The industry has just recovered from the 2023 annual reports of listed companies, and the premium data for the first quarter has come one after another.
The premium of life insurance, except for the big brother Chinese life still in the head company, other companies are somewhat under pressure.
The total premium income of the five companies Chinese Life (+3.18%), Ping An Life (+0.90%), Taibao Life Insurance (-5.39%), Xinhua Insurance (-11.70%), and PICC Life Insurance (-8.24%) was -0.80% year-on-year, although it was better than -2.81% in the previous February, but there was still a negative sign ahead.
Thinking about the manpower situation at the end of 2023 (average month) disclosed in the annual reports of listed companies, it seems that the pressure on the premiums of listed life insurance companies in the first quarter of 2024 is not surprising, after all, the head companies still rely on individual insurance channels.
As for the listed companies chasing bancassurance in the past two years, it seems that on the basis of negative growth in the first quarter of 2023, it seems that there is nothing strange about it.
In terms of property insurance, compared with life insurance, it is much more joyful.
The total premium income of PICC Property Insurance (+3.80%), Ping An Property Insurance (+2.80%), CPIC Property Insurance (+8.60%) and Zhongan Online (+18.10%) was +4.73% year-on-year, with a growth rate of nearly 6 percentage points higher than that of five life insurance companies.
But compared with myself, in the context of a high base in previous years, growth has also slowed down...
1 Life insurance is "clearly distinguished, and it is scattered", China Life has taken the lead in both incremental stocks, and the three life insurance giants have experienced negative growth in the first quarter for two consecutive years
Judging from the premium income data of listed life insurance companies in the first quarter, the five companies achieved a total premium income of 714.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of -0.80%. Specific to the company, it can be summarized in eight words: clear and distinct, staggered.
From the perspective of growth rate, there is a clear distinction.
Chinese Life and Ping An Life have achieved a good start to 2024, with premium income growth rates of +3.18% and +0.90% respectively in the first quarter.
CPIC Life, Xinhua Insurance and PICC Life were not so lucky, with growth of -5.39%, -11.70% and -8.24% becoming the disappointers among listed insurers. Among them, PICC Life Insurance contracted by nearly 1/3 due to the sharp contraction of single payment business, resulting in the first-year premium income of long-term insurance of -21.4% year-on-year. In addition, these three companies have had negative growth in the first quarter for two consecutive years.
In terms of the total amount, it is scattered.
Chinese Life took the lead with a premium income of 337.6 billion yuan, and its growth rate of 3.18% can be said to stabilize the market. The runner-up, Ping An Life, achieved a premium income of about 173.3 billion yuan, which is only about half of Chinese's life.
The third runner-up CPIC Life Insurance achieved a premium income of about 91.7 billion yuan, which was only more than half of that of Ping An Life. As for the fourth echelon of Xinhua and PICC Life Insurance, it is only more than half of CPIC Life Insurance...
The stability and progress of the big brother China Life is more due to the stability and progress under the high base of the new single phase of individual insurance. Although its growth rate is not the fastest among listed companies, considering its market position of accounting for half of the new single payment of individual insurance of listed companies, the marginal incremental scale is still in the first place.
It is true that in 2024, a critical period for the transformation of the life insurance industry, it always seems a bit "dogmatic" to pay too much attention to premiums.
However, we must also see that whether it is a listed company or a non-listed company, although the growth rate of premium income may be lower than that of previous years, it basically still maintains a positive growth, which is actually the embodiment of the operating foundation and winter capital.
The increase in premiums can bring the company more sufficient confidence and space for transformation. Just like changing the water in a fish tank, since you can't fish out all the fish when you change the water, then there must be something out and there must be in at the same time, so that the fish can survive the water change period.
2 Behind the growth rate of life insurance premiums is the choice of channels, but also the competition of talents
Obviously, the three listed life insurance companies with a significant decline in premiums in the first quarter of 2024, PICC Life Insurance, Xinhua Insurance, and CPIC Life Insurance, have made frequent moves in the bancassurance channel in recent years, and even made sharp turns such as "restarting bancassurance", but under this pattern of "integration of newspapers and banks", the business will be more or less "flexible".
For a long time, PICC Life Insurance, which has been mainly engaged in bancassurance business and can be called the "construction company of bancassurance", experienced a negative growth of 8.2% in the first quarter, while Xinhua Insurance, which has been turning to bancassurance in the past few years, experienced a negative growth of 11.7% in the first quarter.
