HONG KONG, Aug. 31, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- In the first half of 2023, China's economy gradually warmed up, and the insurance industry also welcomed new development opportunities. Driven by the national financial regulators' continuous optimization of policies and regulations, insurance enterprises focused more on providing high-quality protection services and promoting the healthy development of market competition. On the market front, according to the data recently released by the State Administration of Financial Supervision, the national insurance industry's original premium income reached RMB3.21 trillion in the first half of 2023, representing an increase of 12.5% compared to the same period last year, of which life insurance and property insurance achieved year-on-year growth of 13.8% and 9.3%, respectively, and successfully reversed the downturn of the growth trend, with a strong momentum of development.
On August 27th, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Company Limited ("CPIC" or the "Company", 02601.HK) released its 2023 interim results. In the first half of the year, CPIC demonstrated a solid growth trend in all dimensions, further consolidating its important position in the insurance market. According to the new accounting standards, operating revenue reached RMB175.539 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 6.5%, while attributable operating profit amounted to RMB21.537 billion, representing a year-on-year growth of 2.5%. In terms of original premium income, CPIC Life Insurance and CPIC P/C ranked as the third largest Life Insurance and the third largest Property Insurance business in China respectively.
Steady growth in life insurance business as transformation and upgrading yielded significant benefits
Against the backdrop of a fully recovered and normalized economy, CPIC Life achieved comprehensive development on a solid foundation.2023 In the first half of the year, the Company's operating results were buoyant due to the excellent growth rate of value of new business and the Company's proactive efforts in deepening the transformation of the long-term insurance industry.
Specifically, during the period, the Company realized scale premiums of RMB169,574 million, an increase of 2.5% year-on-year. Of this, the value of new business amounted to RMB7,361 million, representing a year-on-year increase of 31.5%. In addition, the value of new business rate also rose, reaching 13.4%, an increase of 2.7 percentage points year-on-year. Life insurance operating profit amounted to RMB16.690 billion, up 2.4% year-on-year. Meanwhile, CPIC Life further strengthened its business quality management and achieved a significant increase in policy continuation rate, with the 13-month policy continuation rate for individual life insurance customers at 95.4%, up 7.6 percentage points year-on-year, and the 25-month policy continuation rate for individual life insurance customers at 84.1%, up 9.4 percentage points year-on-year.
During the period, CPIC's Life Insurance firmly promoted its transformation. On one hand, it deepened and implemented the transformation of its existing professional marketing strategy, constructed the "core" model of individual business, upgraded and transformed into a talent-driven, long-term-led and customer-managed business, and steadily optimized its recruitment and retention, steadily increased the productivity and income of the team, and significantly improved the quality of its business. On the other hand, the Company has expanded its diversified channel layout, built up value bancassurance, and accelerated the exploration of new modes such as job group development, resulting in an increase in the proportion of value contribution from diversified channels. The Company also deepened its customer insights and built a customer-driven "product + service" golden triangle system to provide customers with product and service solutions covering the entire life cycle.
Focusing on high-quality development, the property and casualty insurance business achieved faster development
In the first half of 2023, CPIC's property insurance business fully grasped the general trend of economic recovery and industrial upgrading, focusing on the key national strategies of green development, rural revitalization and technology insurance. We strengthened systematic capacity building on all fronts, aiming to achieve a breakthrough in sustainable and high-quality development. The precise implementation of this series of strategies has brought the company faster growth in premium income, while underwriting profitability has been maintained at a good level.
Specifically, CPIC's property insurance business achieved original premium income of RMB 103.703 billion in the first half of 2023, a year-on-year growth of 14.3%. Meanwhile, the underwriting consolidated cost ratio was 97.9%, an increase of 0.6 percentage points year-on-year, of which the underwriting consolidated claims ratio was 70.4%, an increase of 0.9 percentage points year-on-year.
During the period, CPIC's property insurance business demonstrated its efficient execution and determined efforts to serve the new development pattern. For motor vehicle insurance, on the basis of stabilizing the base, continuously strengthen the level of management refinement, to better quality, better structure, better customer experience, integrated systematic management upgrade, the first half of the original premium income of 50.765 billion yuan of auto insurance, an increase of 5.4% year-on-year. For non-motorized vehicle insurance, around the national strategy and policy direction, transforming the development momentum, accelerating the pace of innovation, strengthening capacity building, optimizing the quality structure, the main types of insurance, health insurance, agricultural insurance, liability insurance and other businesses to maintain a faster growth momentum, the underwriting of the integrated cost rate year-on-year optimization of the quality of the business continues to improve, the first half of the year to realize the non-automobile original premium income of RMB52.938 billion, an increase of 24.5% year-on-year. The quality of business continued to improve.
Overall, in the gradually warming economic environment, CPIC focuses on high-quality development, adheres to the main line of value, insists on long-termism, and continues to deepen the operation of its main business, with sustainable value creation ability, which is expected to continue to strengthen its leading position in the market, and create stable long-term returns for shareholders and customers.
