Live | China Life Insurance Earnings Conference, Revealing Six Key Signals

Ask AI · How does China Life’s value orientation reshape the competitive landscape of the life insurance industry?

On March 26, China Life held its 2025 annual results press conference simultaneously in Beijing and Hong Kong. Chairman Cai Xiliang and President Li Mingguang, together with multiple executives, attended and addressed market concerns one by one. At the intersection between the closing of the “14th Five-Year Plan” and the start of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” as a life insurer whose total market capitalization and whose scale of life insurance and health insurance reserves rank first globally, the signals conveyed in this press conference concern not only the company itself, but also reflect the transformation direction of the entire life insurance industry.

Signal 1: While scale is a moat, value is the real fortress

Cai Xiliang summarized China Life’s “full house of red” performance for 2025 as “a stable pattern, advancing momentum, and resilient characteristics.”

In 2025, China Life’s total premium first exceeded CNY 700 billion, up 8.7% year over year. Against the backdrop of a slowdown in the industry’s overall growth rate, this number in itself is a signal: the scale advantage of leading companies is still expanding.

The underlying structure behind different growth rates is also worth paying attention to. Net profit attributable to shareholders rose 44.1% year over year, far outpacing premium growth; the value of new business rose 35.7% year over year, also higher than premium growth. This means the quality of growth is improving, and value-creation capability is becoming a more core driving force. While scale is a moat, value is the real fortress.

For the industry, this is a clear signal—there is a shift from scale orientation to value orientation, and scale-focused insurance companies are accelerating this momentum transfer. It also means the gap among insurers is gradually widening.

Signal 2: The “four major dividends” for the insurance industry over the next five years

At the press conference, Cai Xiliang clearly stated that the next five years remain China Life’s “golden strategic opportunity period,” and he outlined “four major dividends”: dividend from the economic environment, dividend from policy, dividend from demand, and dividend from technology.

This judgment is quite optimistic, and when broken down carefully, its optimism has clear boundaries.

The “dividend from the economic environment” is built on the view that the “long-term favorable fundamentals will remain unchanged,” but Cai Xiliang did not avoid the complexity of the external environment; he acknowledged that 2025 is “a year in which multiple pressures intersect and stack up.”

The “dividend from policy” reflects a precise grasp of regulatory direction. The “15th Five-Year Plan” outline mentions insurance 27 times; policies such as “integrated filing and paying,” and dynamic adjustments to the assumed interest rate continue to deepen. For large companies with standardized operations and steady risk control, this is beneficial, but for smaller and mid-sized companies it means greater compliance pressure.

The release of the “dividend from demand” and the “dividend from technology” depends on whether the company has corresponding capabilities. To convert demand into policies, products and services must match; to convert technology into productivity, sustained investment and organizational transformation are needed.

Opportunity comes first, and the goals are already clear. At the press conference, Cai Xiliang also announced the strategic targets for the “15th Five-Year Plan” period: to accelerate the building of a world-class life insurer with Chinese characteristics. To achieve this goal, the company will keep pushing forward in three major areas.

First, strengthen the capability to create value that can traverse cycles over a long period. Facing a more complex and changeable external environment, China Life will maintain strategic resolve, further strengthen the deep linkage between assets and liabilities, develop diversified operations and conduct full-channel management centered on customers, continuously build and optimize an “insurance + services” system, improve the fit between product and service supply and demand, consolidate the foundation for long-term value growth, and cross cycles with ease.

Second, forge digital capabilities aimed at the future. We will treat digital transformation as a strategic priority, drive optimization of management systems, innovation in product and service offerings, and upgrades of business models through digital transformation, and inject strong technological strength into China Life.

Third, continuously strengthen the capability for risk prevention and control. We will strongly promote a financial culture with Chinese characteristics, adhere to the concept that risk control creates value, continuously consolidate multiple lines of defense and a comprehensive risk management system that is coordinated and highly efficient, and ensure the company advances steadily and far-reachingly in a complex and changeable environment.

