
Comments