Observation of the first quarterly report of listed insurance companies: Net profit has generally dropped, and the two agents have reduced staff by more than 100,000

　　Wei Wei

　　With the disclosure of Ping An's first quarterly report, the first quarterly reports of the five major A-share listed insurance companies have all been released.

Data show that the top five listed insurance companies achieved a combined premium income of over one trillion yuan in the first quarter.

Except for China Life's decline in premium income growth, the other four achieved positive growth.

　　While the premiums increased, the net profits of the five listed insurance companies attributable to shareholders of the parent company all declined. Among them, the largest decliner was New China Insurance, which fell by 78.70% year-on-year.

　　According to the first quarter reports disclosed by various companies, it is not difficult to find that the main reason for dragging down the growth rate of net profit in the first quarter is the change in investment income.

In the first quarter, the equity market retreated considerably, and the investment income of insurance companies was under pressure.

Double-digit decline in net profit, Xinhua Insurance dropped 78.7% year-on-year

　　Although the premium income of the five major insurance companies still maintains positive growth on the whole, the growth rate of net profit has experienced a double-digit decline.

The data shows that the net profit attributable to the parent company of China Ping An, China Life Insurance, China Insurance, China Pacific Insurance, and New China Insurance in the first quarter were 20.658 billion yuan, 15.178 billion yuan, 8.744 billion yuan, 5.437 billion yuan and 1.344 billion yuan respectively, down 24.10% year-on-year. 46.90%, 12.90%, 36.40% and 78.70%

　　It is not difficult to find from the first quarterly report that investment income has become a key factor dragging down net profit.

Xinhua Insurance explained that under the circumstance of a high base of net profit in the same period last year, the

and investment income decreased, resulting in a year-on-year decrease in net profit for the current period.

China Life also stated that in the first quarter of 2022, the domestic interest rate level is still low, the equity market has experienced a large retracement, and the company's investment income will be under pressure.

China Pacific Insurance also attributed the main reason for the decline in net profit to "reduced investment income".

　　Among them, the investment income of China Life, China Pacific Insurance, PICC and Xinhua Life Insurance in the first quarter was 44.558 billion yuan, 18.263 billion yuan, 16.571 billion yuan and 11.876 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 31.56%, 33.30%, 7.9% and 64.69% respectively. %.

　　Source: Ping An of China 2022 First Quarterly Report

　　Sino-Singapore Jingwei also noticed that the five insurance companies also performed poorly on the investment side.

　　Among them,

According to the data, in the first quarter of 2022, the annualized total investment yield of New China Insurance was 4.0%, a year-on-year decrease of 3.9 percentage points.

In addition, the total investment yield of China Life was 3.88%, and the net investment yield was 4.00%; the annualized net investment yield of China Ping An Insurance’s capital investment portfolio was 3.1%, down 0.4 percentage points year-on-year, and the annualized total investment yield was 2.3 %, a year-on-year decrease of 0.8 percentage points; the annualized net investment yield of CPIC investment assets was 3.7%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.2 percentage points, and the annualized gross investment yield was 3.7%, a year-on-year decrease of 0.9 percentage points.

　　CICC pointed out in the research report that due to the large fluctuations in the capital market in the first quarter of 2022, it is expected that most listed companies in the insurance industry will be dragged down by the investment side. %.

Premium income "four rises and one fall", sales manpower of China Life and Ping An declined

　　Affected by the epidemic, the total premiums of insurance companies continued to be under pressure.

The five major insurance companies have achieved a total premium income of 10,100.16 trillion yuan, showing a pattern of "four rises and one fall".

especially PICC's premium income growth rate achieved double-digit growth, reaching 14.3%.

　　Specifically, the absolute value of China Life's premium income in the first quarter of 2022 is still firmly in the top spot, reaching 315.011 billion yuan, but the growth rate continued the downward trend of the previous month, down 2.7% year-on-year.

Followed by Ping An, the premium income reached 246.477 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.11%.

PICC followed closely, with premium income increasing by 14.3% year-on-year to 233.984 billion yuan.

The premium income of China Pacific Insurance and New China Insurance was 149.654 billion yuan and 64.890 billion yuan respectively, a year-on-year increase of 7.3% and 2.4%.

　　In terms of life insurance business, the life insurance premium income of the five major insurance companies has diverged, showing a situation of "two declines and three increases", that is, the growth rate of premium income of China Life and Ping An Life has declined, and the remaining three have achieved growth.

