The first annual report from A-share listed insurance companies! New business value reaches a recent high, China Life Insurance tops the "700 billion" mark

(Source: Beijing Business Daily)

The first annual report of A-share listed insurance companies was released on schedule. On March 25, China Life Insurance Company Limited (hereinafter referred to as “China Life”) officially published its 2025 annual report. Over the past year, the insurance industry, under the main theme of “preventing risks, strengthening regulation, and promoting high-quality development,” accelerated its shift from scale expansion to value creation. As an industry leader, China Life delivered a report showcasing both speed and quality, with outstanding structure and efficiency.

Specifically, in 2025, the company’s total premiums first surpassed 700 billion yuan, reaching 729.89B yuan, an 8.7% increase year-on-year, setting a new industry record; meanwhile, net profit attributable to the parent company’s shareholders grew strongly by 44.1% on a high base, reaching 154.08B yuan. Embedded value remained at the top of the industry, demonstrating strong resilience and growth potential.

Profitability and investment performance both improved, with dividend payouts significantly increased

In the final year of the 14th Five-Year Plan, the performance report of insurance companies is regarded as an important indicator of the entire life insurance industry’s ability to navigate cycles.

In 2025, China Life achieved a net profit attributable to the parent company’s shareholders of 154.08B yuan, a robust growth of 44.1% on a high base.

While profitability continued to strengthen, the company emphasized sharing high-quality development results with investors. The board of directors proposed a year-end cash dividend of 6.18 yuan per 10 shares (tax included). Combined with the interim cash dividend paid in 2025, the total annual dividend per 10 shares reached 8.56 yuan (tax included), totaling 24.2B yuan, a 31.7% increase year-on-year.

“Significantly increasing dividends is essentially a sign of mature corporate governance. Behind this is a positive cycle of ‘profit supporting returns, returns attracting capital, and capital optimizing operations,’” said Wang Peng, deputy researcher at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences.

The more complex the market environment, the more it tests an insurance company’s asset-liability management capabilities. In 2025, bond market interest rates remained low and volatile; equity markets performed strongly overall but showed clear structural differentiation. How to lock in yields amid fluctuations and balance risks has become a common challenge for all insurers. China Life’s answer is: to embed asset-liability management concepts throughout its operations, adopt a long-term perspective for asset allocation, and deepen asset-liability linkage.

Steady investment performance provided solid support for profit growth. China Life delivered its best investment results in recent years in 2025. As of December 31, 2025, total assets and invested assets reached 7.59 trillion yuan and 7.42 trillion yuan respectively, crossing the 3-trillion-yuan mark for three consecutive periods during the 14th Five-Year Plan.

In 2025, bond yields fluctuated slightly at low levels, with the ultra-long-term spread widening; the stock market performed strongly overall, with clear structural differentiation. Against this backdrop, the company stated that it adheres to asset-liability linkage management, long-term investment, value investing, and prudent investment principles. China Life continuously enhances its investment expertise, dynamically optimizes asset allocation, and improves the stability of investment portfolio returns, thereby increasing long-term return potential.

Meanwhile, China Life is actively promoting the entry of medium- and long-term funds into the market. The scale of equity investments in the public market exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan, an increase of over 450 billion yuan from the beginning of 2025. The company is also actively deploying in fields related to new productive forces, steadily expanding high-dividend stock allocations. This forward-looking layout contributed to total investment income reaching 75.9k yuan in 2025, an increase of 74.2k yuan compared to 2024; the total investment yield was 6.09%, up 59 basis points from the same period last year, achieving leapfrog growth in investment returns.

Regarding China Life’s investment performance over the past year, Wang Peng said that the success essentially stems from the meticulous implementation of the “long-term money, long-term investment” philosophy. In a low-interest-rate environment, the company increased its allocation to equity assets, not only gaining excess returns but also locking in asset-liability matching amid macroeconomic volatility. Looking ahead to 2026, as the transformation of new and old kinetic energy accelerates, insurance funds are expected to further concentrate in high-tech manufacturing and other new productive fields. Supported by proactive policies, the investment focus will emphasize return stability and alignment with national strategies.

New business value further improved, individual insurance channels stabilized and rebounded

If profit and other data reflect the overall results of last year’s operations, then new business value represents the growth momentum of the past year. In 2025, under the background of downward adjustment of guaranteed interest rates and product restructuring, the life insurance industry underwent profound reshaping. How to respond to the downward interest rate cycle, prevent spread loss risks, and meet increasingly diversified wealth management and protection needs has become a shared challenge for the industry.

