Climbing to new heights! China Life's total insurance premiums in 2025 surpass 700 billion yuan for the first time

On the evening of March 25, China Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as “China Life,” stock code: 601628.SH, 2628.HK) released its annual report for 2025.

In 2025, facing an increasingly complex and changing internal and external environment, China Life deeply practiced long-termism, adhered to the core ideas of “Three Persistences,” “Three Enhancements,” and “Three Breakthroughs,” continuously strengthened asset-liability management, deepened multi-channel operational collaboration, accelerated key area reforms, and achieved historical highs in multiple core indicators, maintaining a leading position in both scale and value. The company reported a net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of 154.078 billion yuan, a strong growth of 44.1% based on a high base, with an embedded value of 1.47 trillion yuan, firmly holding the top position in the industry.

Business development reached new heights. In 2025, China Life’s total premium income exceeded 700 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 729.887 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%, with an increase of over 100 billion yuan compared to the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. First-year regular premium income reached 116.205 billion yuan, maintaining the industry’s top position; long-term competitive advantages were solidified, with first-year regular premium income for ten years and above reaching 52.197 billion yuan, accounting for 44.92% of first-year regular premium income. Additionally, the proportion of first-year regular premium income from the individual insurance channel for ten years and above exceeded 58%. The company continued to promote marketing system reforms, and channel transformations released vitality. As of December 31, 2025, the total sales force of the company reached 638,000, maintaining the industry’s leading position, with continuous improvements in the professionalism and youthfulness of the sales team.

The business structure is diversified and balanced. The company comprehensively built a strong strategic depth, coordinated the development of multi-channel collaboration, and continuously diversified product offerings and business development forms in terms of diversity, duration, and cost. In 2025, the new single premium income from life insurance, annuity insurance, and health insurance accounted for 31.75%, 32.11%, and 31.23% respectively, achieving balanced development. The company’s market competitive advantage became more prominent, and its development resilience strengthened. Actively responding to changes in market interest rates, the company effectively implemented a package of policies, with the rigid costs of new business liabilities steadily declining for three consecutive years. The transformation of the business structure was vigorously promoted, with floating income-type businesses achieving strong growth, accounting for nearly 50% of first-year regular premium income, with a smooth transformation of the business structure.

Operational quality and efficiency steadily improved. Highlighting value and efficiency orientation, in 2025, new business value achieved rapid growth, increasing by 35.7% year-on-year to 45.752 billion yuan, continuing to lead the industry. The company strengthened cost reduction and efficiency enhancement, significantly improving the efficiency of expense input-output. It dynamically optimized major asset allocation, significantly increasing investment returns, achieving the best investment performance in recent years, with total investment income reaching 387.694 billion yuan, an increase of 79.443 billion yuan year-on-year, a year-on-year increase of 25.8%, and a total investment return rate of 6.09%, up 59 basis points from the same period last year.

Comprehensive strength continued to enhance. As of December 31, 2025, China Life’s total assets and investment assets reached 7.59 trillion yuan and 7.42 trillion yuan respectively, crossing three trillion yuan thresholds during the 14th Five-Year Plan; the shareholder equity attributable to shareholders of the parent company reached 595.205 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.8%; the comprehensive solvency adequacy ratio reached 174.01%, and the core solvency adequacy ratio reached 128.77%, maintaining a sufficient level; the company had 327 million effective long-term insurance policies. The total market value, life insurance, and health insurance reserve sizes ranked first among global life insurance companies.

China Life integrates the concept of asset-liability management throughout all operational management processes, with deepening asset-liability linkage.

In addition, China Life’s multi-channel operational collaboration has made significant progress, forming a multi-polar driven development pattern, with core competitive advantages becoming more prominent. The individual insurance channel firmly maintains its basic development, continuing to play a leading role in value creation; the bancassurance channel effectively fulfills its strategic development role, with strong growth in scale and value; the group insurance channel enhances quality and efficiency, with effective improvements in operational benefits; the scale of policy-based health insurance business and the number of urban customized commercial medical insurance policies underwritten have reached historic highs; and the internet insurance business has achieved rapid growth.

