Insurers jump-start the new year

Source: Xinhua | 2019-02-27

China’s five listed insurance companies earned a combined premium of 496.5 billion yuan (US$74.25 billion) in their sales in January, led by China Life and PICC with double digit growth.

All five posted year-on-year growth of premium income in the first month of 2019, but the rate diverged considerably, data from their announcements showed.

China Life, the country’s biggest life insurer, saw its original premiums jump 24.45 percent from a year earlier to 157.8 billion yuan — about 31.7 percent of overall premiums during the reporting period.

That was followed by the People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China with 95.2 billion yuan, up 17.7 percent.

PICC said its property and casualty insurance, health insurance business and life insurance segments contributed a respective 54.3 billion yuan, 3.97 billion yuan and 36.9 billion yuan in January.

Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, a leading financial conglomerate, saw its premium income rise 8.04 percent annually to 156.5 billion yuan.

China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co and New China Life Insurance Company reported growth of 6.21 percent and 6.93 percent respectively, with their premiums reaching 67.02 billion yuan and 19.9 billion yuan during the jump-start sales season.

Analysts noted that the divergence of premium growth was related to insurers’ different development strategies, and this year’s figure signals that the insurance industry has begun to downplay the impact of jump-start sales, and underwriters are aiming for steady growth throughout the year.

Traditionally, January see fierce competition among insurance companies, which aim to jump-start their full-year sales volume at the very beginning of the year. Players of all sizes, big and small alike, tend to offer annuity policies to attract potential policy-holders.

Basically, an annuity is a contract with an insurer whereby policy-holders agree to pay the company a certain amount and in turn, the insurance company will make a series of payments to clients now or at some future date.

Annuities function as a safety net, especially for those in their senior years, as they provide a guaranteed stream of income for life.