At the 2026 Huibao World Insurance Conference, the President of Sino-British Life Insurance, Cui Wei, delivered a keynote speech outlining a comprehensive framework for navigating the life insurance sector's current challenges. The address focused on establishing a holistic view of assets and liabilities to achieve integrated management.
Cui Wei's analysis began by identifying three fundamental constraints facing the industry: interest rates, supply-demand dynamics, and capital. He emphasized that interest rates are the most critical operational variable, while supply-demand mismatch is a core contradiction. The solution lies in adopting a comprehensive asset-liability perspective, for which he detailed seven strategic pathways.
He stressed that adhering to a long-term operational philosophy requires genuinely implementing asset-liability linkage mechanisms. This involves replacing short-term博弈 with institutionalized, professional governance. The industry should avoid interest rate speculation and directional bets, instead anchoring itself to its functional role as an economic "stabilizer" and "shock absorber." This approach is key to seizing opportunities within a K-shaped分化 landscape and achieving steady, "elephant-walk" style growth.
Understanding the Core Constraints: A New Era for Life Insurance
The contemporary life insurance sector grapples with three intertwined and mutually reinforcing core constraints: interest rates, supply-demand, and capital. These constitute the defining challenges for operators today.
Interest rates are the paramount operational variable. In recent years, rates have shifted from a 3%-4% range into a 1%-2% band of fluctuation, currently entering a phase of narrow-range oscillation with defined upper and lower bounds.
The second constraint lies in supply and demand, where the core contradiction is a mismatch. The demand-side fundamentals are solid, with hundreds of millions of people across numerous cities exhibiting growing needs for health, pension, wealth, and inheritance solutions. This potentially represents one of the best opportunity windows for China's life insurance industry.
However, the supply side continues to have room for optimization. On one hand, while the domestic life insurance market features a variety of operators, there are significant disparities in the density of regional branch networks. Drawing from mature overseas markets, the alignment between population size and insurance provider supply is a long-term optimization topic for sustainable, high-quality development. On the other hand, insurance products are highly professional and comprehensive. The industry is actively advancing the standardization of sales agent certification and management systems, with enhancing professional service supply capabilities remaining a shared focus.
Finally, the capital端 faces persistent pressure for replenishment. Different operators are at varying development stages with distinct business structures, leading to differing paces of asset expansion versus internal capital accumulation. The industry as a whole is continuously broadening internal and external capital补充 channels to bolster capital buffers. There is also active exploration of product designs featuring "fixed保障 + floating收益" to optimize long-term liability cost structures and solidify the foundation for sustainable operation.
Anchoring Long-Termism: Implementing Integrated "Three-End Four-Table" Management with Seven Solutions
Addressing these three constraints first requires clarifying the objective. The goal of life insurance operations should not be any short-term profit or收益 target. The nature of the products and clients dictates that the goal must be to become a "century-old institution," achieving long-term, stable operation.
The essence of the life insurance industry is not investment or financing, but fulfilling "lifetime commitments" aligned with the client's life cycle. International cases show that being a "century-old institution" is merely the starting point, such as with Sino-British Life Insurance's foreign shareholder, the British 英杰华集团 (Aviva Group) with over 330 years of history. Enterprises that have weathered multiple economic cycles demonstrate the ultimate rule of life insurance operation through time.
It is worth noting that the stable operation of such long-cycle enterprises does not rely on the individual decisions of key managers, but on standardized, professional long-term governance systems. Truly sustainable operation depends on robust management systems, standardized business processes, and strict internal control discipline. Industry development should respect these underlying operational principles and maintain prudent adherence to core operational logic.
Solution One: Establish an Integrated "Three-End Four-Table" Management System
Under this long-term goal, a sound解题 approach is the integrated "Three-End Four-Table" management system. This involves the协同 of the asset端, liability端, and capital端, with统筹 across the balance sheet, income statement, embedded value statement, and solvency statement.
The core of integration is genuinely addressing whether insurance can act as "patient capital," meaning avoiding rapid entry and exit. Only when the industry truly returns to the logic of long-term asset-liability matching and positive cycles can it invest heavily in stable, foundational social assets, laying a solid foundation for survival over a century.
However, translating this concept into practice faces numerous practical difficulties, the greatest of which is organizational structure. Currently, the industry is evolving from segregated and static management models towards asset-liability linkage. Some institutions still operate with a single-dimensional, static perspective, indicating significant room for improvement in building integrated asset-liability linkage and统筹 systems.
Solution Two: Optimize Liability-Side Product Structure with Balanced, Diversified Portfolios
Focusing on the liability side, the industry can explore "fixed保障 + floating收益" product designs, promoting the协同 development of traditional保障 insurance and participating products.
Different life insurance products carry distinct liability costs, catering to various client needs for保障 and wealth management. The industry should avoid concentration in a single赛道, instead using diversified product matrices to match clients' differentiated risk preferences and continuously optimize long-term liability structures.
Currently, the industry is in a critical window期 to absorb low-cost liabilities, "increasing stock through increments." Simultaneously, under solvency regulatory constraints, new business expansion must maintain a稳健 pace to seize opportunities for reasonable balance sheet growth, solidifying the liability base.