In the past year, the company won the “Golden Bauhinia Award” for outstanding listed companies at the 15th China Securities Awards; ranked first in S&P’s “Top 50 Global Life Insurance Companies”; maintained an A rating for 30 consecutive quarters in the comprehensive risk rating of insurance companies, with the most recent eight quarters maintaining the highest AAA rating; MSCI’s ESG rating improved to AA, placing it among the global leaders in sustainable management. At the same time, the company values sharing high-quality development achievements with investors, and the board of directors has proposed a year-end cash dividend of 6.18 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares for 2025. Together with the interim cash dividend already distributed for 2025, the total annual dividend amounts to 8.56 yuan (including tax) for every 10 shares, with a total dividend amount of 24.195 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 31.7%.

Consolidating the Core Role of Main Channels

Individual Insurance Channel Indicators Continue to Improve

Deeply practicing high-quality development, the individual insurance channel always adheres to value leadership, with overall development steadily advancing and various indicators continuously improving. At the same time, the channel accelerates its transformation and upgrade pace, with a more diverse business structure.

In 2025, China Life’s individual insurance channel total premium income was 551.790 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 4.3%; among them, renewal premiums were 442.285 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 7.9%. First-year regular premium income was 89.171 billion yuan, with first-year regular premium income for ten years and above reaching 52.148 billion yuan, further increasing its proportion to 58.48% of the individual insurance channel’s first-year regular premium income. The business structure continues to improve, and the ability for sustainable development is further enhanced. The company vigorously promotes the development of floating income-type products, with the dividend insurance business achieving rapid growth, and its proportion of first-year regular premium income from the individual insurance channel rising to nearly 60%, becoming an important support for new single premium income. The main products gradually strengthen the sales orientation towards medium and long-term terms, with more diverse payment and insurance periods. The first-year regular premium income types and business structure in the individual insurance channel are becoming more balanced and diversified. The first-year new business value of the individual insurance channel reached 39.299 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.5%.

The company’s individual insurance channel adheres to the high-quality development orientation, steadily advancing marketing system reforms, deepening team regular operations, solidifying team management structures, strengthening optimal growth and training, optimizing team structure, continuously enhancing hard power, and deepening the professionalization, specialization, and youthfulness of the team. As of December 31, 2025, the individual insurance sales force stood at 587,000, maintaining the industry’s leading position, with the marketing team comprising 371,000 and the collection and development team 216,000; the quality of the team continues to improve, with the optimal growth personnel increasing by 40.0% year-on-year, and the new forces continually expanding.

Effectively Playing a Strategic Development Role

Bancassurance New Business Value Significantly Increased

The bancassurance channel actively meets customers’ needs for retirement inheritance and wealth management, while also promoting cost control and efficiency enhancement, significantly increasing premium scale and new business value. The channel insists on comprehensive layout and expansion of branch operations. It focuses on professional construction, promoting quality improvement and steady growth in the team. The product system of bancassurance is enriched to meet the diversified needs of customers, with significant increases in sales of floating income-type products.

In 2025, the core indicators of China Life’s bancassurance channel comprehensively improved, with total premiums reaching 110.874 billion yuan, breaking the 100 billion yuan mark, a year-on-year increase of 45.5%; new single premium income reached 58.506 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 95.7%, with the proportion of new single premium income from dividend insurance increasing by about 15 percentage points year-on-year; first-year regular premium income reached 26.478 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 41.0%; renewal premiums reached 52.368 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.1%, accounting for 47.23% of total channel premiums. The number of cooperative banks exceeded 100, with the number of new single issuing outlets reaching 77,000, a year-on-year increase of 25.9%, and the number of star-rated outlets increasing by 49.1% year-on-year. The number of bancassurance channel customer managers reached 20,000, with per capita productivity increasing by 53.7% year-on-year.

