As property and casualty insurance companies successively release their solvency reports for the fourth quarter of 2025, the full operational picture of the P&C insurance industry for the year has come into view. Specifically, the 75 P&C insurers that have disclosed relevant data collectively achieved insurance business revenue of 475.114 billion yuan, a 7.64% year-on-year increase from the 441.381 billion yuan recorded in the same period last year. In contrast to the stable growth on the premium income side, net profit exhibited a robust upward trend. These 75 P&C insurers achieved a total net profit of 14.71 billion yuan, surging by 182.4% year-on-year. Furthermore, the comprehensive cost ratio showed significant optimization; excluding Dongwu Property & Casualty Insurance, 49 P&C insurers experienced a decline in their comprehensive cost ratio. Next, we will analyze the 2025 P&C insurance industry from four dimensions: insurance business revenue, net profit, comprehensive cost ratio, and solvency.
Insurance Business Revenue: China Life P&C Insurance firmly holds the top spot, while Shenneng Property & Casualty Insurance and BYD Property & Casualty Insurance show high-speed growth. In terms of insurance business revenue, China Life P&C Insurance, China United Property & Casualty Insurance, and Taikang Online ranked in the top three. Specifically, China Life P&C Insurance led by a significant margin with insurance business revenue of 112.834 billion yuan, and it was the only company among the 75 insurers to exceed 100 billion yuan in revenue. China United Property & Casualty Insurance secured second place with revenue of 70.653 billion yuan, a 3.7% year-on-year increase. Taikang Online ranked third with revenue of 17.918 billion yuan, marking a substantial 27.4% year-on-year growth, which was the most prominent growth rate among the top ten. From the perspective of growth rate, Shenneng Property & Casualty Insurance and BYD Property & Casualty Insurance delivered the most eye-catching performances. Taking Shenneng Property & Casualty Insurance as an example, the company legally assumed the insurance business and assets/liabilities of the former Tianan Property & Casualty Insurance. It was approved to commence operations in Shanghai in January 2024, with a registered capital of 10 billion yuan. Leveraging its shareholders' backgrounds in energy, finance, and urban development, Shenneng P&C has a very clear strategic focus, actively concentrating on energy insurance and extending risk protection services to energy production, transmission, storage, and transportation, while also providing a series of comprehensive risk management services from traditional energy to new energy. In 2025, its insurance business revenue reached 16.562 billion yuan, a staggering 371.4% year-on-year increase from the 3.512 billion yuan in 2024, propelling its ranking to fourth place and far exceeding external expectations. As a P&C insurer under an automotive group, BYD Property & Casualty Insurance also delivered a brilliant performance. Relying on the strong industrial synergies of its parent company, BYD P&C deeply focuses on new energy vehicle insurance, achieving rapid profitability just one year after commencing operations. In 2025, its insurance business revenue reached 2.871 billion yuan, a 112.5% year-on-year increase from the 1.351 billion yuan in 2024, representing leapfrog development. However, not all companies achieved positive growth; some experienced declines to varying degrees. Overall, the full-year 2025 insurance business revenue for the P&C industry showed a growth trend, aligning with the industry's more standardized fundamental characteristics.