In 2025, China Life’s total premiums reached 12k yuan, becoming the first domestic life insurer to surpass the 700 billion yuan mark, marking a new milestone. New business value grew rapidly, increasing by 35.7% year-on-year to 387.69B yuan, continuing to lead the industry.

Behind this, the company implemented a deep business structure transformation. China Life stated that the restructuring proceeded smoothly, with its floating-rate business achieving strong growth in 2025, accounting for nearly 50% of first-year premiums. Among these, dividend insurance became an important support for new business premiums. Data shows that in 2025, dividend insurance business grew rapidly, with its share of first-year premiums in individual channels rising to nearly 60%.

For insurers pushing dividend insurance, Wang Peng believes this is an inevitable choice to cope with declining interest rates and prevent spread loss risks. This risk-sharing mechanism allows insurers to respond flexibly to financial environment changes, while channel strategies to “optimize growth” help transform agents into professional financial advisors, reshaping the industry’s professional image.

At the same time, the company’s new single premiums for life insurance, annuities, and health insurance in 2025 accounted for 31.75%, 32.11%, and 31.23% respectively, achieving balanced development. The company’s market competitive advantage is more prominent, and resilience is stronger. Under the backdrop of actively responding to changes in market interest rates and implementing a set of policies, the rigid cost of new business liabilities has steadily declined for three consecutive years.

From the channel perspective, all business segments work together to support this value growth. The individual insurance channel, as the main driver of value creation, maintained its development fundamentals. In 2025, China Life’s individual insurance premiums totaled 551.79 billion yuan, a 4.3% increase; the new business value in this channel reached 79.44B yuan, up 25.5% year-on-year.

Over the past year, the company continued to deepen its transformation toward professional, specialized, and youthful sales teams. As of December 31, 2025, the individual insurance sales force numbered 587k, maintaining the industry’s top position. Among them, the marketing team had 371k members, and the agency development team 216k. The quality of the team continued to improve, with the “optimize growth” personnel increasing by 40.0% year-on-year.

China Life’s bancassurance channels saw comprehensive improvements in core indicators, with total premiums exceeding 729.89B yuan. The short-term insurance combined cost ratio in group insurance channels significantly declined, greatly improving efficiency. Undoubtedly, the coordinated development of multiple channels has built a strong strategic foundation for China Life.

Digital intelligence empowers the ecosystem, further advancing health and wellness services

Beyond financial metrics, China Life also announced the latest progress and roadmap in digital transformation, ESG management, and future strategic planning.

The ongoing technological revolution makes digital transformation a key path for insurance companies to improve efficiency and optimize customer experience. China Life has built a comprehensive digital intelligence ecosystem covering the entire management chain, implementing large model applications through knowledge bases, intelligent agents, AI robots, and other dimensions. In 2025, over 5.3 million claims were processed via one-stop direct payment, with intelligent identification and prompt customer claim applications reaching 680k instances; data connectivity supported fast claims with no documentation, with claims paid in seconds. AI-assisted coding accounted for 30%. Large models empower agents with professional and personalized business development, improving customer outreach efficiency, with annual customer visits increasing over 15%.

In risk management, China Life’s comprehensive risk rating has maintained an A level for 30 consecutive quarters, with the highest AAA rating for the past 8 quarters; MSCI’s ESG rating rose to AA, placing the company among the global leaders in sustainable management.

As the aging population accelerates, public demand for high-quality elderly care services is rising. The insurance industry is rapidly transforming from a simple risk protector to a comprehensive provider of elderly care services. For industry benchmark China Life, the company is vigorously promoting the “Insurance + Service” ecosystem. It is advancing the deployment of three major elderly care product lines: CCRC senior communities, urban elderly apartments, and health and wellness travel. By the end of 2025, the company had established 20 elderly care projects across 16 cities including Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Suzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu, launching the first four travel and elderly care products under the “Sui Xin Ju” brand.

As the “14th Five-Year Plan” begins a new journey, this annual report is not only a summary of the past but also a declaration of confidence in the future. China Life stated that in 2026, it will adhere to the theme of high-quality development, maintain the general tone of steady progress, and focus on the core ideas of “Three Persistences,” “Three Improvements,” and “Three Breakthroughs.” It will promote comprehensive deepening reforms around digital transformation, upgrading management models, multi-channel collaboration, customer management, and investment capacity building, striving for breakthroughs and helping the company serve the national strategy to reach new heights.

Beijing Business Daily Reporter: Hu Yongxin