Deepening Multi-Channel Customer Protection

Actively Expanding Multi-Dimensional Insurance Coverage

Focusing on effective operations, the group insurance channel steadily advances various business developments while strengthening professional construction and refined management, achieving quality and efficiency improvements. In 2025, China Life’s group insurance channel total premiums were 26.230 billion yuan, with short-term insurance premiums at 23.700 billion yuan. The comprehensive cost rate of short-term insurance in the group insurance channel significantly decreased, leading to substantial improvements in benefits. At the same time, the company actively fulfills the financial “Five Major Articles” requirements, providing risk protection amounts exceeding 12 trillion yuan to over 200,000 small and micro enterprises. As of December 31, 2025, the scale of the group insurance channel sales team was 31,000, with per capita productivity increasing by 6.9% year-on-year, maintaining steady growth.

The company actively develops various policy-based health insurance businesses and participates in building a multi-level medical security system. In 2025, China Life’s other channels had total premiums of 40.993 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 6.2%. As of December 31, 2025, the company participated in underwriting over 200 major illness insurance projects, more than 70 long-term care insurance projects, and over 140 urban commercial medical insurance projects.

The company continues to promote the development of internet insurance businesses. In 2025, China Life’s internet insurance business total premiums reached 114.789 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 38.9%. The company continues to enrich its products, strengthen its services, and optimize customer experience, enhancing online customer management capabilities.

Investment Professionalism Continues to Improve

Portfolio Return Stability Continues to Enhance

Upholding the mission of serving the real economy, the company directs insurance funds precisely into key areas and weak links of the real economy, strengthening support for new quality productivity development and high-level technological self-reliance.

In 2025, bond market interest rates experienced slight fluctuations at low levels, with long-term term spreads widening; the stock market performed strongly overall, with significant structural differentiation.

Adhering to asset-liability linkage management and long-term investment, value investment, and prudent investment principles, China Life continues to enhance investment professionalism, dynamically optimizing major asset allocations, continually strengthening the stability of investment portfolio returns, and enhancing long-term return potential. In fixed income, the company flexibly adjusts allocation rhythms and variety strategies, continuously stabilizing the base allocation. In equity investment, the company vigorously promotes medium- and long-term capital entry into the market, seizing market opportunities to decisively increase equity investment, actively laying out fields related to new quality productivity, and steadily conducting high-dividend stock allocations, with publicly traded equity investment exceeding 1.2 trillion yuan, increasing by over 450 billion yuan since the beginning of the year. In alternative investments, the company focuses on quality subjects and core assets, innovating investment models and strengthening forward-looking layouts. The company maintains a stable asset allocation, with overall asset quality remaining excellent.

As of December 31, 2025, China Life’s investment assets reached 74,237.05 billion yuan, a 12.3% increase from the end of 2024, with the allocation ratios of bonds, time deposits, and debt-type financial products remaining stable, while the allocation ratio of stocks and funds (excluding money market funds) increased from 12.18% at the end of 2024 to 16.89%, mainly due to the company seizing market opportunities to decisively increase equity investments, significantly enhancing the scale of equity investment.

In 2025, China Life achieved total investment income of 387.694 billion yuan, an increase of 79.443 billion yuan compared to the same period in 2024; the total investment return rate was 6.09%, up 59 basis points from the same period in 2024.

Agile Perception of Market Product Demand

Expanding the Connotation of “Diversity” in Supply

Focusing on promoting product innovation and diversified supply under the new development situation, the company agilely perceives the evolving trends of market product demand, optimizes the structure of product supply, and continuously improves the construction of the product service supply system. In 2025, China Life launched over 170 new products, providing high-quality product supply to meet the insurance protection needs of economic and social development and the increasing demands of the people.

