On the evening of March 24, China Life Insurance Company Limited (hereinafter referred to as "China Life Insurance Company") released its 2021 annual results report. The report shows that in 2021, the company realized total premiums of 618.327 billion yuan, an increase of 1.0% year-on-year; the embedded value of 1203.008 billion yuan, an increase of 12.2% compared with the end of 2020; the value of one year's new business was 44.780 billion yuan. All three indicators ranked first in the industry, and the company's development is steady and progressive.
In 2021, the global epidemic of New Crown Pneumonia still continues to evolve, the international environment is complex and severe, and the domestic economy is facing the triple pressure of demand contraction, supply shock, and weakening expectations. Affected by the slowdown in the release of consumer demand and the decline in the scale of sales manpower, the growth rate of premium income in the personal insurance industry has further slowed down, and the development of the industry is facing unprecedented pressure. In terms of industry supervision, we continue to promote the return of the insurance industry to its roots, and further improve the system and strengthen the control around insurance product management, channel development, market behavior, operational services, corporate governance, etc. to comprehensively promote the high-quality development of the industry.
Adhering to the strategic core of "three major transformations, two hearts, two aggregates, and linkage of capital and negative", China Life Life Insurance Company has implemented the operational policy of "emphasizing value, strengthening the team, stabilizing growth, promoting technology, excellent service, and preventing risks", and has made concerted efforts to overcome the difficulties with resilience. While doing a good job of preventing and controlling normalized epidemics, the company unswervingly pushed forward high-quality development, the overall operation of the company remains sound, the dominant position in the market is more solid, the quality and efficiency of the operation and service is significantly improved, the digital transformation is y promoted, and the comprehensive strength is further strengthened, and the company has been awarded an A rating for six consecutive years in the evaluation of the operation of the insurance company legal entity of the China Insurance Industry Association.
From the data of the annual report, under the pressure of industry development and the continuous slowdown of premium growth, China Life insisted on value leadership, deepened transformation and upgrading, and maintained the scale and value of the "double leading". 2021, the company realized premium income of 618.327 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.0%; premiums of 442.463 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.0%; and premiums of 442.463 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 1.0%. In 2021, the Company realized premium income of RMB618.327 billion, an increase of 1.0% year-on-year; renewal premiums amounted to RMB442.463 billion, a year-on-year increase of 5.8%. As of December 31, 2021, the embedded value reached 1203.008 billion yuan, up 12.2% from the end of 2020. Affected by factors such as the epidemic and the slowdown in the release of insurance demand, the company realized new policy premiums of RMB 175.864 billion. First-year premiums amounted to 98.410 billion yuan, of which 41.682 billion yuan was first-year premiums for ten years and above.In 2021, the company's one-year new business value amounted to 44.780 billion yuan. The number of long-term insurance policies in force amounted to 323 million, an increase of 1.9% from the end of 2020.
In the face of a complex and volatile market environment, China Life Life Insurance Company has always maintained strategic stability, strengthened asset-liability management as the leader, firmly implemented medium- and long-term strategic asset allocation planning, and continued to optimize the allocation management around the investment value chain.2021, the company flexibly carried out tactical allocation operations in accordance with the market changes, taking into account short-term stability of returns, key risk prevention and long-term track layout. Total investment income amounted to RMB214.057 billion, up 7.8% year-on-year; total investment return reached 4.98%.
In 2021, the company's overall operation was sound, investment performance was good, and the discount rate assumption for traditional insurance reserves was updated based on market information at the balance sheet date. Combining the above factors, China Life Life Insurance Company realized a net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of RMB 50.921 billion, an increase of 1.3% year-on-year.
Insisting on high-quality development, Dingxin's reform achievements continue to be consolidated
In 2021, China Life Life Insurance Company realized total premiums of 481.311 billion yuan for life insurance business, an increase of 0.1% year-on-year; total premiums of 120.609 billion yuan for health insurance business, an increase of 4.8% year-on-year; and total premiums of 16.407 billion yuan for accident insurance business. The total premiums of health insurance business amounted to 120.609 billion yuan, up 4.8% year-on-year; and the total premiums of accident insurance business amounted to 16.407 billion yuan.2021, facing the persistent impact of the new Crown Pneumonia outbreak as well as the severe and complicated market environment, the industry development is facing unprecedented transformation pressure. The Company continued to deepen its customer-centered "one and multiple" sales layout, strengthen the precise allocation of resources on the basis of enhanced standardized management, and focus on transformation and breakthroughs. The personal insurance segment continued to focus on value creation and promoted channel differentiation; the diversified business segment focused on professional operation, quality enhancement and efficiency improvement, transformation and innovation, with the overall business progressing steadily and improving steadily, and effectively synergized with the personal insurance segment. As of December 31, 2021, the total sales manpower of China Life Life Insurance Company was about 890,000 people.
