The Zhitong Finance App learned that since the end of 2020, the insurance stock market has entered a downward channel due to the transformation of life insurance agent channels, falling premiums for new policies, and a slump in the capital market. However, since mid-April 2023, the insurance sector has shown a strong recovery momentum, reversing the previous decline.

The rise in insurance stocks is mainly due to policy incentives. Recently, the People's Bank of China issued three major notices, and the real estate policy that the market has been looking forward to for a long time has been implemented. These include adjusting the minimum down payment ratio for the first housing commercial loan to no less than 15% and the ratio for the second home to not less than 25%; lowering the interest rate on personal housing provident fund loans by 0.25 percentage points; and abolishing the lower interest rate policy for commercial loans for the first home and two housing units. New finance expert Yu Fenghui said that these policies are conducive to stabilizing the real estate market, which in turn will also have a positive impact on insurance companies' investment returns.

Looking at individual stock fundamentals, the Q1 earnings data released by insurance agency HUIZ.US (HUIZ.US) shows that in the context of the implementation of “integration of reporting and banking” and the continuous reduction of interest rates on traditional life insurance, Huize focused on changing trends in consumer purchasing intentions to further enrich the supply of savings insurance products, including dividend insurance and pension benefits, driving a 105% month-on-month increase in premiums in the first year to about 860 million yuan. Among them, the premium for the new long-term life insurance policy was about 440 million yuan, an increase of about 2.6 times over the previous month; the premium for the new annuity insurance policy was about 160 million yuan, an increase of 47.9% over the previous month.

Domestic insurance leader Ping An China (02318) announced first-quarter results showing that the Group's operating profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 38.709 billion yuan; net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company was 36.709 billion yuan. The three core businesses of life insurance and health insurance, property insurance, and banking resumed growth. The total operating profit of the three businesses attributed to shareholders of the parent company was 39.816 billion yuan, an increase of 0.3% over the previous year.

Among them, Ping An Life Insurance and Health Insurance in China are operating steadily, and the overall strength of the channel has been strengthened. In the first quarter of 2024, the new business value of the life insurance and health insurance business reached 12.890 billion yuan, an increase of 20.7% year-on-year under comparable standards, and a year-on-year increase of 56.4% of the new business value per agent channel; the new business value ratio was 22.8%, an increase of 6.5 percentage points year-on-year under comparable standards.

In terms of the insurance industry's own business, Open Source Securities points out that from the demand side, demand for pension savings is strong, and insurance benefits and yield advantages are still there; on the supply side, the per capita production capacity of insurers continues to increase, integration of reporting and product structure optimization drive a significant increase in the value ratio of banking insurance business, and the policy side actively cares to reduce insurers' debt costs. It is expected that the new business value will continue to grow at a good rate throughout the year.