BEIJING, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The five biggest listed insurance giants on China's A-share market managed to realize a 6.26 percent year-on-year growth for their premium incomes in the first two months, reported Securities Times Monday.
They reaped altogether 714.1 billion yuan of premium incomes in January and February, driven mainly by the low comparable data in the same period of 2020 and recovering property insurance business this year.
Many institutions held that alongside the quality improvement of both assets and liabilities of listed insurers, a round of valuation recovery may arrive given the currently historically low valuation of A-share listed insurers.
From January to February, China Life Insurance Company Limited (601628.SH) and New China Life Insurance Company Ltd. (601336.SH) saw their premium incomes up 11.40 percent and 11.45 percent year on year respectively.
The People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited (601319.SH) and China Pacific Insurance (group) Co., Ltd. (601601.SH) announced earlier in March premium revenues rose by relatively high 9.58 percent and 8.84 percent in the first two months of this year, with the latter's data excluding revenues from health insurance.
For Ping An Insurance (Group) Company of China, Ltd. (601318.SH), however, it was the only one among the five listed insurers that encountered a 4.43 percent year-on-year decline in January to February premium incomes contributed by its insurance subsidiaries.
The company attributed the premium decrease of its life insurance subsidiary to withered year-start sales spree and completion of payment of previously sold 3/5-year policies and decline in premiums of its property insurance subsidiary to implementation of the vehicle insurance fee reform in China since September 2020 and adjustment of credit guarantee insurance charging methods.
By subsectors, performance of life insurance companies outran expectations but for property insurance firms, it was factually not easy for them as a whole to achieve growth after implementation of the vehicle insurance fee reform.
As a research report of Founder Securities told, China's monetary policy returned back to the normal state after the liquidity supply at the beginning of this year thus yield of long-term bonds stabilized, which would increase the investment returns of insurance firms.
Under such circumstances, insurers embraced boosts for their investment end when their premium incomes also started a period of growth, hinting likely opportunities for revision of their valuation at historically lows at present. (Edited by Duan Jing with Xinhua Silk Road, duanjing@xinhua.org)
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