As of March 4, six listed insurers, Ping An, Chinese Life, CPIC, Chinese Insurance, Xinhua Insurance and China Taiping, have disclosed their 4 annual reports.

As of 2022, the reform of China's life insurance industry has been carried out for more than three years, and the reform has both achievements and challenges. According to the data released by major insurance companies in 3, the decline in the number of agents in the life insurance sector has led to a decline in premium income and new business value, but the per capita production capacity of agents has increased, and the income of Ping An life and health insurance business agents in China is in the forefront.

Reform results and challenges coexist

Data shows that in 2022, the total premium income of the life insurance sector of the six listed insurance companies will be about 6.1 trillion yuan.

Regarding the progress of life insurance reform, senior management of many insurance companies made explanations in their 2022 annual reports or performance briefings.

Chen Xinying, co-CEO of Ping An, said at the performance meeting that the reform of life insurance in the past three years has been fruitful, with three main highlights: first, the reform of high-quality agent team, and the per capita production capacity and income of Ping An's "three high" agents have continued to increase; The second is Ping An's unique new bancassurance channel and community grid channel; Third, Ping An took the lead in putting forward the concept of insurance plus service, especially the two services of health and pension. Ping An is the only company that provides not only financial security and wealth appreciation, but also the best quality health, pension and medical services.

"After perseverance in the past year, the most difficult time for life insurance transformation has passed." Pan Yanhong, chairman of CPIC Life Insurance, said at the performance meeting that since the first quarter of this year, various indicators of life insurance have shown a trend of good changes.

Regarding the latest progress in the transformation of life insurance business, Pan Yanhong said that the transformation of life insurance was not easy due to the internal and external environment in the past year, but the results of all aspects of transformation are showing.

Talking about the biggest difficulties and challenges in the transformation process, Pan Yanhong said that time is the biggest constraint, and she hopes to have more time to promote the transformation and landing.

Xiao Jianyou, Vice President of Chinese Insurance Group and President of PICC Life Insurance, said that in 2022, due to the impact of changes in market demand and the epidemic, offline staff increase, offline training, offline management, and offline signing were all affected, and the stability of the personal insurance team was challenged.

Regarding this year's development strategy, Xiao Jianyou said that the personal insurance channel originally emphasized the team-driven approach, and this year may place more emphasis on customer operation and improve the strength of personal insurance operation with the improvement of customer operation level. At the same time, it is also hoped that the bancassurance channel can increase its value contribution. In terms of product strategy, this year may take new steps, develop some new products with insurance characteristics that can lead the market, and explore in market segments.

More than 80,<> agents were lost

New China Insurance saw the largest decline in the value of new business

The notable change brought about by the life insurance reform is the loss of agents.

The data shows that in 2022, the number of agents of personal insurance channels in the life insurance sector of Ping An, Chinese Life, CPIC, Chinese Insurance and Xinhua Insurance will be 44,5, 66,8, 24,1 (at the end of the period), 9,74 and 19,7, respectively, a year-on-year decrease of 25.8%, 18.5%, 54.1%, 47.61% and 49.36%.

However, the number of agents in China Taiping has seen positive growth. Data show that at the end of 2022, Taiping Life's agent manpower increased by 1.6% from the beginning of the year, reaching 39,1.

Overall, in 2022, the number of agents in the life insurance sector of the six major listed insurers will decrease by about 6,82, a decrease of 74% compared with 2021.

Over the years, the growth in new policy premiums and new business value in the life insurance industry has been mainly driven by agents.

Data show that in 2022, the premium income of personal insurance channels of Chinese Life, CPIC Life Insurance, PICC Life Insurance, Xinhua Insurance and China Taiping was 4924.39 billion yuan, 1765.24 billion yuan, 455.98 billion yuan, 1163.62 billion yuan and 1070.69 billion yuan respectively.

In terms of new business value, the value of new business and the value of new business of personal insurance decreased the most, down by 59.50% and 59.53% respectively year-on-year. Gong Xingfeng, vice president of Xinhua Insurance, mentioned at the performance meeting that the source of high value cannot be limited to health insurance, and the company's value will decline more in 2022, one of the reasons is the impact of health insurance business.

