"For financial 'anti-involution,' specifically in the insurance industry, differentiation must be achieved in 'insurance + services' to develop distinctive characteristics for sustainable development," said Xie Yonglin, General Manager and Co-CEO of Ping An Insurance (Group) Company Of China, Ltd. (601318.SH; 02318.HK), during a recent media interview.
He pointed out that while it appears everyone is providing services, this is not actually the case. How to make consumers willing to purchase insurance for continuous premium inflow? Beyond complying with regulatory requirements, the services embedded behind insurance policies require careful consideration. On the asset side, companies must strive to achieve continuous, healthy, and stable returns, which tests investment allocation and trading capabilities. Providing good services also requires sustainable returns from the investment side for support.
Xie believes that the stock market's outstanding performance and positive trends in the first half of the year reflect China's economic stabilization and improvement. Benefiting from domestic policy dividends, technological industrialization development, and still reasonable stock market valuation ranges, capital markets continue to offer certain structural opportunities in the future.
According to PING AN's 2025 interim results report, as of the end of June, among Ping An's nearly 247 million individual customers, nearly 63% simultaneously enjoy service benefits provided by the healthcare and pension ecosystem. Customers enjoying healthcare and pension ecosystem service benefits have an average of approximately 3.37 contracts per customer and average AUM of approximately 61,400 yuan, representing 1.5 times and 4.1 times respectively compared to individual customers not enjoying healthcare and pension ecosystem service benefits.
Regarding this, Xie stated that the strategic layout of "comprehensive finance + healthcare and pension" helps integrate resources, upgrade services, and empower customer acquisition, retention, and cost control. Ping An has made forward-looking arrangements, continuously building healthcare and pension ecosystems, creating pension service strategies centered on home-based elderly care and high-end health and wellness, empowering the financial main business. The empowering effect of the healthcare and pension strategy on the main business continues to improve, with the average AUM of customers using the healthcare and pension ecosystem increasing by 2.6% compared to the beginning of the year in the first half.
According to Xie's introduction, to deeply promote the implementation of the group's "comprehensive finance + healthcare and pension" dual-wheel drive strategy, PING AN established a Group Healthcare Services Committee, with core leaders from the group and relevant member companies participating to further strengthen strategic coordination and promote resource integration.
In the first half of 2025, customers enjoying healthcare and pension ecosystem service benefits at PING AN accounted for nearly 70% of life insurance new business value, with healthcare benefit customers accounting for approximately 27% of new business value and pension benefit customers accounting for approximately 42%.
Discussing long-term protection and pension issues amid accelerating population aging, Xie stated that the country has issued a series of policy dividends including tax-advantaged pension insurance and personal pension systems, clearly pointing out the direction. The insurance industry should assume the role of the third pillar of pension insurance.
Meanwhile, the insurance industry should also become a key supplement to medical insurance, providing supplementary protection for drugs and services not covered by medical insurance, enhancing people's happiness and sense of fulfillment. Additionally, the insurance industry should become an important participant in the silver economy infrastructure. Regarding insurance fund utilization, offline investments can include pension communities and rehabilitation hospitals, while online capabilities should leverage technology to create AI doctors and other services.
However, it should be noted that in recent years, affected by factors such as income and employment, residents have become more cautious in consumption, and with risk-free interest rates continuing to decline and predetermined interest rates for life insurance products continuously adjusted downward, the attractiveness of life insurance products has relatively weakened. To address these situations, many insurance companies have explicitly stated they view dividend insurance as a key point for life insurance transformation. What preparations has PING AN made regarding dividend insurance?
Xie pointed out that in the low interest rate era, the "guaranteed + floating" mechanism of dividend insurance products can better help insurance companies optimize liability costs and reduce interest spread risk. In the first half of 2025, Ping An took multiple measures to promote dividend insurance products, with dividend insurance accounting for approximately 40% of individual insurance new policies.
"Ping An has launched various types of dividend products. After the September interest rate adjustment, wealth and pension products will comprehensively shift to dividend types, and protection products will also gradually enrich dividend-type supply. In sales promotion, Ping An also provides relatively resource-tilted commissions for dividend insurance, increases the assessment weight of dividend insurance proportion, and strengthens dividend insurance product training. Additionally, in asset-liability matching, Ping An has also established multi-account systems in advance for dividend products to enhance dividend insurance competitiveness."
From a channel perspective, the semi-annual reports disclosed by listed insurance companies all show that bancassurance channels are growing rapidly, with the new business value proportion of bancassurance channels also continuously increasing. Some insurance company executives have stated frankly at earnings conferences that bancassurance channel development should be elevated to company strategic height for unified consideration.
Xie, who has worked in multiple industries including insurance, securities, and banking, stated frankly that after the implementation of unified reporting and approval, bancassurance channels have broken "involution," shifting from cost-driven to demand-driven and product-driven approaches, with promising high-quality development prospects, especially benefiting large companies. From performance results, in the first half of this year, Ping An Life and Health Insurance's bancassurance channel new business value reached 5.972 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 168.6%, with channel proportion increasing to 27%. Based on first-year premiums, new business value increased by 9.7 percentage points year-on-year.
"Ping An firmly believes in and develops bancassurance channels, and will further expand outlets, increase teams, optimize products, and improve outlet productivity. We expect bancassurance channels to maintain high growth momentum in 2025," Xie emphasized.