The personal insurance segment adhered to high-quality development, channel transformation continued to deepen, and overall business development was steady.In 2021, China Life Life Insurance Company's personal insurance segment realized total premiums of 509.489 billion yuan, of which 407.973 billion yuan of renewal premiums were recorded, representing a year-on-year growth of 4.3%; and 82.254 billion yuan of first-year premiums were realized, of which 41.580 billion yuan of 10-year and over first-year premiums were recorded.2021 was a year of steady progress, with effective synergies with China Life Insurance Company's total sales force of about 890,000 people. 41.580 billion yuan. 2021, personal insurance segment one-year new business value of 42.945 billion yuan, the first year annualized premium caliber new business value rate of 42.2%.
Adhering to the team development strategy of improving quality and stabilizing quantity, China Life Life Insurance Company has focused on improving the quality of its team. As of December 31, 2021, the sales force of personal insurance was 820,000 people, of which the size of the marketing team was 519,000 people and the size of the collection team was 301,000 people. The performance population of the personal insurance segment is stable, and the team foundation is generally solid. The Company insisted on driving business development with effective teams and actively promoted channel transformation. The 4.0 system for the normalized operation of the personal insurance team has been fully promoted and implemented to facilitate the transformation of the sales force into a professional and vocationalized one.
The diversified business segment adheres to professional management, improves quality and efficiency, and actively expands its bancassurance, group insurance and health insurance businesses.
The bancassurance channel adheres to the positioning of the channel that emphasizes both scale and value, and continues to promote the healthy development of the channel. in 2021, the bancassurance channel realized total premiums of RMB 49.326 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.6%. First-year premiums amounted to RMB16.110 billion, an increase of 2.3% year-on-year, of which RMB6.743 billion, an increase of 35.3% year-on-year, was realized from first-year premiums of five years and above. Renewal premiums amounted to RMB32.792 billion, an increase of 30.6% year-on-year, and accounted for 66.48% of the channel's total premiums, an increase of 5.59 percentage points year-on-year. The bancassurance channel continued to strengthen the professional service support capability of its team, and the quality of the team steadily improved. As of December 31, 2021, the number of account managers in the bancassurance channel reached 25,000, with quarterly average real manpower remaining stable and per capita capacity continuing to grow.
The group insurance channel insisted on the integration of scale and efficiency, and the business has been developing steadily. in 2021, the group insurance channel realized total premiums of RMB 29.162 billion, a year-on-year increase of 1.0%, and short-term insurance premiums of RMB 25.694 billion, a year-on-year increase of 2.9%. As of December 31, 2021, the group insurance sales force stood at 45,000, of which the high-performance manpower increased by 13.0% compared with the end of 2020.
In addition, the Company vigorously develops its Internet insurance business, providing customers with quality service experience through the integration of online and offline and online direct sales. The Company fully implements the regulatory requirements of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) for Internet insurance business, improves the Internet organization and operation system with centralized operation and unified management, and enriches the supply of scenario-based and customized products.2021, the Company's Internet insurance business through individual insurance, bancassurance, group insurance and other channels grew rapidly, and the total premium under the CBIRC's supervisory calibre amounted to RMB 34.969 billion, with the scale of the premium hitting a record high again. The premium scale hit a record high again.
