The "anti-involution" movement is gaining traction as the "report-act integration" policy expands from auto insurance to "non-auto" segments. An increasing number of property and casualty (P&C) insurers are recognizing that "accounting-based operations" and "value return" represent the prevailing trend.

Consequently, abandoning the illusion of blindly pursuing scale expansion and accelerating profit recovery have become the primary objectives for numerous P&C insurers. This shift is evident from the substantial improvement in overall profitability among P&C companies in the first half of 2025.

According to the latest solvency reports released by P&C insurers, 76 non-listed P&C companies that disclosed net profit indicators achieved combined net profits exceeding 9.2 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, an increase of nearly 4 billion yuan compared to the same period last year. This marks the first time since 2019 that non-listed P&C insurers' net profits have surpassed 9 billion yuan in the first half of the year.

Among the 76 non-listed P&C insurers, the operational performance of small and medium-sized institutions stands out as a significant highlight. Encouragingly, most small and medium-sized entities achieved positive profits in the first half of this year, with only 8 companies reporting negative net profits. This demonstrates that small and medium-sized P&C insurers are increasingly emphasizing quality improvement and efficiency enhancement in their operational strategies, rather than purely pursuing scale expansion.

However, the solid performance in the first half does not guarantee continued success. Looking ahead to the second half, frequent natural disasters such as heavy rains and floods across various regions nationwide may increase the claims pressure on P&C insurers, while also presenting new tests for the industry's catastrophe insurance system construction and risk mitigation service capabilities.

**TOP10 Insurers Capture Over 80% Market Share**

When analyzing the operational performance of P&C companies in the first half of 2025, premium income represents an unavoidable aspect. However, industry insiders understand that despite P&C insurers achieving a 5.1% year-on-year growth in premium income, the high concentration in the P&C industry and limited survival space for small and medium-sized insurers remain unchanged.

According to industry data, among the 85 P&C insurers included in statistics for the first half of 2025, the top ten insurers each achieved premium income exceeding 10 billion yuan. The "big three" P&C insurers - PICC P&C, Ping An P&C, and CPIC P&C - all surpassed 100 billion yuan in premium income, collectively generating 607.9 billion yuan, accounting for 63% of the industry's total premium income.

Following closely is China Life P&C Insurance with premium income of 59.27 billion yuan in the first half, followed by China United P&C Insurance, Continent Insurance, Sunshine P&C Insurance, Taiping P&C Insurance, ZhongAn Online, and Yingda Taihe, with premium incomes of 42.39 billion yuan, 30.08 billion yuan, 25.27 billion yuan, 17.82 billion yuan, 16.66 billion yuan, and 10.14 billion yuan respectively. Notably, compared to the first half of 2024, Yingda Taihe achieved "promotion" by joining the 10-billion-yuan club.

This means that the TOP10 insurers collectively achieved nearly 810 billion yuan in premium income in the first half, capturing over 80% of the market share, while the remaining 75 small and medium-sized P&C insurers competed for less than 20% of the market space, illustrating the intense level of competition.

The survival difficulties of small and medium-sized P&C institutions are thus easily imaginable. Industry data also shows that in the first half of 2025, as many as 30 P&C insurers had premium income below 1 billion yuan, with 6 insurers even recording premium income below 100 million yuan, continuously weakening their market presence.

**BYD P&C Insurance and Rongtong P&C Insurance Lead with Cliff-like Growth Rates**

While premium income alone reveals few differentiating highlights among small and medium-sized P&C insurers, premium growth rate indicators better reflect different strategies and development paces of various companies over time.

Industry data shows that in the first half of this year, among the 83 P&C insurers included in statistics (excluding two newly established companies, Shengneng P&C Insurance and Dongwu P&C Insurance), a total of 54 companies achieved positive or stable premium income growth. Among these, 15 P&C insurers recorded year-on-year premium growth rates exceeding 20%, far surpassing the industry average growth rate of 5.1%, with most of these strongly growing insurers being small and medium-sized entities.

Specifically, in the TOP10 premium growth rate ranking, BYD P&C Insurance led with a cliff-like premium growth rate of 1,986.57%, helping drive its first-half premium income to 1.4 billion yuan. As an industry "newcomer," BYD P&C Insurance's rapid development momentum is inseparable from the support of new energy vehicle giant BYD Company Limited, giving it enviable resource advantages in the new energy vehicle insurance sector.

