With the release of the operating data of the insurance industry in 2022, the report card of the original insurance premium income is fixed at the figure of 4.7 trillion yuan.

  4.7 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.58% from 4.49 trillion yuan in 2021. This growth rate has expanded from 4.05% in 2021, but it is still under pressure in the eyes of industry insiders.

Although the growth rate in the past two years has been similar, the growth driver has switched from life insurance in 2021 to property insurance last year.

The data shows that in 2022, the growth rate of original premium income of life insurance companies will drop a lot compared with 2021, while property insurance will reap a year-on-year increase of 8.71% in original premium income in 2022, the highest level in the past three years, and a significant rebound.

  "In the past year, the differentiation between personal insurance and property insurance has been obvious. Personal insurance is still struggling in the throes of the transformation period. Adding the impact of the epidemic, life is naturally difficult. However, property insurance, which has escaped the impact of the comprehensive reform of auto insurance, has become a full-year insurance company. The growth engine of insurance premiums, it is expected that the growth of life insurance will still form a differentiated trend this year.” A senior insurance industry analyst told China Business News.

The growth rate of life insurance has dropped by nearly half

  For the personal insurance industry in 2022, the pain of transformation still lingers on major insurance companies.

Premium data shows that the premium income of life insurance companies will increase by 2.78% year-on-year on a comparable basis in 2022, a decrease of 2.23 percentage points from the 5.01% increase in 2021.

In 2020, the growth rate of the original premium income of life insurance companies will be 6.91%. It can be seen that the growth rate of premiums of life insurance companies has been on a downward path in the past three years.

  However, judging from the data by type of insurance, life insurance, which is still in the transition period, will be the main driving force for the growth of life insurance premiums in 2022.

The above-mentioned senior analyst said that the growth of life insurance last year was mainly due to the rising demand for savings products due to market fluctuations, driven by the re-emergence of bancassurance channels and "hot products" incremental whole life insurance products, but The value of new business for the full year 2022 is expected to remain under overall pressure.

  However, the health insurance and accident insurance, which were hot in the past few years, are in a stall state.

Among them, the original premium income of health insurance in 2022 will be 707.3 billion yuan, an increase of 0.1%; accident insurance will decrease by 14.4% year-on-year.

  In the past few years, health insurance has been the most beautiful line of life insurance, and the growth rate once exceeded 30%.

As of 2020, health insurance premium income will still reach 817.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year growth rate of 15.7%, accounting for 24.52% of life insurance premiums.

However, as critical illness insurance, the "main force" of health insurance, has been under the attack of switching from old to new and inclusive insurance in the past two years, sales have shown signs of weakness.

According to industry analysts, on the one hand, critical illness insurance still has huge room for development, and on the other hand, critical illness insurance is "unsoldable". What is behind the contradiction is that the current critical illness insurance products as a whole cannot well meet the needs of the public. , with the increase in the rate of physical examination and the development of medical technology, people with purchasing power often cannot pass the health threshold of critical illness insurance. field.

  Among the three major types of insurance of life insurance companies, accident insurance has even experienced a negative growth of 14.4%. The above-mentioned analysts said that this is due to the impact of the epidemic, on the one hand, residents’ travel has decreased, and the demand for short-term accident insurance scenarios has dropped significantly; on the other hand , It is also related to the chaotic rectification of accident insurance by the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission at the end of 2021.

During the vigorous development of accident insurance in the past, chaos including bundled sales and abnormally high handling fees appeared. Under the rectification of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission, bundled sales on some third-party platforms have been strictly supervised, and accident insurance premiums have been affected in the short term. However, it will undoubtedly benefit the overall industry image and development in the medium and long term.

  If you look at the monthly data, life insurance and health insurance both saw a significant decline in the month-on-month period in December.

According to Guotai Junan data, the original premium income of life insurance in December was 152.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 0.1%; the monthly health insurance premium was 43.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year negative growth of 5.9%, compared with the positive growth of 7.5% and negative growth in November 1.1%, both life insurance and health insurance saw a significant decline month-on-month, which is expected to be mainly due to the seasonal impact of insurance companies starting a good start, and the peak of infection after the epidemic prevention policy was relaxed, resulting in limited business development; while the premium income of accident insurance in December was 2.9 billion Yuan, a year-on-year negative growth of 20.0%, is expected to still be affected by the limited travel of residents.

  Looking at the whole year of 2023, China Securities expects that as the impact of the epidemic on the debt side gradually subsides, the life insurance industry is expected to usher in recovery driven by the improvement of residents' awareness of risk prevention, the return of sales staff's offline business to normal, and the active promotion of product innovation by insurance companies .

However, some analysts in the industry have a neutral view, believing that the performance of the industry this year will depend on the effectiveness of the transformation of major insurance companies.

The growth rate of property insurance is the highest in the past three years, and the proportion of auto insurance has declined

  Compared with the painful period of life insurance companies, property insurance companies have obviously stepped out of the adjustment impact brought about by the comprehensive reform of auto insurance that began in 2020. In 2022, the insurance premium income will reach 1.49 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.7% on a comparable basis. The highest growth rate in 2021 is significantly higher than the growth rates of 1.92% and 4.36% in 2021 and 2020.

  Among them, auto insurance premiums will still be the biggest contribution in 2022. Its annual premiums will increase by 5.6%, of which the monthly increase in December will be 5% year-on-year.

Guotai Junan said that this is expected to be mainly due to the 4.5% year-on-year increase in new car sales brought about by the policy window period such as purchase tax reduction and exemption at the end of the year, thereby promoting the increase in the number of insured vehicles.

  It is worth mentioning that the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently issued the "Notice on Expanding the Floating Range of the Independent Pricing Coefficient of Commercial Auto Insurance", which clarified that the floating range of the independent pricing coefficient of commercial auto insurance has been expanded from 0.65-1.35 to 0.5-1.5, which is in the industry. It seems that the insiders will further expand the autonomy of insurance companies in auto insurance pricing, which will usher in a new round of market competition in the auto insurance market in 2023. It is not ruled out that small and medium-sized insurance companies may obtain high-quality auto insurance customers at low prices, but high-risk Car insurance premiums may face further increases.

However, some industry insiders said that there are not many vehicles involved in the two extremes of the floating range, so the industry structure will not change much. In the medium and long term, the Matthew effect pattern in the industry will continue.

  Although the growth rate of auto insurance premiums has picked up, as major property insurance companies seek the "second growth curve", the proportion of auto insurance premium income in property insurance premiums has been declining year by year in the past three years, down from 62.9% in 2019 By 2022 to 55.2%, non-auto insurance has gradually become an important driving factor for the property insurance industry.

In non-auto insurance, the top three types of insurance in 2022 are health insurance, agricultural insurance and liability insurance.

It is worth mentioning that although home property insurance accounts for only 1% of the total property insurance premiums, its premium growth rate in 2022 will be as high as 67.2% year-on-year, making it the insurance with the highest growth rate.

  Regarding the development of property insurance in 2023, the industry is optimistic.

China Securities said that in the short term, the property insurance industry can pay attention to the growth of new car sales after the optimization of epidemic prevention policies and the smoothing effect of insurance companies' rich reserve reserves on the increase in loss ratios. In the long run, it is optimistic about the increase in the penetration rate of new energy vehicles and the improvement of the industry's Matthew effect. and continuous optimization of non-motor insurance business.