Adhering to the customer-centered approach, China Life Life Insurance Company's comprehensive financial sector gives full play to the resource advantages of China Life Insurance (Group) Company's member units, and actively builds a "life insurance +" comprehensive financial ecosystem, creating a good situation for the company's high-quality development empowered by comprehensive finance. 2021, under the pressure of the comprehensive auto insurance reform and development speed limitations, China Life Insurance Company will continue to develop its comprehensive financial ecosystem. In 2021, under the pressure of comprehensive auto insurance reform and development speed limitation, the Company realized premiums of RMB21.107 billion for its agency business of China Life Property and Casualty Insurance Company, with the number of policies increasing by 18.0% year-on-year; the Company's agency business of enterprise annuities increased the scale of the first year's arrival and the scale of the pension protection business by RMB28.197 billion; the first year's premium income of GFB's agency business of China Life Life Life Insurance Company realized stable development; GFB's agency business of China Life Life Life Insurance Company realized stable development; and new cards were issued for the Guosheng-Guangdong Development Joint Name Debit and credit cards were issued in an additional 1.224 million units. At the same time, the company started from meeting the diversified needs of customers, and jointly carried out all kinds of customer management activities with GFB and property insurance companies to provide customers with a package of high-quality financial and insurance service programs.
Integrating online, offline and internal and external medical and health resources, China Life Life Insurance Company has enhanced its health management service capacity and actively participated in the construction of Healthy China. The service programs of China Life's big health platform continue to be enriched and the system functions are constantly upgraded. As of December 31, 2021, the number of service items on the China Life Big Health platform exceeded 100, and the cumulative number of registered users increased by more than 35% compared with that at the end of 2020, ranking among the top in the industry. The company has continued to build up the NationShou pension system, and through the NationShou Big Pension Fund, it has laid out high-quality resources in the upstream and downstream of the pension industry chain, such as rehabilitation, medical care, hospitals, healthcare big data, and health industrial parks, etc. In 2021, the NationShou Big Pension Fund accelerated the stockpiling of a number of pension and permaculture projects that can satisfy the diversified and multi-level needs of the customers in the strategic regions of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Great Bay Area.
Serving the country's overall situation and investing more than 2.7 trillion yuan in the real economy
Adhering to the responsibility of serving the country's overall situation, China Life has played the role of a major force in serving the construction of Healthy China, responding to the national strategy of population aging, and taking the initiative to participate in the construction of a multi-level social security system. As of December 31, 2021, the Company was operating more than 200 major disease insurance projects covering more than 350 million people; it had continuously organized more than 400 health protection entrusted management projects covering more than 100 million people; it had organized 61 long-term care insurance projects in 17 provinces and municipalities covering 23 million people; and it had organized 170 supplemental medical insurance projects in 22 provinces and municipalities covering 91 million people. In addition, the company has organized 170 supplementary medical insurance programs in 22 provinces and cities, covering 91 million people. The Company has actively integrated into the construction of a multi-level social security system, and has set up 54 customized commercial medical insurance projects in 15 provinces and cities, covering more than 10 million people. The pilot work of specialized commercial pension insurance was orderly promoted. The Company has adhered to the objective of providing financial services to the real economy, focusing on major national strategies and continuously improving the quality of its services. The cumulative investment in the real economy exceeded RMB 2.7 trillion, with new investment of nearly RMB 770 billion in 2021. The company has also invested more than 1.4 trillion yuan in serving the national regional development strategy.
Anchoring on the ESG strategic goal of "building an international first-class, responsible life insurance company", the company has implanted the goal of "carbon peak and carbon neutral" into its development philosophy, set up a climate change response system, and formulated the "protection, health, friendship, and help to realize the goal of carbon neutral". The company has set up a climate change response system, formulated the overall environmental goal of "safeguarding a healthy and friendly environment and helping to achieve carbon neutrality" and a specific implementation plan, and identified the starting points for green investment, green sales, green operation and green office, etc. The total amount of green investment has exceeded RMB 300 billion, a four-fold increase compared with the same period of last year, which has helped the economy achieve high-quality and sustainable development. The construction of green investment standard system took off, and the asset management subsidiary launched the first ESG bond index and equity index in the domestic insurance asset management industry. The company is also fully committed to promoting rural revitalization, optimizing the supply of insurance products for rural revitalization, and continuing to help the development of key national support areas.
Build a diversified product system, with 160 newly developed and upgraded products
Practicing the product development concept of "customer-oriented", China Life Insurance Company has adhered to the origin of insurance, and earnestly implemented the national major strategies such as Healthy China and actively responding to the aging of the population, China Life is committed to implementing major national strategies such as Healthy China, active response to population aging, and rural revitalization, accelerating the pace of product innovation, promoting the reform of the supply side of insurance products, and creating a diversified product system.