Public information shows that in the first half of 2025, BYD Company Limited achieved cumulative sales of 2.146 million units, once again breaking industry records. The overseas market contributed over 470,000 units, representing 132% year-on-year growth, not only exceeding the total overseas sales for the entire year of 2024 but also achieving sales leadership in multiple global markets. Looking at BYD P&C Insurance's auto insurance business data, the company reportedly achieved auto insurance premium income of 1.387 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, with premium income growing 1,957.41% year-on-year, truly advancing triumphantly among insurers.

Besides BYD P&C Insurance, another dark horse performer in the first half was Rongtong P&C Insurance, with premium income growth of 262.28% year-on-year. As an insurer approved for operation in 2022, Rongtong P&C Insurance is also an industry newcomer with strong shareholder backing.

According to available information, Rongtong P&C Insurance's actual controller is China Rongtong Group, which directly holds a 32.5% stake in Rongtong P&C Insurance and indirectly holds 67.5% through China Rongtong Real Estate Group Co., Ltd., China Rongtong Agricultural Development Group Co., Ltd., and China Rongtong Tourism Development Group Co., Ltd. China Rongtong Group is a central enterprise directly managed by the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council, operating as a wholly state-owned company with business scope covering real estate, agriculture, hotels and tourism, commercial services, resource development, security services, and many other fields.

Unlike many insurers that require extended periods to explore business during their initial establishment, Rongtong P&C Insurance quickly found its niche. Its "Rongjunbao" series products, launched just two years ago, started with pilots in Shandong and gradually expanded to Inner Mongolia, Ningxia, and other regions. At Rongtong P&C Insurance's 2025 work conference in January, General Manager Shi Qiang emphasized the need to revitalize existing foundation assets, optimize foundation increments, and continuously improve military service quality and efficiency; cultivate new momentum, update old momentum, and continuously advance "Rongjunbao" quality improvement and expansion; cultivate and guide total military-related demand, coordinate and release total industry supply, and actively expand military industry and military-civilian integration markets.

Additionally, three other P&C insurers achieved premium growth rates exceeding 40% in the first half: Huiyou Mutual, Rongsheng P&C Insurance, and Zhonghui Mutual, reaching 77.92%, 61%, and 43.78% respectively.

Notably, both Huiyou Mutual and Zhonghui Mutual are mutual insurance institutions, potentially reflecting these previously stable insurers' quiet efforts during the industry's high-quality transformation period. Data shows that in 2024, these two insurers' written premium growth rates reached 48% and 222.4% respectively.

However, whether for BYD P&C Insurance or Rongtong P&C Insurance, their confidence in maintaining high growth rates during the industry transformation period stems from highly differentiated competitive advantages that many small and medium-sized insurers find difficult to replicate.

**Accelerated Profit Recovery, Second Half Catastrophe Claims Remain a Challenge**

Compared to premium scale and growth rates, in recent years, under regulatory guidance and changing market conditions, P&C insurers have increasingly emphasized efficiency first. Controlling quality on the underwriting side, "saving where possible" on the expense side, and managing risk control on the claims side have become industry consensus, with overall industry profitability achieving significant improvement.

Data shows that in the first half of 2025, 76 non-listed P&C insurers that disclosed net profit indicators collectively achieved net profits of 9.255 billion yuan, an increase of approximately 4 billion yuan compared to the same period last year, representing over 75% year-on-year growth. Encouragingly, from individual institutional profit performance, as many as 68 insurers achieved positive net profits in the first half, meaning nearly 90% of insurers achieved profitability.

Analyzing the reasons behind the overall substantial improvement in P&C insurers' profitability, besides improvements in comprehensive cost ratios on the underwriting side due to cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, this also relates to capital market benefits and improved investment returns for numerous insurers. Data shows that 40 non-listed P&C insurers experienced year-on-year increases in investment returns in the first half, accounting for approximately 53%.

So, when industry players are generally profitable, which minority of insurers are experiencing contrarian losses, and what are the reasons behind these losses?