Net Profit: Taikang Online's net profit skyrockets by 826%, and 56 P&C insurers see profit improvement. Regarding net profit, data shows that the 75 P&C insurers collectively generated a net profit of 14.71 billion yuan in 2025, a massive 182.4% increase year-on-year. Even after excluding Dongwu Property & Casualty Insurance, which lacks comparable prior-year data, the growth rate remained above 180%. Specifically, the top three P&C insurers by net profit were China Life P&C Insurance, Yingda Taihe Property & Casualty Insurance, and China United Property & Casualty Insurance, with net profits reaching 3.976 billion yuan, 1.213 billion yuan, and 990 million yuan, and growth rates of 109.04%, 38.15%, and 4.87%, respectively. Notably, the 3.976 billion yuan net profit generated by China Life P&C Insurance alone accounted for 27.02% of the total net profit of the 75 insurers. The doubling of net profit was primarily attributable to a significant increase in investment returns for China Life P&C, with investment gains from the capital market recovery being the main driver of profit growth. It is worth mentioning that the net profit situation of many P&C insurers improved markedly in 2025. For instance, Taikang Online P&C, Fubon Property & Casualty Insurance, Cathay Property & Casualty Insurance, Samsung Property & Casualty Insurance, and Huiyou Property & Casualty Insurance all reported net profit growth rates far exceeding the industry average. Taking Taikang Online as an example, as an internet-based P&C insurer specializing in technology and health, and backed by the Taikang Group, its development speed has accelerated rapidly in recent years. In 2025, Taikang Online's net profit was 463 million yuan, exploding by 826% year-on-year. This explosive profit growth resulted from the dual drivers of rapidly expanding underwriting scale and substantially improved investment returns. Furthermore, data indicates that while 19 P&C insurers saw their profits worsen in 2025, the remaining 56 companies experienced varying degrees of improvement (profit growth, turning losses into profits, or reduced losses). Among them, 13 P&C insurers successfully turned losses into profits, reflecting to some extent that profit improvement is not limited to leading companies but is an industry-wide trend. For example, Shenneng Property & Casualty Insurance achieved a profit of 435 million yuan in 2025, successfully turning a loss into a profit. Beyond the favorable external industry environment, this was largely due to proactive internal adjustments and exploring differentiated development paths, allowing it to quickly digest historical burdens. Simultaneously, the number of P&C insurers with negative net profit in 2025 was only 5, a significant decrease compared to the 16 companies in 2024. The fundamental reasons for the marked improvement in P&C insurers' profits in 2025 can be attributed to the following two main points. First, investment returns improved significantly. The overall recovery in the capital market boosted investment income, becoming the decisive factor driving profit growth, as exemplified by the aforementioned China Life P&C Insurance. Specifically, under the new accounting standards, more equity assets were classified as financial assets measured at fair value through profit or loss (FVTPL), meaning unrealized gains from stock price increases were directly included in current period profits, amplifying the contribution of investment returns to net profit. Second, the comprehensive implementation of the "unified filing and execution" policy. This policy has helped push down the comprehensive expense ratio, optimize business structures, and provide new growth points, laying the foundation for profit recovery in P&C insurers. Third, the impact of major catastrophes weakened. The direct economic losses caused by natural disasters in China in 2025 were significantly lower than in previous years, resulting in a relatively smaller impact on claim payouts for P&C business. This led to a decrease in the comprehensive loss ratio, thereby further optimizing the comprehensive cost ratio.
Comprehensive Cost Ratio: Median improves by nearly 1 percentage point. The comprehensive cost ratio is a core indicator measuring the underwriting profitability of P&C insurers. A ratio below 100% indicates underwriting profit, while a ratio above indicates an underwriting loss. The overall comprehensive cost ratio for the P&C industry improved in 2025. Data shows that the median comprehensive cost ratio for 74 P&C insurers in 2025 was 101.81%, compared to 102.79% in the same period last year, representing an improvement of nearly 1 percentage point. Specifically, COSCO SHIPPING Property & Casualty Insurance had a comprehensive cost ratio of -76.22%, with a comprehensive expense ratio of -251.34% and a comprehensive loss ratio of 175.11%. The negative expense ratio was due to the release of over-provisioned reserves from the previous year in the financial statements. China Railway Property & Casualty Insurance ranked second with a comprehensive cost ratio of 77.57%, while Sompo Japan Insurance Inc. ranked third with 81%, although this was slightly higher than the 79.1% recorded in 2024. The most significant improvement in cost control belonged to BYD Property & Casualty