In 2025, the five major listed insurers on China's A-share market delivered impressive results for the first year of the 15th Five-Year Plan period. Collectively, China Life Insurance, Ping An Insurance, PICC Group, China Pacific Insurance (CPIC), and New China Life Insurance achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of 425.291 billion yuan, representing a year-on-year increase of 22.4%. Excluding the recovery on the investment side, structural improvements on the liability side served as the core driver of profit growth.
In the life insurance sector, all five companies reported widespread growth in new business value exceeding 30%. China Life, New China Life Insurance, and CPIC Life saw their growth rates reach 35.7%, 57.4%, and 40.1%, respectively. The bancassurance channel unleashed significant value potential under the "unified reporting and execution" policy, with several insurers reporting new business value growth rates surpassing 100% in this channel. Confronting the low-interest-rate environment, listed insurers collectively shifted towards floating-income products, leading to a notable increase in the proportion of participating insurance, while health insurance coverage responsibilities also continued to be upgraded.
In the property and casualty insurance segment, PICC Property and Casualty, Ping An Property and Casualty, and CPIC Property and Casualty all saw improvements in their combined ratios of approximately 1 percentage point, resulting in substantial year-on-year growth in underwriting profits.
**Widespread 30% Growth in New Business Value** The five A-share listed insurers collectively achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of 425.291 billion yuan in 2025, a 22.4% increase year-on-year.
Among them, China Life led with a net profit of 154.078 billion yuan, up 44.1% year-on-year, reaching a new high in recent years. Ping An Insurance reported a net profit of 134.778 billion yuan, growing 6.5%. CPIC achieved a net profit of 53.505 billion yuan, an increase of 19.0%. PICC Group's net profit was 46.646 billion yuan, up 8.8%. New China Life Insurance's net profit reached 36.284 billion yuan, rising 38.3%.
Setting aside the profit elasticity from the investment side recovery, the profit growth was underpinned by steady expansion in the scale of liabilities. For instance, China Life's total premium income surpassed the 700 billion yuan mark for the first time, reaching 729.887 billion yuan, an 8.7% increase. PICC Group achieved premium income of 738.3 billion yuan, up 6.5%, comprising property and casualty insurance premium income of 555.8 billion yuan (a 3.3% increase) and life insurance premium income of 182.2 billion yuan (a 17.8% increase). New China Life Insurance's original premium income was nearly 195.9 billion yuan, growing 14.9%.
The new business value for the life insurance operations of all five listed insurers achieved double-digit growth, with some companies exceeding 50%.
Specifically, China Life's new business value was 45.752 billion yuan, up 35.7%, ranking first in the industry in both scale and growth rate. Ping An Life and Health Insurance's new business value was 36.897 billion yuan, a 29.3% increase, with a new business value margin (based on standard premium) of 28.5%, up 5.8 percentage points year-on-year. CPIC Life's new business value was 18.609 billion yuan, increasing 40.1%, with a new business value margin of 19.8%, up 3.2 percentage points. New China Life Insurance's new business value was 9.842 billion yuan, surging 57.4%. PICC Life's new business value, on a comparable basis, grew 64.5% to 8.229 billion yuan.
**Individual Agent Channel Focuses on "Quality over Quantity"** Behind the steady expansion of liabilities and the widespread high growth in new business value, the optimization of channel structure and the transformation of product systems are becoming core drivers for the industry's high-quality development.
In 2025, the "quality over quantity" strategy in the individual agent channels of the five insurers showed results. While the number of agents declined, productivity per agent steadily improved.
By the end of 2025, China Life's agent count was 587,000, down 4.6% from the end of 2024. New China Life Insurance had 133,400 agents, a decrease of 2.2%. CPIC Life's agent count was 185,000, down 1.6%. Ping An Life had 351,000 agents, a reduction of 3.3%. PICC Life's agent count was 77,000, falling 7%.
Although all five insurers reduced their agent forces, increased productivity per agent allowed premium income from the individual channel to maintain positive growth.
In 2025, China Life's individual channel generated premiums of 551.79 billion yuan, up 4.3%. Ping An Life's agent channel achieved premiums of 529.722 billion yuan, a 1.9% increase. CPIC Life's agent channel premiums were 211.606 billion yuan, growing 4.5%. New China Life Insurance's individual channel premiums were 120.581 billion yuan, up 4.0%. PICC Life's individual channel recorded original premium income of 54.004 billion yuan, an increase of 5.4%.
While the individual channel focused on quality and efficiency, the bancassurance channel underwent a value repositioning. Once viewed as a tool for scaling up with low value and high costs, the bancassurance channel demonstrated remarkable value potential under the strict regulatory environment of the "unified reporting and execution" policy.
In 2025, the premium growth rates for the bancassurance channels of China Life, New China Life Insurance, PICC Life, and CPIC Life all exceeded 30%. China Life's bancassurance total premiums surpassed the 100 billion yuan mark, reaching 110.874 billion yuan, a 45.5% increase. New China Life Insurance's bancassurance channel achieved total premium income of 72.102 billion yuan, up 39.5%. PICC Life's bancassurance premium income was 68.278 billion yuan, growing 33.5%. CPIC Life's bancassurance scale premiums reached 61.618 billion yuan, an increase of 46.4%.
**Collective Shift Towards "Floating Income"** Beyond the restructuring of distribution channels, the transformation of product structures was another common industry trend in 2025.