Among them, CPIC Life achieved a premium income of 99.45 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.23%; New China Insurance achieved a year-on-year premium income of 64.89 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 2.36%; PICC Life achieved a premium income of 59.75 billion yuan, the fastest growth rate, a year-on-year increase of 17.94%.

　　Affected by various factors such as the impact of the epidemic, the new policy premiums of listed life insurance companies have declined.

Specifically, the development of China Life's new single business continued to be under pressure, but the business structure was optimized.

Among them, the new single premium was 100.895 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.5%.

The first-year regular premium was 65.366 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 4.3%, and the decline was improved compared with the same period in 2021.

　　Ping An Life's accumulated total new orders amounted to RMB 49.8 billion, of which individual new orders amounted to RMB 43.1 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 15.7%.

The new insurance business income of CPIC Life’s agent channel was 9.219 billion yuan, down 44.10% year-on-year, but the new insurance business income of group insurance channel increased by 39.2% year-on-year; PICC Life Insurance and New China Insurance in the first quarter of the year. %.

The decline in new order business is also related to the shrinking of the agent team.

Judging from the two companies that disclosed the data, the manpower numbers of China Life and Ping An Life have continued to decline.

　　The first quarterly report shows that as of the end of March, China Life had a total sales force of 846,000, a decrease of 44,000 compared with 890,000 at the end of 2021.

Among them, there are 780,000 individual insurance salespersons, a decrease of 40,000 compared with 820,000 at the end of 2021.

　　Ping An's life insurance agents are also shrinking.

As of the end of the first quarter, the number of individual life insurance sales agents of Ping An Life was 537,900, a decrease of 62,400 from 600,300 at the end of 2020.

This also means that the agents of the two insurance companies have reduced their staff by more than 100,000 people.

　　China Merchants Securities pointed out in the research report that the life insurance business will continue to be under pressure in the first quarter of 2022, and companies are also continuing to promote the clearing of channels and the transformation of products and services. Considering the decline of the base quarter by quarter, it is expected that the number of new orders in the second quarter will decline. A marginal improvement is expected.

Property and casualty insurance continued to pick up, and auto insurance premium income increased by double-digits

　　From the perspective of property insurance business, the three listed property insurance companies PICC Property & Casualty, Ping An Property & Casualty and Pacific Property & Casualty all achieved double-digit growth in premiums in the first quarter, 12.2%, 10.3% and 14% respectively.

　　Among them, in terms of auto insurance premiums, the impact of the comprehensive reform of auto insurance is weakening. In the first quarter, the auto insurance premiums of the three property insurance companies also achieved positive growth.

Data show that PICC Property & Casualty Insurance, Ping An Property & Casualty Insurance, and Pacific Property & Casualty Insurance earned 63.882 billion yuan, 47.083 billion yuan, and 24.438 billion yuan in auto insurance premiums in the first quarter, with growth rates of 10.9%, 10.4%, and 11.8%, respectively.

　　Everbright Securities believes that as the pressure of comprehensive reform of auto insurance eases, the average car insurance premium increases, and the comprehensive ratio continues to improve.

　　Sino-Singapore Jingwei also noticed that the growth rate of non-auto insurance business still performed well.

PICC Property & Casualty, which once lost several billion yuan in credit guarantee insurance, has picked up the business again. In the first quarter of this year, the premium income of credit guarantee insurance reached 1.488 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 203.7%. In addition, agricultural insurance and liability insurance are in The growth rate of other insurance premiums in China is also more than double digits.

At the same time, the non-auto insurance business of Ping An Property & Casualty and Pacific Property & Casualty grew by 10.2% and 16.2% year-on-year respectively.

　　In terms of comprehensive ratio, the three property insurance companies "two fell and one rose".

Among them, the combined ratio of PICC Property & Casualty was 95.6%, down 0.1 percentage points year-on-year; the combined ratio of Pacific Property & Casualty was 99.1%, down 0.2 percentage points year-on-year; the combined ratio of Ping An Property & Casualty was 96.8%, up 1.6 percentage points year-on-year percentage point.

　　Soochow Securities believes that since 2022, local regulatory guidance on the speed limit of auto insurance will remain unchanged, which will further force leading insurance companies to focus on high-quality home auto business.

The spread of the epidemic in various places has reduced the frequency of auto insurance trips, and the hardening trend of auto insurance rates under the impact of major disasters in the second half of 2022 is expected to continue.

It is expected that the auto insurance underwriting profit of listed insurance companies in 2022 will still improve year-on-year. It remains to be seen how the repeated epidemics will drag down the performance of non-auto insurance, but the overall improvement trend of underwriting profit will not change.

(Sino-Singapore Jingwei APP)

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