Deeply implementing national strategic deployments, the company enhances the level of livelihood protection. China Life actively implements the new “Ten National Policies,” focusing on the financial “Five Major Articles” and serving national economic and livelihood development. In commercial pension insurance, it increases the supply of pension insurance products that meet the characteristics of commercial insurance annuity products to address the retirement protection needs of the elderly and the pre-retirement protection needs of younger groups, continuously enriching personal pension system product offerings to provide coverage throughout the life cycle for the public; in health insurance, it expands the coverage of health insurance, deeply explores segmented groups, promotes the integration of health protection and health services, and develops several company-first health insurance products such as personal long-term disability income loss products, nursing service payment products, maternal and infant disease insurance products, medical products for accidental fractures in the elderly, and specific disease medical products for the elderly, while continuously expanding the scope of protection responsibilities and service areas to include more new drugs and medical devices; in inclusive insurance, through services for rural populations, new citizens in new industries, small and micro enterprise workers, the elderly, students, and children, as well as in key areas of the “Belt and Road” and regional development, the company solidifies the foundation of inclusive insurance for the people, launching dedicated inclusive insurance products such as rural revitalization, domestic service personnel, senior health, and “Belt and Road” series to meet differentiated and personalized livelihood protection needs.

Strengthening diversified product supply, asset-liability management effectively coordinates. China Life adheres to the overall direction of diversified product supply, continuously expanding the connotation of “diversity” in supply and strengthening asset-liability linkage management. With the diversification and segmentation of insurance protection needs across different groups and regions, the company’s product supply is embedded in various demand scenarios such as wealth management, retirement reserves, children’s education, and medical protection, achieving precise coverage of protection needs and effectively enhancing the accessibility and adaptability of product protection functions. By adhering to asset-liability linkage management, the company implements mechanisms for linking preset interest rates with market interest rates and dynamic adjustments, continuously enriching floating income-type products such as participating insurance, promoting product iteration upgrades and structural optimization, and continuously improving the product system that is diverse in form, duration, and cost, better meeting customers’ diversified and differentiated insurance protection needs.

In 2025, China Life’s commercial annuity business maintained its leading position in the industry, with individual pension business ranking among the industry’s top, contributing to safeguarding the happiness of the elderly. Health insurance premiums reached 120.221 billion yuan, effectively growing by 0.9%. The company provided high-standard services for rural revitalization, covering 242 million people in agricultural personal insurance with risk protection amounting to 30 trillion yuan.

Deepening the Comprehensive Financial Ecosystem

Building a Characteristic Health and Wellness Service Ecosystem

Upholding the concept of “customer-centered,” China Life vigorously promotes the construction of an “insurance + service” ecosystem to empower the main business development.

Fully leveraging the advantages of coordinated development across China Life Group’s three major business segments—insurance, investment, and banking—the company focuses on the operational philosophy of “One China Life, Lifelong Protection,” continuously enriching the comprehensive financial product service system, and developing businesses such as insurance collaboration, bancassurance collaboration, and insurance-investment collaboration to provide customers with comprehensive, high-quality financial insurance services covering insurance protection, wealth management, and health care throughout their life cycle.

In 2025, the company achieved premium income of 25.534 billion yuan from collaborative sales with China Life Property Insurance Company, with the number of policies increasing by 12.3% year-on-year, constructing a product combination protection model of “life insurance + property insurance,” leveraging rich product advantages to expand diversified marketing scenarios; building collaborative service scenarios such as “Xinxubao” and “Anxinfu,” jointly conducting customer engagement activities with Guangfa Bank such as “Little Financial Manager,” “Guangfa Open Day,” and “Comprehensive Financial Experience Day”; the scale of collaborative sales with China Life Pension Insurance Company steadily developed; and the company continually deepened its business cooperation with China Life Asset Management Company and Guoshou Investment Company, leveraging insurance and investment advantages to promote in-depth development of insurance-investment collaboration.

Promoting the construction of a large health and large pension ecosystem. In 2025, China Life steadily advanced the construction of a health and wellness service system, enriching diversified health and wellness service supplies around institutional care, home care, and health services, striving to build a characteristic health and wellness service ecosystem of China Life.