However, the situation of CPIC Life Insurance is different. Since the resumption of bancassurance, CPIC Life Insurance has rapidly expanded its single delivery business on a large scale to reoccupy the market, but it has caught up with the new regulations when it is in transition in 2023, and the transformation space can be described as embarrassing.
As for personal insurance, the channels for the industry to survive are still under pressure.
Judging from the annual report data, in the negative growth environment of more than 17% of the industry's manpower, it is difficult for listed companies to stand alone, and the manpower that will continue to decline in 2023 will obviously affect the premiums in the first quarter of 2024. Interestingly, the number of agents of each company at the end of 2023 also matched the premium echelon in the first quarter.
Although listed companies are under pressure, it is fortunate that China Life, which accounts for more than 20% of the industry's manpower, has only dropped by about 5% under the support of the reform of the marketing system, which obviously outperforms the industry average and supports the decline of industry manpower. This may also indicate that the reform of China Life's marketing system has achieved initial results.
"Professional upgrading of the existing team" and "layout of new marketing model" are the key reform directions of China Life's marketing system, supplemented by the support of "building a product + service ecology" and "precise empowerment of science and technology", accelerating the transformation and upgrading of the "three modernizations" team to specialization, professionalism and integration, and using three years to build an individual insurance marketing system with Chinese characteristics.
Another point to be thankful for is that various new plans to increase the number of employees have already arrived.
Before the Year of the Dragon arrived, China Life took the lead in launching the "Seed Plan". As an important part of the "sales channel strengthening project" in the eight major projects, the "seed plan" is based on first- and second-tier cities, condenses internal resources, and first establishes and then breaks.
According to the data, the first batch of newcomers recruited by the pilot team are all bachelor's degree or above, and 20% of them have master's degree or above. The per capita commission level for new orders reached 12,000 yuan.
China Life's actions and the "sweetness" of the first bite have undoubtedly injected a "shot in the arm" into the industry, and various companies have also stepped up the operation of various staff increase planning projects, and the grass planting notes on Xiaohongshu can be seen everywhere.
It seems that the pace of increase in 2024 will be more rapid and powerful.
After all, the mainstay of personal insurance still relies on talents.
3 The property insurance company is absolutely ahead of the red plate PICC, and Zhongan has soared by nearly two percent
In terms of property insurance, in terms of premium income, it seems that it is not as violent as life insurance. In the first quarter of 2024, the four AH-share listed property and casualty insurance companies achieved a total premium income of about 322.6 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.73%, which is much better than life insurance.
From the perspective of each company, it is also more attractive than life insurance colleagues, at least there is no negative growth.
From the perspective of premium income, the "old three" are still ahead. Among them, PICC property insurance is in an absolute leading position, achieving a premium income of 174 billion yuan, exceeding the second Ping An property insurance by nearly 100 billion yuan.
From the perspective of premium growth, the growth rate of Zhongan Online is close to 20%, and the growth is far higher than that of the "old three". Among the "old three", only CPIC property insurance has a relatively fast growth rate, about 6 percentage points ahead of Ping An property insurance, which is on the same premium platform.
Overall, the positive growth of the property and casualty insurance sector is:
On the one hand, thanks to the deepening of the comprehensive reform of auto insurance, the competition pattern of the auto insurance market has been further optimized, and the sales of new cars and the conversion of existing vehicles have maintained a steady growth trend of auto insurance premiums, which has formed a strong support for the business of leading insurance companies.
On the other hand, since last year, the development of non-motor insurance has also accelerated further, which has also boosted the performance of these listed insurance companies. In terms of PICC property insurance, corporate property insurance (+11.3%), freight insurance (+9.4%) and health insurance (+6.2%) all achieved rapid growth.
However, property insurance as a whole is also exhausted compared with itself.
According to an authoritative data for February, the overall growth rate of the property insurance industry was only 4.02% (10.86% in the same period in 2023 and 13.37% in the same period in 2022). Health insurance, which accounts for only 20%, has a faster growth rate (+8.90%), but it is almost meaningless compared to 18.99% in the same period in 2023. As for policy-based businesses such as agricultural insurance, they are even more "fragile", with a premium growth rate of only 3.03% in the first two months of 2024 (41.94% in the same period of 2023).
These situations can also be seen from the data of PICC property insurance.
In the first quarter of 2023, PICC P&C Insurance's overall premium income was +10.2%, the growth rate of credit guarantee insurance reached 26.7%, and the growth rate of agricultural insurance premiums reached 23.2%.
However, the good thing is that in various ecosystems, property insurance may be able to play more of a connecting function than a simple payment function. As a result, the property insurance sector, which has a more prominent nature of protection, may also receive more attention.