From the strategic judgment of the “four major dividends,” to the strategic path of the “three major thrusts,” from “what to look at” to “what to do,” China Life is very confident.

Signal 3: Asset-liability management upgraded from “regulatory requirements” to “survival skills”

“Asset-liability linkage” is one of the most frequently mentioned phrases at the meeting.

When introducing the upgrade of asset-liability linkage, Hou Jin, Assistant to the President and Chief Actuary, provided several key sets of data: the effective duration gap is controlled within 1.5 years, the cost rate guarantee for liabilities related to new business is reduced by more than 60 basis points, and the proportion of premiums from floating-income products in first-year premium remittances is close to 50%.

Behind these data lies a profound change in operating logic. In a context where low interest rates have become a long-term trend, insurance companies can no longer survive on the simple model of “highly priced interest-rate policies + high-yield assets.” The liability side must reduce rigid costs, the asset side must improve allocation capability, and both sides must be closely linked.

Vice President and Secretary to the Board of Directors Liu Hui summarized the investment strategy as “equities are the winning hand, fixed income is the ballast, and alternative investments are the growth extreme for enriching returns.” In 2025, the company actively promoted medium- and long-term funds entering the market, seized favorable market opportunities, and strategically increased the proportion of equity investments by 5 percentage points. It will focus on new-quality productive forces and high-quality, high-dividend-yield assets, with the scale of equity investments exceeding 1.2 trillion. This is the offensive side. Meanwhile, fixed-income investment has accumulated 3 trillion in long-term high-quality assets, which is the defensive side.

As a result, asset-liability management is no longer only the responsibility of the finance department, but has become a core capability that runs through the entire operating value chain of the company. In the era of low interest rates, this determines whether an insurance company can traverse cycles.

At the press conference, an issue that cannot be avoided was raised—profits in the fourth quarter of 2025 were negative—which was brought up on the spot. Li Mingguang’s response was yet another dissection of the operating logic of life insurance.

**He explained that, currently, most investment assets of life insurance companies and insurance contract liabilities are measured at market value. Changes in the market are either reflected in the income statement or reflected in the balance sheet. Net profit and net assets fluctuating with market value are normal, and they are an inevitable result under the new accounting standards. The loss in the fourth quarter mainly stemmed from structural adjustments in capital markets; some stocks and funds held by the company saw pullbacks. “Most of this volatility is phased—it reflects changes in the capital markets, and it is a normal phenomenon.”

Unlike other industries, life insurance companies inherently have long-cycle and cross-cycle operating characteristics. Therefore, Li Mingguang suggested reducing excessive interpretation of profits in a single quarter, emphasized that the company always adheres to a long-term mindset, insists on asset-liability linkage, continuously improves cross-cycle management capability, and strives to create sustainable value for investors. And China’s economic fundamentals are stable, with many advantages, strong resilience, and great potential; the long-term favorable fundamentals have not changed, which also lays a solid foundation for the company’s development.

“To analyze a life insurer’s income statement and balance sheet by extending the cycle, only within a longer cycle can the effectiveness of a life insurer’s operating and management be seen more clearly. The shorter the cycle, the greater the impact from volatility, and this volatility may be a phenomenon that companies often encounter during their operations.”

This response is both an explanation for short-term volatility and a reaffirmation of the essence of life insurance operations—showing the steadiness that comes from a long-term approach to weather cycle-related fluctuations.

Signal 4: Individual insurance remains the foundation, while bancassurance is becoming a variable

Changes in channel structure are another important signal conveyed at the press conference.

The individual insurance channel is still an absolute mainstay. In 2025, China Life’s new business value from the individual insurance channel was 39.3 billion, accounting for 85.9% of the company’s total; total premium was 551.79 billion, accounting for 75.6%. More importantly, the quality of the individual insurance channel is improving: headcount increased year over year by 40%, the 13-month retention rate improved by 2.2 percentage points, and the proportion of people aged 45 and below increased by 2.3 percentage points.

