Several insurance companies in China have started their 2027 "Start of the Year" sales drive, with kickoff meetings, product seminars, incentive planning groups, and other activities.
Multi-year analyses of the financial statements of listed Chinese insurance companies show that profit contributions from insurance risks are highly stable, forming the core component of profits, and with leading insurers maintaining abundant reserves in their contractual service margins (CSMs). Meanwhile, net profits on the investment side exhibit clear volatility -- contributing high profits in good years, thin margins in others, and potentially losses in extreme years.
Statistics show that among the 54 property and casualty insurers that have disclosed comprehensive claims ratios for the first half of 2026, the median ratio was 39.32%, down from approximately 43% in the corresponding period of 2025. Among 73 life insurers, the median stood at 36.19%, also below the roughly 42% recorded a year earlier. Both medians have fallen below 40%, leaving a significant gap from the range of 50% to 80% regarded as reasonable in the industry.
The key to developing disease-specific relapse insurance lies in unlocking the value of medical data, according to Ms Pan Jiqi, director of the Commercial Insurance Collaborative Innovation Department at the Shanghai Institute of Clinical Innovation and Transformation.
China's domestic property & casualty insurance sector has seen significant tranformation, particularly with the focus turning increasingly to profitability.
China Life, the country's largest life insurer, has announced that it plans to enter into a partnership agreement under which it would invest up to CNY4.5bn ($671.2m) in a fund to invest primarily in equity interests in high-quality unlisted enterprises in the field of technology innovation in the country.
As of mid-September 2026, 16 insurance companies had issued 19 bonds in the national interbank bond market this year, eight more than during the same period last year. Total bond issuance amounted to CNY52.51bn ($7.83bn), an increase of CNY2.91bn year-on-year.
Four pension companies in Shanghai are participating in a pilot programme for commercial pension business. The four are China Life Pension, PICC Pension, Taiping Pension and Guomin Pension.
The National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) and the Ministry of Commerce have jointly issued the "Notice on Strengthening Coordination Between Commerce and Insurance and Improving Work Related to Domestic Trade Credit Insurance".
The National Healthcare Security Administration (NHSA) has released a normative interpretation of "Long-Term Care Insurance Nursing Service Plans" to improve benefits enjoyed by disabled individuals and to ensure the security of fund operations.