China Life Insurance Company will closely integrate the comprehensive service for the construction of Healthy China with its own business development, continue to carry out optimization and upgrading of health insurance products, and increase the innovation and research and development of disease insurance, medical insurance and other products in terms of underwriting the population, scope of coverage, and protection functions, so as to provide diversified health protection. The Company actively serves the national strategy of coping with the aging of the population, gives full play to its strengths in long-term risk protection and long-term capital utilization, conducts focused research on the scope of protection and benefits, and launches exclusive commercial pension insurance and special annuity insurance products for elderly customers. To help the rural revitalization strategy, develop exclusive insurance products for rural revitalization, and actively play the role of livelihood protection of insurance.
In 2021, China Life Life Insurance Company newly developed and upgraded 160 products, including 12 life insurance products, 138 health insurance products, 2 accident insurance products and 8 annuity insurance products; 144 protection products*** and 16 long-term savings products***.
Strengthened asset-liability management, with total investment income exceeding RMB 214 billion
In 2021, domestic bond yields fluctuated narrowly, with highs before and lows after, and the interest rate pivot went down throughout the year; the A-share market was in a pattern of oscillation, and the industry was significantly differentiated. China Life Life Insurance Company has always maintained its strategic strength, and its capital utilization is led by asset-liability management, firmly executing medium- and long-term strategic asset allocation planning, and flexibly carrying out tactical allocation operations according to market changes. First, to grasp the window of relatively high interest rates in the first half of the year, to increase the allocation of long-duration assets, mainly interest rate bonds, to further narrow the duration gap; secondly, to prudently control the risk exposure of open-market equity, to reduce portfolio volatility and lock in returns; thirdly, to increase the innovation of alternative investment modes, to promote the forward-looking layout of the industry, and to build a diversified investment portfolio.
As of December 31, 2021, the total assets of China Life Life Insurance Company amounted to RMB 48,910,085,000,000, an increase of 15.0% compared with the end of 2020. The company's invested assets amounted to RMB 4,716,829 million, an increase of 15.1% from the end of 2020.
In 2021, the company realized net investment income of 188.770 billion yuan, an increase of 25.987 billion yuan from 2020, an increase of 16.0%. Thanks to the company's continued increase in long-term bond allocation in recent years and the improved contribution of investment income from associates and joint ventures, the net investment return reached 4.38% in 2021, an increase of 4 basis points from 2020. For the year, we realized total investment income of NT$214.057 billion, an increase of NT$15.461 billion or 7.8% from 2020. The total investment return was 4.98%. Affected by the volatility of the equity market, after considering the net change in fair value of available-for-sale financial assets included in other comprehensive income for the period, the consolidated investment return was 4.87%.
Digital transformation to a new level, data processing capacity increased by 10 times
In 2021, China Life Life Insurance Company accelerated technological innovation, strengthened digital drive, deepened technology-enabled value creation, accelerated the integration of technology and business, and continued to strengthen the role of technological innovation in leading and supporting.
Technological innovation and comprehensive upgrading of technological architecture. Relying on the powerful arithmetic power of China Life's hybrid cloud and the open and compatible digital platform, China Life has realized the distributed architectural innovation of all core systems from computing, storage, database, middleware to application software, and has achieved a leap in technological support capacity, with the data processing capacity increased by 10 times and the elastic expansion time of computing resources shortened to the minute level.
Agile delivery, technology response capability has been greatly improved. We have deepened the system of technology products in a comprehensive way, and with the digital operation mechanism of full-volume data and full-chain tracking, we can smooth the big cycle of technology operation and continue to launch new functions and services with high frequency, and iterate and optimize technology products more than 40 times a day, so that we can respond to changes in the market quickly and provide more accurate and efficient services for our customers.
Intelligent leap, technology empowerment level has been significantly enhanced. China Life Internet of Things covers the whole country, the technology service reaches the front line, realizes the unified control of 12 categories and 240,000 electronic equipments under the jurisdiction, constructs online digital twins, and improves the service time efficiency by 70% year-on-year. The "China Life Internet of Things - Edge Computing, Intelligent Sensing and Digital Presentation" was awarded the 2021 Innovative Achievement in Financial Technology and Digital Transformation. Intelligent services have been deepened in a comprehensive manner, with intelligent robots widely used in sales, services, operations, finance, risk control and other fields, and big data-enabled scenarios have increased by 84% year-on-year, with a daily average of more than 5 million times of intelligent services provided.
