Two of China's major life insurers strengthened their agency forces last year as they tried to cope with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that affected face-to-face marketing.
New China Insurance strengthened its agency force from 507,000 to 606,000 - a 19.5% increase.
In the face of the uncertainties brought about by the COVID-19 pandemic last year, New China Insurance said that it offered more resources to its life agents to address their urgent needs and guarantee their income. At the same time, the company adopted online recruitment approaches and online live broadcasts to reach out to the public. About 1.85m participants were attracted by livestream marketing, and more than 3,600 live broadcasts were carried out on the new platform for online training.
And as of 31 December 2020, the number of sales agents of PICC Life was 414,255, increasing by almost 6% over 12 months previously. This helped to raise the effective workforce per month to 101,806, representing a year-on-year increase of 8.8%.
The first-year total written premiums per capita per month in 2020 amounted to CNY2,198 ($335), a drop of 19.9% over 2019. The average number of new life insurance policies per capita was 0.79 per month in 2020, compared to 1.18 per month in 2019.