Not friendly for the insurance companies themselves.
Insurance Institutions and Bank sales channels are initiating a series of "sprint battles" in insurance sales.
The "XX product may go off the shelves soon, purchase quickly if interested."
"If the future rate declines to X% fixed interest rate, the returns may decrease by 35%."
These statements quickly induced an inexplicable sense of "anxiety" among some traditionally "risk-averse" investors, prompting them to take action.
This is actually part of the "hidden logic" behind the strong sales of certain insurance products linked to fixed interest rates over the past two years.
For domestic retail investors, when the 10-year government bond yield and the bank's medium to long-term fixed deposit rates are generally below 2%, and in contrast, the fixed interest rates of savings-type insurance are significantly higher than 2%, there is naturally a reason for a surge in sales.
Moreover, the language of "speculating on suspension" further easily mobilizes investor emotions.
However, is such an arrangement really reasonable.
The 'Last Train Marketing'
Zishitang discovered: On a large Internet financial platform, a page for a China Life Insurance annuity product displayed the following problem prompt:
"This product may be taken off the shelves soon; if you want to buy it, do so quickly. If bought in the future at a 2.0% prescribed interest rate, the returns may decrease by 35%."
The savings-type insurance product page on the same Internet platform is even more "anxiety-inducing."
As soon as the page is opened, a pop-up window automatically appears (as shown below), indicating "2.5% hot product may recently decrease."
The same page is also accompanied by a news section titled "Background Introduction":
Breaking news! The one-year deposit rate of state-owned banks has fallen below 1%.
It doesn't stop there.
The platform has also provided a more "anxiety-inducing" time limit. At the bottom of the above image, a promotion states, "Only 12 days left until the product is taken off the shelves at the earliest," involving products from some small and medium-sized life insurance companies.
Various pressures have been placed on internet users browsing the page.
Why is it "possible to be taken off the shelves"?
Why has this promotion of "possible to be taken off the shelves" appeared?
First of all, the annuity insurance involved in this promotion can be simply explained as a type of "long-term savings insurance that pays out money on a regular basis," meaning that customers deposit money as agreed, and the insurance company will pay out money according to the agreement in the future, similar to receiving a salary every month or year.
The 'preset interest rate' mentioned above, which is the interest rate agreed upon in advance between the insurance company and the client, remains unaffected by changes in the market interest rate after purchase. (The 'interest income' that clients receive has to deduct handling fees from the actual yield.)
Currently, there is an 'unconfirmed' rumor circulating in the market: within the next three months, the preset interest rates for mainstream Fixed Income savings insurance will drop from 2.5% to 2%.
Following this rumor, among all types of Fixed Income savings insurance, including annuities, increasing whole life insurance (which allows for partial withdrawals while alive and pays out the insured amount upon death), endowment insurance (which serves both survival and death benefits), and participating life insurance (preset interest rate + uncertain dividends), there may be a possibility of reduced ROI.
Historical Data shows that in 2021, 2023, and 2024, there were products with preset interest rates dropping to 4.025%, 3.5%, and 3.0%, respectively.
How much will investors 'lose'?
The 'preset interest rate' written in savings insurance contracts does not equal the yield that investors can actually receive.
In simple terms: the preset interest rate is the 'theoretical reference value' written by the insurance company in the contract, much like the 'ingredient cost' listed on a restaurant menu, but the actual dish served (the actual yield) still has to deduct various 'miscellaneous fees':
Sales commissions, management fees, protection costs, and the profit retained by the insurance company.
In other words, the "predetermined rate" written in the contract is like a ceiling for returns.
Next, let's do a simple calculation. If an investor buys an annuity product with a predetermined rate of 2%, fails to buy at a position of 2.5%, pays a one-time premium of 0.1 million yuan, and holds it for 20 years.
After deducting various "miscellaneous fees" mentioned above (averaging around 0.5% in the industry), the actual yield is about 1.5%. After rolling for 20 years in the account, it will be approximately 0.1344 million yuan.
If bought at a position of 2.5%, the actual yield after deducting "miscellaneous fees" would be 2%, resulting in 0.1486 million yuan after 20 years.
The difference is 0.0142 million yuan, which exceeds 10% of the investor's principal.
Will the dividend insurance interest say goodbye to the era of 2%?
Zhitang notes that dividend life insurance (commonly known as dividend insurance) is about to say goodbye to the era of guaranteed interest rates of 2%. 
Taking The People's Insurance Life Insurance as an example, the possibility of lowering the scheduled interest rate is also marked on the Internet sales platform, from the current 2% to 1.75%.
This means a reduction of 25 basis points.
The income structure of participating insurance is slightly different from other savings-type insurance, including 'guaranteed income + floating income', where the guaranteed income part is written into the contract according to the scheduled interest rate, commonly known as the minimum interest rate. The floating income is distributed based on the insurance company's operating conditions.
As of now, the mainstream minimum interest rate for participating insurance is 2%.
On the sales page, there is also a calculation: if the participating insurance misses the 2% scheduled interest rate, holding it until the age of 70 will result in receiving tens of thousands less (based on a one-time investment of 1 million principal).
According to market information: the minimum interest rate of the participating insurance products from Tongfang Global Life Insurance has been lowered by 50 basis points from the market mainstream minimum interest rate of 2% to 1.5%.
'Speculating to stop sales' is detrimental to insurance institutions.
HTSC's sell-side team recently stated that the reduction in scheduled interest rates will effectively lower the funding cost of new policies and improve the profitability of insurance products. This kind of reduction often affects policy sales, with past characteristics often reflecting 'speculating to stop sales', where agents persuade clients to purchase older products with higher returns before the scheduled interest rate is about to be lowered.
This report sharply points out that this sales model is not beneficial for insurance institutions, and selling high-cost "old products" more often during the adjustment of the prescribed interest rate is largely a helpless act under significant pressure on the sales team.
The so-called disadvantage highlights the "cost-revenue inversion pressure" of insurance companies, and lowering the prescribed interest rate is beneficial for performance improvement.
To put it simply: the products sold by insurance companies previously had a prescribed interest rate of 2.5%, but the money they earned from investments (for example, buying bonds at less than 1.8%) was insufficient to pay clients; now that it is lowered to 2.0%, the performance pressure lessens.
In other words, there is currently a "last-minute promotion," which is more conducive to increasing volume for the sales channel.