Facing heightened risks of spread loss in traditional insurance products due to the low-interest-rate environment, the five major listed insurers collectively prioritized participating insurance as a strategic focus.
For China Life, floating-income products contributed to nearly half of the first-year regular premium income, with participating insurance accounting for close to 60% of the individual channel's first-year regular premiums. CPIC Life's participating insurance new regular premium scale reached 22.156 billion yuan, with its proportion in new regular premiums rising to 50.0%.
Ping An's life and health insurance segment saw premium income from participating insurance grow 41% year-on-year to 91.887 billion yuan in 2025. The company stated in its annual report that it strengthened the development of floating-income products and enhanced the appeal of participating products by building a differentiated participating account system in the low-rate environment.
New China Life Insurance's participating insurance original premium income was 37.604 billion yuan in 2025, a 33% increase. The annual report noted that the proportion of participating insurance in total regular premium business increased quarter by quarter, reaching 77.0% in the fourth quarter.
Furthermore, driven by the Healthy China strategy and rising public demand for health protection, the industry is accelerating its return to protection-oriented attributes, promoting continuous upgrades in the coverage design and service systems of products like health insurance and critical illness insurance.
Yang Yucheng, Chairman of New China Life Insurance, stated during the earnings presentation that the company will steadfastly strengthen, refine, and expand its core insurance business, fully committing to high-quality, high-value operations. He emphasized increasing the proportion of floating-income products, long-term policies, and health protection products, continuously optimizing business structure, revenue structure, and profit sources. The goal is to transition from reliance on interest spreads to value-driven operations, ensuring policies return to their essence, services focus on customers, and teams return to professionalism, thereby elevating the competitiveness of the liability side to new heights.
It is reported that New China Life Insurance recently launched its "Health Multi-Protect Celebration Edition Critical Illness Insurance," which for the first time introduces coverage for "acute critical conditions," expanding protection from predefined diseases to clinical acute risk states, significantly enhancing proactive coverage and depth.
**Widespread Improvement in Combined Ratios** The property and casualty insurance segment also delivered strong results in 2025.
PICC P&C achieved premium income of 555.777 billion yuan, up 3.3%, with an underwriting profit of 12.443 billion yuan, surging 75.6% year-on-year. Ping An P&C reported original premium income of 343.168 billion yuan, an increase of 6.6%, and an underwriting profit of 10.717 billion yuan, jumping 96.2%. CPIC P&C's original premium income was 201.499 billion yuan, a slight increase of 0.1%, with an underwriting profit of 4.836 billion yuan, growing 81.0%.
In terms of expense control, all three institutions achieved significant results, with combined ratios generally improving by about 1 percentage point. In 2025, PICC P&C's combined ratio was 97.6%, optimized by 0.9 percentage points year-on-year. Ping An P&C's combined ratio was 96.8%, improved by 1.5 percentage points. CPIC P&C's combined ratio was 97.5%, down 1.1 percentage points.
The improvement in property and casualty insurance pricing is understood to be related to recent strong regulatory oversight and policy guidance promoting high-quality development.
In September 2025, the National Financial Regulatory Administration successively issued the "Notice on Strengthening Supervision of Non-Auto Insurance Business" and the "Guidelines for Strengthening Supervision of Non-Auto Insurance Business," extending the "unified reporting and execution" principle from the auto insurance sector and life insurance bancassurance/individual channels to the non-auto insurance domain, promoting the filing of non-auto insurance product terms and fee governance.
The improvement in property and casualty insurance pricing stems not only from internal cost control brought by "unified reporting and execution" but also from insurers' restructuring of claims services.
Taking PICC P&C as an example, its combined ratio improved by 0.9 percentage points to 97.6% in 2025. Zhang Daoming, Party Committee Secretary of PICC P&C, stated that the improvement in underwriting performance benefited from the implementation of "unified reporting and execution" and enhancements in service quality and efficiency.
In April of this year, PICC P&C further released its "Five Disclosures" claims service model, which includes disclosing identity, process, guidelines, qualifications, and evaluations, accelerating the transition from "passive claims handling" to "active service" and from "single indemnity payment" to "full-chain protection."
In the auto insurance sector, the benefits of service upgrades were particularly evident. In 2025, the combined ratios for auto insurance at PICC P&C, Ping An P&C, and CPIC P&C were 95.3%, 95.8%, and 95.6%, respectively, with decreases of 1.5, 2.3, and 2.6 percentage points.
Ping An's annual report attributed the optimization of the auto insurance cost ratio mainly to the deepening of the "unified reporting and execution" reform, continuous advancement of refined expense management, and optimization of expense allocation. Simultaneously, the application of AI agents and digital technologies empowered core processes such as auto insurance underwriting, claims, and marketing, contributing to a 1.0 percentage point reduction in auto insurance operating costs over the past three years.
According to Ping An P&C, it built a multi-party dynamic pricing model involving "insurer + automaker + industry" in collaboration with OneConnect. This model, integrating vehicle systems, roadside devices, and cloud analytics, enables intelligent determination of accident liability and automated claims assessment. Additionally, an AI-powered accident simulation platform can feedback into automakers' product iterations, achieving risk reduction and industry synergy. It is reported that after the launch of this project, the growth rate of insured customers reached 61%, with a loss ratio outperforming the industry by 4.5 percentage points.
A professor from Peking University's Department of Risk Management and Insurance commented that reducing the expense ratio allows insurance companies to allocate more resources to claims payments. Through cost structure optimization, it is possible to support higher risk coverage with lower expenses.
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