According to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, by the end of 2025, China's population aged 60 and above reached 323.38 million, accounting for 23.0% of the total population, an increase of 13.07 million from the previous year. The population aged 65 and above stood at 223.65 million, representing 15.9% of the total population, an increase of 3.42 million year-on-year.
Against the backdrop of an accelerating aging population, the elderly care industry has become a critical component of the nation's multi-level social security system. It has also emerged as a core strategic focus for insurance institutions, which possess long-term capital advantages for transformation and ecosystem development.
Policy and market dynamics are driving insurers to expand into the senior care sector. The industry combines social welfare attributes with significant market potential, and its development is strongly supported by national policies. In recent years, a series of high-level policy documents have been introduced, establishing a framework that encourages private sector participation, promotes the integration of medical and care services, and fosters the "silver economy."
Financially, the Central Financial Work Conference identified "pension finance" as one of five key financial priorities. Subsequently, the National Financial Regulatory Authority issued guidelines clarifying that, with effective risk isolation, insurance institutions are supported in participating in the elderly care service system and exploring ways to link long-term care, risk protection, and institutional or community-based care services.
Simultaneously, a substantial gap between supply and demand creates a fundamental commercial driver. Traditional family-based care functions are weakening, while the supply of affordable public care institutions is insufficient. Demand for market-oriented, high-quality, and diverse elderly care options continues to rise.
For the insurance industry, deep involvement in elderly care offers strategic synergies. Senior living communities and their ancillary services can be deeply integrated with insurance products like pension insurance, annuities, and long-term care insurance, providing clients with a "policy plus services" solution that enhances product appeal and customer loyalty.
Currently, China's insurance sector is responding to the demands of the silver economy by increasing investments and constructing care communities. Data shows that during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the industry developed 130 senior care community projects. In 2025 alone, insurers launched over 10 new projects, involving major players like China Life Insurance, Taikang Insurance, China Pacific Insurance,
Specifically, in December 2025, China Pacific Insurance opened major communities in Beijing and Sanya, while China Life's "Guoshou Jiayuan · Beijing Lejing" project became fully operational. In November 2025, New China Life launched its Huizhou travel-base facility, and in October 2025, a jointly-operated travel and wellness community named "Yada Panasonic Community" was announced by New China Life and Yada International.
The "city-center model" has become a new choice. As strategic layouts deepen, the logic behind selecting locations for care communities has shifted. Initially, many insurance-backed communities were situated in suburban areas, emphasizing scenery and environment. However, as market awareness grew, limited access to medical resources and physical separation from family members emerged as major drawbacks of traditional suburban care. Insurers began targeting scarce urban core locations and high-quality medical resources.
Consequently, the "city-center elderly care" model gained popularity. Dajia Insurance pioneered this approach, focusing on central urban areas to address seniors' core needs of being "close to medical care and near family." By the first half of 2025, Dajia Insurance had established 16 city-center medical and care communities across 14 cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Jinan, and Changsha.
China Pacific Insurance has also defined a "Comprehensive Wellness" strategy, emphasizing the "city-center care, essential wellness needs" approach. Its "Taikang Home" brand has 15 projects in 13 cities, with 14 communities already operational, hosting over 3,000 long-term residents and offering diverse formats including residential care, wellness, and active living.
The launch of China Life's "Guoshou Jiayuan · Beijing Lejing" project in December 2025 further confirms this trend. Located in the core area of Beijing's Future Science Park in Changping District, approximately 20 kilometers from the city center, it is adjacent to the Olympic Forest Park and surrounded by abundant tertiary hospital resources.
Regarding the city-center model, Yang Kuan, head of Dajia Health Investment, stated that seniors have not only a rigid demand for quality medical resources but also a spiritual pursuit for a "warm, fulfilling, and companionable" life. Based on this, the city-center model emerged, focusing on being "near medical care, close to family, and immersed in community life," aiming to create a "new living hub" for seniors in urban cores.
As the city-center model addresses issues of location and basic medical accessibility, the next challenge for insurers is systematically and sustainably meeting seniors' more advanced and complex health management and lifestyle needs. Mere property development and basic services are no longer sufficient to form a core competitive edge.
Therefore, leading insurers are shifting their strategic focus from building individual high-quality care communities to creating an integrated ecosystem that deeply combines insurance coverage, health and wellness services, and industrial capital investment. For example, China Life Group's "333 Strategy" focuses on three key areas—pensions, health, and wealth management—actively cultivating three new growth drivers. Its subsidiary, China Life Health Investment, positions itself as an investor and operator in the health and elderly care industry, having initiated a RMB 10 billion "Big Health III Fund" and a first-phase RMB 5 billion "Silver Industry Fund." It has invested in 20 pension and wellness projects across 17 cities, deploying over 11,000 care beds.
Furthermore, given the long return cycles and significant capital requirements of elderly care real estate, insurers are exploring more flexible fund-based operation models. For instance, China Life recently planned to contribute RMB 8.4915 billion to establish the "Beijing China Life Pension Industry Equity Investment Fund II" with a management company, focusing on investments in the senior care sector. This involves two main strategies: acquiring existing elderly care real estate projects and developing new ones. Acquisitions are conducted through purchasing equity, capital increases, or acquiring sub-fund shares, while new project development focuses on premium medical-care apartments, comprehensive CCRC communities, and expanding into affordable community-based, home-based, and embedded care services, integrating key links across the care service, technology, and lifestyle industry chain.
China Pacific Insurance has further established its "Comprehensive Wellness" strategy with a "1234" framework. This new strategy aims to create an integrated wellness ecosystem as its core direction, strengthening the synergy between its insurance investment and wellness service clusters.
Zhao Yonggang, President of China Pacific Insurance, stated that the company is actively addressing the structural challenges posed by China's elderly population exceeding 300 million, upgrading its strategy from "Big Health" to "Comprehensive Wellness." It focuses on building a multi-dimensional ecosystem covering pensions, health, and rehabilitation, creating a full life-cycle service chain encompassing prevention, diagnosis, treatment, recovery, and convalescence.
Taikang Insurance, which obtained a pilot license for senior care community investment as early as 2009, currently has 47 "Taikang Home" projects in 37 cities, with 27 projects operational in 24 cities, serving over 20,000 residents and planning nearly 90,000 beds in total. Chen Dongsheng, Chairman of Taikang Insurance, stated that the company is accelerating its "City Care Alliance" strategy, leveraging the professional capabilities of its large-scale, high-quality communities and supported by embedded community rehabilitation service centers to empower home-based care.
On the industrial capital investment front, insurance funds are deeply penetrating the medical, health, and elderly care sectors. The China Banking and Insurance Asset Management Association noted that insurance capital, with its unique advantages of large scale, long duration, and stable sources, is deeply involved in national strategies, injecting strong momentum into the upgrading of the medical, health, and elderly care industries. Data shows that by the third quarter of 2025, insurance funds had directly invested nearly RMB 30 billion in medical and elderly care fields, covering subsectors such as biotechnology, new drug technologies, genetic technology, medical devices, and medical groups.