This indicates that the strategy of “improving quality while stabilizing volume” is already taking effect. In a context where the industry as a whole faces pressure from declining headcount, this has become a rare bright spot.

But what truly draws attention is the performance of the bancassurance channel. In 2025, the total premium from the bancassurance channel was 110.87 billion, surpassing the 100 billion mark and increasing 45.5% year over year; new single premiums were 58.51 billion, up 95.7% year over year; and the value of new business from bancassurance and other channels was 6.45 billion, up 169.3%.

Such growth means the bancassurance channel is shifting from a “supplementary” role to a “strategic” role. At the press conference, Li Mingguang stated clearly that the bancassurance channel “effectively plays a strategic role in development.”

The channel landscape is evolving from “individual insurance dominates” to “multi-polar drivers.” The surge in bancassurance is both the result of strategic adjustments and an inevitable choice to respond to changes in customer demand under the low-interest-rate environment.

Signal 5: Technology investment is gradually entering the “output period”

Technology is another high-frequency term throughout the press conference.

From the data, technology investment is entering the output period: the proportion of AI-assisted programming code is 30%, the operating rate of digital underwriters is over 24%, the intelligent review rate for policy maintenance services is 99%, and in some regions the full-process no-manual-handling rate exceeds 60%.

These figures show that technology is shifting from “nice-to-have” to an “efficiency engine.” Especially on the operations side, the increase in automation directly reduces costs and improves efficiency.

However, it should be pointed out that technology’s “deep-level empowerment” for insurance operations is still underway. Current applications are mainly concentrated in improving operational efficiency and optimizing customer service; penetration into core areas such as product design, risk management, and reshaping business models remains in the exploration stage.

Hou Jin, when introducing health insurance development, mentioned “digitally intelligent empowerment”; Zhang Xinyu, Assistant to the President, when introducing the convalescence and care ecosystem, mentioned “the level of digital intelligence.” Both point in this direction. But for the true “technology dividend,” it may still require a longer period of accumulation.

Overall, technology investment is moving from the “investment period” into the “output period,” but from improving efficiency to reshaping models, there is still a long way to go.

Signal 6: Higher priority for shareholder returns; dividend stability matters more

A total dividend amount of 24.2 billion, up 32% year over year, and 8.56 yuan per 10 shares—this is China Life’s answer to shareholders.

At the press conference, Li Mingguang emphasized: “The company’s dividend payout goal is to strive to achieve a relatively stable and improving dividend payout level.” Since the company’s listing, its cumulative dividend payout has already exceeded 245.1 billion.

The priority of shareholder returns is increasing, but this needs to form a dynamic balance with adequate solvency and steady, robust business growth. In addition, changes in the market environment and fluctuations in investment return rates may affect earnings stability.

For long-term investors, the stability of dividend policy is more important than the dividend amount in any single year.

The annual report shows that as of the end of 2025, China Life’s comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio was 174.01%, and its core solvency adequacy ratio was 128.77%, with the company continuing to maintain strong adequacy levels; the company has 327 million in-force policies for long-term insurance.

China Life is moving toward the “15th Five-Year Plan” period in the role of a “definer.”

It is no longer merely following industry trends—it is trying to define them. From deep practical implementation of asset-liability linkage, to strategic reshaping of the bancassurance channel, to building the “insurance + services” ecosystem, and to the systematic rollout of technology investment, behind every signal is a judgment and a bet on the industry’s future.

Of course, optimistic strategic judgments require careful execution to deliver results. The continued low-interest-rate environment, fluctuations in asset quality, and intensifying market competition are all real challenges.

But one thing is certain: as the curtain rises on the “15th Five-Year Plan,” China Life has already provided its own answer. Over the next five years, we look forward to seeing what happens.