The liability side is entering a new cycle of "rising volume and price," and listed insurers' NBV is expected to maintain double-digit growth momentum. The third-quarter earnings of the five A-share listed insurers were dragged down by investment performance, but how did the liability side fare? A statistical review found that the life insurance operations of the five A-share listed insurers came under relative pressure in the first three quarters: new single premiums generally declined, and new business value (NBV) performance showed clear divergence. By contrast, the combined ratio (COR) of property and casualty insurance continued to improve broadly despite pressure from climate risks. Looking ahead to the full year, industry analysts believe that on the life insurance side, the low base in last year's fourth quarter, combined with the launch of "good start" pre-sales and continued product mix optimization, may lead to a recovery in listed insurers' NBV growth. On the P&C side, if the impact of rain, snow, and freezing disasters in the fourth quarter is in line with previous years, leading insurers' full-year combined ratios are expected to continue improving, and the foundation for underwriting profitability remains solid.
The divergence in new business value performance was consistent with prior market expectations. Under the influence of a high base and the new "report-and-act" unified regime for bancassurance, the third-quarter reports of the five A-share listed insurers showed collective pressure on new single premiums. According to statistics, all five listed insurers reported year-on-year declines in new single premiums for the first three quarters. Among them, China Life Insurance Company Limited and China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. posted slight declines of 0.8% and 1.3% respectively, Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. fell 9.1%, while People's Insurance Company of China (life insurance plus health insurance basis) and New China Life Insurance Company Ltd. recorded double-digit drops. Data from Soochow Securities showed that on a single-quarter basis in the third quarter, most companies faced significant pressure on new single premiums. China Life, Ping An, and New China Life all saw declines of 30% to 55% in the first three quarters, while China Pacific Insurance and PICC Life Insurance grew 2% and 12% respectively, mainly driven by growth in single-premium business.
The decline in new single premiums directly weighed on life insurance new business value performance. Excluding People's Insurance Company of China, which did not disclose new business value in its third-quarter report, the other four A-share listed insurers showed a divergent pattern of two increases and two decreases. Among them, China Life grew 13.1% year on year, New China Life only disclosed "continued positive growth," while Ping An and China Pacific Insurance fell 13.3% and 6.5% respectively. Based on a synthesis of analyst views, this was partly because the continuous reduction of guaranteed interest rates over the past three years repeatedly boosted third-quarter new single premiums through the policy-suspension effect, creating a high year-on-year base for the third quarter of this year. It was also because regulators further compressed bancassurance channel expenses and standardized product illustration rates, leaving insurers facing short-term "growing pains" from product structure upgrades and changing customer demand. Some industry insiders also noted that product mix adjustments suppressed new business value growth. New business value is determined jointly by new single premiums and the new business value margin, and insurers have generally made participating products—which have relatively lower new business value margins—their flagship offerings, which drags down the new business value margin.
From a channel perspective, the agent headcount in the individual insurance channel has entered a stabilizing phase. China Life and China Pacific Insurance have shown signs of stabilizing agent numbers compared with the beginning of the year, while per-capita productivity has continued to improve. The bancassurance channel, however, faces short-term pressure on growth. Data from Soochow Securities showed that China Life and China Pacific Insurance saw single-quarter bancassurance regular premium income fall by about 59% and 62% respectively in the third quarter. "But we expect an inflection point upward since September, and we remain bullish on the long-term space of the bancassurance market and the competitive advantages of leading companies," said the team led by Sun Ting, chief non-bank financial analyst at Soochow Securities. Li Jinsong, general manager of CPIC Life, also said at the third-quarter earnings briefing that bancassurance business was under relative pressure this year overall, but bancassurance channel growth is expected to be better than the individual insurance channel next year.
P&C combined ratio improves against headwinds. In contrast with the pressure on life insurance, the P&C side delivered a brighter report card. A statistical review found that People's Insurance Company of China, Ping An, and China Pacific Insurance recorded combined ratios of 95.8%, 95.6%, and 96.2% respectively in the first three quarters, down 0.3 percentage points, 1.4 percentage points, and 1.4 percentage points year on year. All achieved underwriting profitability despite a large number of major disasters in the third quarter. Data from the Ministry of Emergency Management showed that direct economic losses caused by natural disasters nationwide in the first three quarters totaled 199.36 billion yuan, generally lighter than the same period last year, but multiple sudden extreme disasters in southern regions caused the number of deaths and missing persons from disasters to rise significantly compared with the five-year average. From July to August, affected by multiple rounds of typhoons, South China and East China were frequently hit, while geological disasters caused major casualties in Tibet, Chongqing, and other places. Data showed that in August, direct economic losses from natural disasters nationwide reached 36.03 billion yuan, up more than 80% year on year. People's Insurance Company of China said at an investor briefing that despite frequent natural disaster losses in the first three quarters, the company still achieved year-on-year improvement in its combined ratio, mainly by continuously optimizing its business structure, improving risk pricing, strengthening underwriting and claims management, strictly controlling expenses, deepening cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, and solidly implementing risk reduction services. On the premium side, data from Soochow Securities showed that in the first three quarters, original premium income at PICC P&C, Ping An P&C, and CPIC P&C grew 1.7%, 3.5%, and 1.9% respectively year on year, continuing low-speed growth. Structurally, a divergence of "weak auto insurance, strong non-auto insurance" emerged: auto insurance premiums were basically flat, mainly affected by weak new car sales.
NBV is expected to recover on a low base and enter a medium-to-long-term cycle of rising volume and price. Looking ahead, securities firms' judgments are converging: short-term focus on the base, medium-term focus on transformation, long-term focus on volume and price. In the short term, because the fourth-quarter base is lower than the third-quarter base, many analysts believe NBV growth rates may rebound quarter on quarter. Looking ahead to 2027, many analysts still gave optimistic expectations for the industry's NBV performance. "We believe that under a low-interest-rate environment, 'household deposits shifting' will continue, and combined with the low base effect, the industry's NBV year-on-year growth rate in 2027 may be higher than the full-year level in 2026," said the team led by Mao Qingqing, analyst at CICC. The medium-to-long-term logic is even more positive. Sinolink Securities proposed that the liability side is entering a new cycle of "rising volume and price," and listed insurers' NBV is expected to maintain a double-digit growth center. On the volume side, the peak maturity period for residents' medium- and long-term deposits has arrived, and participating insurance products, which combine guaranteed returns with relatively attractive illustrative yields, are expected to absorb the migration of low-risk-preference funds. Combined with an increase in the market share of bancassurance regular premium new single premiums, medium- to long-term regular premium new single premiums are expected to continue positive growth. On the price side, new policies carry positive spread gains. Driven by new business dilution and policies such as "report-and-act," the liability cost of existing policies is expected to gradually decline, and profitability will continue to improve.
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