Solution Three: Deepen Supply-Side Reform
Deepening supply-side reform focuses on统筹 product/service supply, channel capability building, and配套 clearing mechanisms.
The most significant clearing mechanism is market-based优胜劣汰. On one hand, there is a need to optimize the number of institutions and market structure. On the other hand, within the agent channel where there is room for action, the focus should be on enhancing the professional quality of sales personnel to improve supply quality at the source.
Solution Four: Dynamically Manage Credit Risk Exposure
From a risk perspective, many problems become easier to solve.
In past industry development phases, some institutions prioritized scale expansion with insufficient asset-liability匹配协同. After multiple rounds of risk mitigation and industry standardization adjustments, most companies in the sector are now relatively healthy, with the systemic risk底线 largely fortified.
While current credit spreads are thin and returns are under pressure, overall credit risk is controllable. However, there is a continuous need to solidify asset quality and dynamically monitor exposure changes.
Solution Five: Use Rigid Mechanisms to Constrain Interest Rate博弈 Behavior
Interest rate risk is the industry's primary risk, the core risk that should command the most attention from an operational standpoint.
It is necessary to distinguish between interest rate risk and利差损 risk.利差损, strictly speaking, is not a risk but a pricing error; the core issue is how to digest it. Interest rate risk, however, is a perpetual risk, the core risk arising from the dynamic changes across assets, liabilities, and capital when interest rates fluctuate.
Interest rate risk is difficult to measure precisely, and once exposed, there are no effective mitigation手段, making its冲击力度 extremely strong and极易 triggering operational crises for institutions. Drawing from mature international market experience, implementing a rigid "zero-risk tolerance" policy for interest rates, adhering to interest rate-neutral asset allocation, and constraining interest rate博弈 behavior are advisable.
Solution Six: Potential利差损 Risk is Largely Controllable
Currently, the industry is in a critical window期 where low-cost new business is diluting the cost of存量 liabilities. The potential利差损 risk associated with past high-priced products is largely controllable as they are gradually diluted. Moving forward, it is necessary to propel the industry towards a new steady state of assets and liabilities while keeping solvency under control.
Solution Seven: Reconstruct Asset Allocation to Address Market Risk
In a context of insufficient high-quality assets for allocation, the proportion allocated to equities has been被动推高.
Using limited自有 capital to承载 large equity assets leaves insufficient buffer空间 to cope with secondary market volatility, resulting in overall risk exposure at a relatively high level. Increased equity allocation also poses challenges for solvency management.
Excessive allocation to equities容易 creates a mismatch组合 of "high-rigidity liabilities + high-volatility assets," exacerbating operational fragility. The破局 approach lies in accelerating the construction of a new, diversified, and balanced "mid-tier" asset allocation格局. This involves forming a multi-layered配置 of "debt-like + equity-like + rental income" assets, reducing reliance on单一 equity holdings, and enhancing the ability to navigate cycles.
Long-Term Optimism for Insurance in a K-Shaped分化 Era: Strengthening the "Two-Device" Function for Steady Growth
The industry outlook remains relatively optimistic, particularly in the current context of K-shaped分化.
The most certain factor is the稳固 demand side. Life insurance does not solve for upside potential but for downside protection; its core advantage is precisely risk management across cycles. During periods of macroeconomic adjustment and加速人口老龄化, insurance demand爆发, as people seek to protect wealth accumulated during顺周期 times. With its深厚的存量积累, the life insurance industry can not only effectively defend against economic fluctuations but also achieve "elephant-walk" style稳健增长 during macroeconomic adjustment periods.
Within the K-shaped分化格局, the insurance industry's positioning becomes clearer—as the "two devices" (stabilizer and shock absorber), it is a优质调节 tool适配 to the分化 landscape. On one hand, it发挥 the "stabilizer" function, safeguarding health and pensions, and seizing the historical opportunity of the third migration of居民 wealth. On the other hand, it发挥 the "shock absorber" function, serving as patient capital by allocating the most stable assets to foundational social assets, providing development动能 for new quality productive forces.
Returning to industry reality, while growth is稳健, underlying concerns are evident. Data from the first five months of 2026 shows individual agent business迎来 its best start in three years, the bancassurance channel remains a core growth driver, and brokerage channels have基本企稳. Under the current market backdrop, the industry still possesses ample growth空间.
Most crucially, the industry needs to implement genuine long-cycle performance assessment. True long-term-oriented assessment is not merely about extending the指标核算周期. The key lies in selecting assessment dimensions that guide insurers towards稳健长效经营, with the core focus on the long-term value orientation of the assessment indicators themselves, rather than just adjusting the assessment duration. This can引导 the industry to abandon short-term scale orientation and continuously solidify the underlying capabilities for long-term稳健经营.
In conclusion, three core development judgments can be summarized. First, the step-down in interest rates has largely stabilized, ushering in a new cycle of bidirectional波动; market stratification trends will continue to intensify and deepen alongside industry development. Second, the industry's core positioning is being continuously solidified; safeguarding民生保障 and serving as patient capital remain the unshakable foundations for development. Third, only by establishing a holistic asset-liability view and implementing integrated "Three-End Four-Table" management can the industry adhere to long-termism, navigate the current cycle, steadily advance towards becoming a稳健经营的百年老店, and continue on the path of high-quality development.
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