Traffic reach, digital ecological effect continues to amplify. The socialized online collaboration system seamlessly connects cell phones, desktops, big screens, and various digital applications to enhance the communication and interaction experience of customers, salespeople, and company employees. The insurance digital ecosystem continues to be enriched, with the digital platform opening up a total of 3,256 standard services, an increase of 92% year-on-year, accessing nearly 1,000 eco-applications, and carrying out nearly 400,000 services and activities with various partner organizations.
Taking customer satisfaction as the standard, we will create high-level and high-quality operation and service
In 2021, China Life Insurance Company will focus on customers, anchor on the goal of "leading efficiency, technology-driven, jumping value, and first-class experience", and effectively push forward the upgrade of operation mode, accelerate the transition to online mode, and promote the development of the insurance industry. In 2021, China Life Insurance Company upgraded its operation mode, accelerated its transformation to online and intelligentization, and continued to provide customers with high-quality operation services of "simplicity, quality, and warmth", with continuous improvement of customer experience and high customer satisfaction rating.
Rapid growth of online services. Upgrading various online service touchpoints, the number of registered users of life insurance APP reached 112 million, a year-on-year increase of 21%, and the average number of monthly active people increased by 18.1% year-on-year. The e-rate of personal preservation and claims has increased to 88.3% and 98.7% respectively, the volume of electronic notifications sent has exceeded 780 million times, the volume of over-the-air customer service has increased by 9 times year-on-year, and the average waiting time for customers at the counters has dropped significantly year-on-year.
The level of intelligent service has improved significantly. Upgrading and promoting the intelligent business model, promoting the personal long term insurance new single service time efficiency year-on-year speed up 37.2%, underwriting, preservation, claims intelligent audit pass rate of 93.4%, 99.1%, 73.1% respectively. Expanding the application scenarios of Internet intelligent customer service, the scale of robot service exceeded 75 million times. The contact center digital service model has landed, realizing the proportion of non-human services reached 88.9%.
Customer experience continues to improve. The company's claims service is speedy and warm, with more than 6 million customers served by the annual "Claims Direct Payment" service. The "One Day Claim for Critical Illness" benefited nearly 170,000 customers, with the amount of payment increasing by 32.3% year-on-year. We also provided proactive door-to-door services to 117,000 customers who had difficulties at the counter. Scenario-based services benefited different customer segments, and the Company was the first in the industry to launch the APP Elderly Respect Mode and promote counter services such as "Sit and Enjoy" services. Focusing on the theme of "health, parent-child education and enjoying life", the Company continued to provide value-added services such as the "Immunity Enhancement Program", "China Life Little Painter" and "Customer Day". The company also provides a number of value-added services such as the "Immunity Enhancement Program", "National Life Painter" and "Customer Festival".
Comprehensive risk rating has been rated A for 15 consecutive quarters
China Life strengthened its asset-liability management, adhered to prudent and prudent operation, and firmly guarded the bottom line of not incurring systematic financial risks. It strictly implements the regulatory requirements, improves the comprehensive risk management system, perfects the risk management mechanism, continuously improves the risk management and control means, and continuously improves the risk management capability. The company has been rated A for 15 consecutive quarters in the comprehensive insurance industry risk rating of the CBIRC.
Standing at a new starting point, China Life said it will focus on serving the overall situation of national development and guarding the people's good life, grasp the opportunities for strategic development, do a good job of its own, keep the word "steady" and make progress in a stable manner, adhere to the origin of insurance, continue to deepen the supply-side reform, continuously improve the ability to provide insurance services, actively play the role of the industry's leading role, and lead the industry's high-quality development with its own high-quality development, so as to continuously create a new way to build a high-quality development for the insurance industry. We will continue to deepen supply-side reform, continuously improve our ability to provide insurance services, actively play a leading role in the industry, lead the high-quality development of the industry with our own high-quality development, continuously create a new situation for the construction of an international first-class life insurance company, and endeavor to repay the shareholders and all sectors of the society for their love and support with good performance.