At CPIC's 2022 results briefing, Cai Qiang, General Manager of CPIC Life Insurance, said that since CPIC implemented the "Long Voyage Action" for 18 months, the transformation of life insurance has met management's expectations. In the next step, CPIC Life will further deepen its organizational transformation, release the initiative of institutions at all levels, promote the professionalization, specialization and digital transformation of field personnel, and further enhance the professionalism of internal staff.

In the future, what aspects can insurance companies drive premiums and new business value? Xu Yuchen, a senior actuary, told Zhongxin Jingwei that the current products of the agent channel can be divided into protection products represented by critical illness insurance and continuous products represented by increased whole life insurance. In the face of a significant decline in new policy premiums for protection products such as critical illness insurance after 2020 and increased regulatory attention to the cost of insurance companies' liabilities, insurers need to balance the proportions of these two businesses. In addition, insurance companies also need to work marketing channels to continuously tap the insurance needs of new and existing customers.

Fees and commission expenses were generally reduced

The average monthly income of Ping An agents of China is at the highest level in the industry

Despite the decline in the number of agents, the per capita production capacity of the personal insurance channels of the life insurance sector of the six listed insurers increased in 2022.

According to the data of the annual reports of 6 companies, in 2022, the per capita new business value of Ping An Life Insurance agents will be 47639,22 yuan per year, a year-on-year increase of 1.51%; The per capita first-year premium paid in Chinese Shoyue increased by 7.6844% year-on-year; The per capita first-year insurance business income of CPIC life insurance marketers was RMB47,6 per month, an increase of 28261.31% year-on-year, and the per capita first-year insurance business income of core manpower per month was RMB7,3995, a year-on-year increase of 03.33%. The monthly per capita new single premium of PICC Life Insurance "Large Individual Insurance" channel was 45.3237 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 18.8%; The average monthly per capita comprehensive production capacity of Xinhua Insurance was 13280,1 yuan, an increase of 8.<>% year-on-year; Taiping Life's monthly monthly activity manpower paid premiums per capita was <>,<> yuan, a year-on-year increase of <>.<>%.

While the per capita production capacity increased, the per capita income of Ping An Life Insurance and CPIC Life Insurance agents increased. For example, the per capita monthly income of Ping An Life reached 7051,22 yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.4134%; The per capita commission income of CPIC's core manpower in the first year was 10,3 yuan, a year-on-year increase of <>.<>%.

Except for Ping An and CPIC, the other four listed insurers did not announce in detail the average monthly income level of agents in the life insurance sector.

The average income level of insurer agents can be seen in terms of insurer fees and commission expenses. Fees and commission expenses are the main costs that insurance companies pay to obtain premium income.

The data shows that in 2022, the handling fees and commission expenses of the six listed insurers have decreased. For the decline in fees and commissions, a number of insurance companies pointed out the reasons in their annual reports, and Ping An said that it was mainly affected by the comprehensive impact of changes in business scale and changes in product structure; Chinese Shou said that it was affected by the decline in the size of the team and the change of business structure; CPIC said that it was mainly because of the restructuring of Xinbao's products.

Based on the figures disclosed in the annual report, Ping An ranked first with RMB2022,6 in terms of the annual handling fees and commission expenses of the life insurance sector of the six listed insurers in 2022 to the number of agents in the personal insurance channel in 8. If the handling fee and commission expenses are averaged to monthly, the highest monthly per capita handling fee and commission expenses of the six listed insurance companies are still Ping An, Chinese Life Insurance and PICC Life Insurance ranked second and third respectively.

Wang Guojun, a professor at the School of Insurance of the University of International Business and Economics, told Zhongxin Jingwei that when the income of agents mainly depends on commissions, it is the only way for insurance companies to improve the production capacity of agents by improving their knowledge, financial management ability and customer acquisition level.

In Xu Yuchen's view, insurance companies can try to promote the increase of agent income from the perspective of benefit distribution, product design, and operation. On the one hand, reducing the level of insurance agents, increasing the direct commission of agents, and reducing indirect management costs, but this may affect the management and cultivation of agents; On the other hand, enhance insurance product design and marketing capabilities, increase value-added services, and help agents acquire customers.

(For more reporting clues, please contact Li Ziman, the author of this article: liziman@chinanews.com.cn) (Zhongxin Jingwei APP)

(The views in the article are for reference only, do not constitute investment advice, investment is risky, and caution is required when entering the market.) )

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Responsible editor: Li Zhongyuan