Specifically, the 8 insurers experiencing contrarian losses are Qianhai United P&C Insurance, Hyundai P&C Insurance, Taiping Technology Insurance, Changjiang P&C Insurance, Rongsheng P&C Insurance, Yellow River P&C Insurance, Sompo Japan, and Dongwu P&C Insurance, with net profits of -51 million yuan, -44 million yuan, -33 million yuan, -28 million yuan, -19 million yuan, -7 million yuan, -2 million yuan, and -2 million yuan respectively.

Investigating the reasons for losses among these 8 insurers, insufficient underwriting profitability represents the core issue. Data shows that all 8 insurers had comprehensive cost ratios exceeding 100% in the first half. Typically, Dongwu P&C Insurance had a comprehensive cost ratio of 7,415% in the first half. Those familiar with the industry know that Dongwu P&C Insurance emerged from the risk disposal of Anxin P&C Insurance and only began operations in April this year. Therefore, Dongwu P&C Insurance's high comprehensive cost ratio is closely related to the company's recent opening, with high cost ratios associated with the initial period's lack of scale effects and high fixed cost proportions.

Besides Dongwu P&C Insurance, Qianhai United P&C Insurance and Taiping Technology Insurance also had comprehensive cost ratios of 244.05% and 216.07% respectively. Among these, Qianhai P&C Insurance's high comprehensive cost ratio may be affected by auto insurance business drag. According to industry data obtained, Qianhai United P&C Insurance's auto insurance underwriting profit was -54 million yuan in the first half, with auto insurance comprehensive cost ratio of 410.67% and comprehensive expense ratio reaching 318.24%.

Looking at Taiping Technology Insurance, this relates to insufficient operating cost dilution. According to the company's second-quarter 2025 solvency report, as a legal entity, Taiping Technology Insurance faces rigid fixed cost expenditures in core systems, service systems, operating systems, and management personnel. While continuous cost reduction and efficiency enhancement measures have reduced some fixed expenditures to some extent, under the premise of premiums not rapidly expanding to form scale effects, management and operating costs are difficult to dilute, keeping cost ratios persistently high. Indeed, the company's comprehensive expense ratio was 108.38% in the first half, and Taiping Technology Insurance's claims ratio was also high at 107.69%.

Additionally, Sompo Japan, Rongsheng P&C Insurance, Hyundai P&C Insurance, Changjiang P&C Insurance, and Yellow River P&C Insurance also ranked among the industry's highest comprehensive cost ratios, at 193.28%, 120.79%, 118.02%, 116.69%, and 109.92% respectively. Moreover, auto insurance operating data reflects that except for Sompo Japan, which does not operate auto insurance business, Yellow River P&C Insurance, Changjiang P&C Insurance, Hyundai P&C Insurance, and Rongsheng P&C Insurance were similarly affected by auto insurance underwriting losses, with auto insurance comprehensive cost ratios all exceeding 100%.

Overall, achieving a "bumper harvest" in net profits for non-listed P&C insurers in the first half of 2025, with a pattern of many profits and few losses, is quite remarkable. However, looking ahead to the second half, absolute optimism is difficult to maintain, with the most critical variable being the frequent occurrence of high-intensity rainstorm disasters in multiple locations, which may increase claims pressure on P&C insurers.

According to statistics from the National Financial Regulatory Administration, as of August 2, Beijing, Hebei, Shandong, Jilin, Tianjin, Guangdong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Inner Mongolia - 9 regions - have been affected by rainstorm disasters. Insurance institutions have received a total of 65,000 claims reports, with estimated damages reaching 1.88 billion yuan and 520 million yuan already paid out. According to relevant media reports from the Beijing regulatory bureau, as of 17:00 on August 3, insurance institutions within the jurisdiction have cumulatively handled 5,330 claims reports for Beijing's extraordinary rainstorm, with estimated damages exceeding 155 million yuan.

Under frequent rainstorm disasters, besides casualties, P&C insurance often involves various loss scenarios including flooded vehicles, damaged buildings, and submerged crops. As disaster impacts gradually emerge, the claims pressure faced by numerous P&C insurers may further intensify, becoming one of the important factors affecting the industry's profit performance in the second half.