In the area of “insurance + pension,” the company upholds the philosophy of building a pension ecosystem that “assures the elderly and reassures their children” while leveraging the long-term and stable advantages of insurance funds to actively promote the layout of three major pension product lines: CCRC pension communities, urban pension apartments, and health and wellness travel. As of the end of 2025, the company had cumulatively laid out 20 institutional care projects in 16 cities, including Beijing, Tianjin, Qingdao, Suzhou, Shenzhen, and Chengdu, and launched the first four travel pension products under the China Life brand “Suixinju.” The company actively explores the construction of a home care service system to meet the diversified pension needs of customers and empower the development of the insurance main business. In the area of “insurance + health,” the company integrates internal and external resources, continuously enriching health service supplies, launching corresponding health management services around customer needs for medical consultation and rehabilitation nursing, and providing customers with diverse rights and interests. The company continues to optimize health service process management and key link control, enhancing the intelligence level of health and wellness services. As of the end of 2025, the company’s health and wellness platform registered users increased by 8.8% compared to the end of 2024.

Building a Digital Intelligence Closed-loop Empowerment System

Digital Intelligence Dual Engines Injecting Momentum for High-Quality Development

Sticking to the core orientation of technology serving the insurance main business, China Life builds a digital intelligence closed-loop empowerment system that spans the entire operational management chain, deeply cultivating data governance, fully releasing the potential of data elements, and continuously enhancing its own computing power scale. The company implements large model application capabilities from multiple dimensions such as knowledge bases, intelligent agents, and AI robots, injecting strong momentum for high-quality development through digital intelligence dual engines. The company proactively aligns with national “Artificial Intelligence+” action deployments, building an AI capability system that covers all aspects of the company’s operational management; it establishes a data space of “hundreds of millions of data - thousands of features - hundreds of labels,” successfully selected as a 2025 pilot unit for trustworthy data space innovation development by the National Data Bureau; for two consecutive years, it has achieved outstanding results in the “Data Element ×” competition in the insurance industry, actively participating in industry standardization work, and continuously contributing China Life’s wisdom to the industry’s technological innovation, demonstrating industry influence through technological strength.

Optimizing service capabilities. The customer-centered digital intelligence service ecosystem has been newly upgraded, with more precise intelligent recommendations and smoother voice interactions. Intelligent claims continue to iterate, with digital intelligence service claims accounting for over 75%, and claims processing times maintain industry leadership; in 2025, the one-stop claims direct payment exceeded 5.3 million cases, and proactive claims service smartly identified and prompted 680,000 customers to apply for claims; data direct connections support quick claims services without the need for documentation, achieving instant payments.

Driving quality and efficiency improvements. The company has created a new paradigm of AI-enabled research and development, with AI-assisted programming code accounting for 30%. Large model capabilities empower agents’ professionalization and personalized business development, improving customer reach efficiency, with year-on-year growth in customer visits exceeding 15%. The company leverages intelligent technology to reshape the underwriting processes for group insurance and bancassurance businesses, promoting the improvement of scale and quality in synergy. The company vigorously promotes AI-assisted human operations, with the digital underwriter’s operation rate exceeding 24% in 2025, and the intelligent review rate for policy maintenance services reaching 99%, with scenarios for fully automated claims processing continuously expanding, and in some regions, the fully automated processing rate exceeding 60%.

Strengthening risk prevention and control. The company conducts comprehensive risk monitoring through AI anti-fraud, AI anti-money laundering, AI anti-sales misconduct, and AI consumer protection, accurately identifying and real-time blocking risks. The company deploys digital auditors, with intelligent applications in multiple scenarios enhancing auditing and supervision capabilities. It strengthens customer data protection, building a trustworthy barrier for data flow, successfully obtaining ISO27701 privacy information management system certification, with data security reaching international high standards.

“China Life Good Service” More Tangible and Accessible

The “Big Consumer Protection” Framework Provides More Assured Consumption

Adhering to a people-centered value orientation, the company enhances service capabilities across all touchpoints, innovates service models, and effectively protects consumers’ legal rights. In 2025, China Life provided services to over 3 billion people, striving to create a “simple, quality, and warm” “China Life Good Service” brand, with consumer protection regulatory evaluations consistently ranking among the industry’s top, providing solid support for the company’s high-quality development.