Insurance, whose comprehensive cost ratio dropped sharply to 102.49% in 2025, with a comprehensive expense ratio of 5.21% and a comprehensive loss ratio of 97.28%. This sharp cost reduction was primarily underpinned by the advantage of BYD's direct sales model for auto insurance, integrating policy purchase, claims, and repairs into its own sales and service network, thereby eliminating high channel commissions associated with traditional models. Secondly, synergy within the BYD ecosystem was a crucial factor. Relevant data shows that in 2025, BYD P&C and BYD Auto Industry Co., Ltd. engaged in 13 significant connected transactions totaling over 416 million yuan. These were not merely internal fund transfers but involved using internal coordination to streamline insurance sales and underwriting processes, thereby reducing channel and intermediary costs. Other insurers showing notable improvement included Huiyou Property & Casualty Insurance, Shenneng Property & Casualty Insurance, and ChengTai Property & Casualty Insurance. Additionally, 30 P&C insurers had a comprehensive cost ratio below 100% in 2025, a significant increase from the 20 companies in 2024. On the other hand, two companies, Xinjiang United Front Sea Property & Casualty Insurance and Guangdong Energy Property & Casualty Insurance, had comprehensive cost ratios exceeding 200%. The persistently high comprehensive cost ratio for Xinjiang United Front Sea P&C is multifaceted, stemming from a vicious cycle formed by叠加的业务结构缺陷, corporate governance issues, shareholder crises, and other problems. Guangdong Energy P&C's high ratio is because its main business scale is still relatively limited, making it unable to effectively spread its fixed costs and operating expenses across premium income, resulting in a comprehensive cost ratio far exceeding the industry average.
Solvency: Overall trend towards stability, but certain companies require close attention. Solvency adequacy ratios are crucial indicators for measuring the financial soundness of insurance companies, with regulatory red lines set at a core solvency adequacy ratio of no less than 50% and a comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio of no less than 100%. In terms of core solvency adequacy ratio, Dongwu Property & Casualty Insurance ranked first with 1160.64%, Nipponkoa Insurance Company (China) Limited followed with 1152.78%, and Jiulong Property & Casualty Insurance ranked third with 1025.06%. Although Dongwu P&C's core solvency adequacy ratio plummeted from 12,252.87% in the third quarter to 1160.64% in the fourth quarter, a drop of over 11,000 percentage points in a single quarter, such volatility is within a normal range for a new company established in April 2025 as its business operations commence. Furthermore, compared to the third quarter, 42 P&C insurers experienced a decline in their core solvency adequacy ratio in the fourth quarter, while 33 insurers saw an increase. Regarding the comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio, the rankings were largely consistent with the core solvency rankings. Dongwu Property & Casualty Insurance led with 1160.64%, albeit with a significant year-on-year decrease, followed by Nipponkoa Insurance Company (China) Limited and Jiulong Property & Casualty Insurance with 1152.78% and 1025.06%, respectively. Notably, the company ranked last, Xinjiang United Front Sea Property & Casualty Insurance, saw its comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio fall to 112.87% in the fourth quarter of 2025, already very close to the regulatory threshold. Behind the decline in comprehensive solvency is the company's long-term operational losses. Data shows that from 2023 to 2025, United Front Sea P&C's net profits were -89 million yuan, -104 million yuan, and -85 million yuan, respectively, indicating that the company's overall profitability needs improvement. Additionally, United Front Sea P&C is embroiled in equity instability and freezes. Its core shareholder from the "Baoneng Group," due to debt crises, has had over 50% of its equity judicially frozen. This directly hampers the company's ability to replenish capital, severely affecting its capacity for capital increases. Concurrently, frequent management changes, with core executives leaving successively within a short period, have seriously impacted the company's internal stability. Overall, the solvency of the P&C industry was generally stable in the fourth quarter of 2025, but individual companies experienced severe fluctuations, reflecting differences in capital management and risk control among different companies. Finally, based on the solvency reports of the 75 P&C insurers, several clear trend changes emerged in the 2025 P&C industry. First, the premium side showed overall growth, while the profit side improved substantially. Second, leading P&C insurers consolidated their market positions through scale advantages and diversified business, albeit with somewhat moderated growth rates. Third, small and medium-sized P&C insurers sought breakthroughs through specialized operations, such as utilizing digital transformation to achieve rapid growth. We will continue to monitor the latest developments and trends in the domestic P&C insurance market.
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