| China's life insurance companies saw their premium income jump by 48.52 percent year-on-year to 64.2 billion yuan ($9.4 billion) in November marking the largest increase this year, the industry regulator said at the weekend.
According to statistics from the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), the premium income of China Life, Ping An and China Pacific Life Insurance stood at 19.7 billion, 9.7 billion and 5.4 billion yuan respectively in November. Their combined premium income accounted for 53.77 percent of the market.
After experiencing eight months of premium income decease, the country's life insurers achieved a positive growth since September this year. The year-on-year growth rate in September and October this year is 20.1 percent and 28.02 percent respectively.
"The accelerated growth rate is mainly due to the low base last year," said Wang Xiaogang, analyst with Shanghai-based Orient Securities.
To ensure a healthy development of insurance industry, the CIRC last September required life insurers to slow the expansion of investment-oriented products and to do more in traditional areas. So, insurers that largely rely on investment-oriented policies experienced a big drop in premium income.
Though the structure adjustment led to a decrease in business scale, it helped to improve insurers' businesses quality and resulted in more innovation in traditional policies.
Hangzhou-based Sinatay Life Insurance Co, for instance, launched a policy covering serious diseases, with which the policy holder may receive payment doubling the sum insured. Meanwhile, if the insured suffers from another serious disease after receiving payment, the insurance contract will remain valid.
Other life insurers are striving to tap the long-term protective products.
Union Life has launched a number of participating insurance policies this year, a major product in traditional insurance area. The company's annual premium income has exceeded 5 billion yuan this year, with 86 percent of them being traditional products. The proportion is much higher than the industry average.
"We will continue to focus on long-term protective products in the future, as it is the fundamental function of insurance," said Gao Jun, head of the marketing department of Union Life.
CIRC's statistics also show that life insurers' premium income in the first 11 months this year climbed 8.39 percent to 746.4 billion yuan, among which domestic players account for 95 percent and joint-venture life insurers taking the remaining 5 percent. |