Touchpoint services have become more convenient. The digital service matrix that integrates “online + offline” continues to expand. The China Life Life Insurance APP has been newly upgraded, continually optimizing the “one-click access” service experience, with a cumulative user base of 170 million; “cloud counters” with aerial customer service personnel efficiently respond to customer needs, maintaining a high connection rate. The China Life Life Insurance APP’s elder-friendly model has been continuously optimized, with “zero input” intelligent voice reporting being more convenient, and customer service hotline 95519 navigation along with online robot capabilities significantly enhanced, greatly improving service efficiency. Nearly 2,500 offline counters are spread across the country, making services more tangible and accessible.

Service warmth reflects the original intention. Tailoring to customer group characteristics, the company creates a rich variety of service scenarios. For severe illness customers in urgent need of financial assistance for treatment, the company provides a “one-day payment” green channel, serving 230,000 customers; throughout the year, themed service activities for parents, self-care, health, and VIP customers attracted 58.31 million participants; the “Art Returns to the Mountain” youth aesthetic education public welfare project reached 20 provinces, aiding rural cultural revitalization; and the company provided barrier-free services to 27.78 million elderly people. As a major drafting unit, the company participated in formulating the industry standard “Service Specifications for Elderly Customers of Insurance Institutions,” contributing wisdom to service norms.

Consumer protection work takes on its mission. The company continues to deepen its “Big Consumer Protection” work framework, effectively managing suitability, product classification and grading management, and sales qualification grading management, improving the consumer protection management system and mechanisms. Throughout the year, the company listened to the “customer voice” over 20 million times, maintaining a service quality index consistently at the industry forefront. The company constructs a new ecosystem for financial education, innovatively launching offline activities like “Elderly Companion Classes” and thematic videos, creating scenario-based and engaging promotional content. In 2025, the centralized educational promotional activities reached consumers, increasing by 31.4% year-on-year.

Embarking on a New Journey for the “15th Five-Year Plan”

Accelerating the Creation of a World-Class Life Insurance Company with Chinese Characteristics

During the “14th Five-Year Plan” period, under the guidance of the spirit of the 20th National Congress and the various plenaries of the 20th Central Committee, as well as the spirit of the Central Financial Work Conference, the economic “shock absorber” and social “stabilizer” functions of the insurance industry have increasingly strengthened. In the inaugural year of the “15th Five-Year Plan,” China will implement more proactive and effective macro policies, continuously expand domestic demand, optimize supply, improve the increment, and revitalize the stock, developing new quality productivity in accordance with local conditions, and promoting the construction of a unified national market to facilitate qualitative improvements and reasonable growth of the economy, laying a solid economic foundation for the development of the industry.

At the same time, “preventing risks, strengthening regulation, and promoting high-quality development” has become the main line of industry development. The regulatory authorities continue to improve the policy system regarding the financial “Five Major Articles,” high-quality development, asset-liability management, and standardized operations, while personal marketing system reforms and the deepening implementation of “reporting and operating as one” are proceeding in an orderly manner. This further guides the industry to deepen its transformation, continuously consolidating the foundation for long-term healthy and sustainable development.

China Life expresses that in 2026, it will adhere to the theme of high-quality development, maintain a general work tone of seeking progress while ensuring stability, anchor the core ideas of “Three Persistences,” “Three Enhancements,” and “Three Breakthroughs,” and promote comprehensive deepening reforms in key areas such as digital and intelligent transformation, management model upgrades, multi-channel collaborative development, customer management, and investment capability building, striving for breakthroughs, further elevating the company’s services to the national agenda, consolidating its leading position, achieving steady growth in scale and value, continuously optimizing the business structure, cultivating new energy and growth poles, solidly building a safety development barrier, and accelerating the creation of a “governance-modern, function-prominent, development-excellent, management-advanced, innovation-driven, safe and stable” world-class life insurance company with Chinese characteristics, aiming to achieve new successes in the construction of Chinese-style modernization.

Reviewed by: Lu Chaofeng