Relying on big trees for shade? Ten bank-affiliated insurance companies earned 24.3 billion yuan last year, with increasing polarization

When a bank insurance manager recommends an “principal protection and interest guarantee” insurance product to you, are you aware that behind it lies a market game worth hundreds of billions of yuan?

In 2025, ten bank-affiliated insurance companies backed by major banks such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Construction Bank, and Postal Savings Bank of China delivered an impressive performance: total premium income of 477.515 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 15.29%; net profit of 24.364 billion yuan, up 145.06%.

All ten companies were profitable in 2025, with CITIC Prudential Life and China Everbright Sun Life successfully turning losses into profits. However, industry segmentation is quietly intensifying: some companies with revenue exceeding 1 trillion yuan dominate, while others have growth rates as low as 0.2%; some achieve nearly 5% in comprehensive investment return, while others fall into negative territory; some see their net assets triple, while others plummet nearly 90%.

Noticing that the “reporting and operation integration” policy was first implemented in bancassurance channels in August 2023, by 2025, the policy has entered a phase of deepening. Behind the overall growth of bank-affiliated insurers’ performance in 2025 is whether they are “lying flat” relying on parent bank channel advantages or benefiting from industry transition phase dividends. When some companies’ compliance risks are exposed and solvency margins approach regulatory thresholds, who will ultimately win the “bancassurance feast”?

Premiums: Clear tier differentiation, one surpasses 100 billion

In 2025, ten bank-affiliated insurers, leveraging channel advantages, achieved steady growth in premium scale, with total insurance business income reaching 477.515 billion yuan, a 15.29% increase year-on-year. This significantly outpaces the 8.91% growth of the overall life insurance industry in the same period, but performance varies greatly among companies.

As the only company in the “trillion-yuan club,” China Post Life Insurance maintained its lead with 159.166 billion yuan in insurance business income, up 18%, further expanding its head start. Industry analysts point out that this achievement is closely related to support from its parent company. According to a credit rating report by China Chengxin Pengyuan, China Post Life benefits from strong backing in branding, business synergy, and capital replenishment, mainly relying on China Post’s extensive marketing network across the country. Its premium income is also inseparable from the support of its parent, China Post, and the nationwide network of Postal Savings Bank of China.

The second tier is highly competitive, with ICBC-AXA Life ranking second at 50.864 billion yuan, followed by CCB Life with 49.269 billion yuan in insurance business income—less than 1.6 billion yuan apart; then Agricultural Bank of China Life and China Cigna Life, with 46.24 billion yuan and 44.63 billion yuan respectively.

In the third tier, CITIC Prudential Life, Bank of China Samsung Life, Bank of Communications Life, and China Netherlands Life all have insurance business incomes between 20 billion and 40 billion yuan. China Everbright Sun Life, with 18.86 billion yuan, is the only one among these ten bank insurers with premiums below 20 billion yuan.

In terms of growth rates, China Netherlands Life, with a 36.78% year-on-year increase, is the biggest dark horse among the ten; Agricultural Bank of China Life and CCB Life also performed well, with growth rates of 25% and 20%. Meanwhile, China Everbright Sun Life’s growth was only 0.20%, and Bank of Communications Life, China Cigna Life, and China CMB Life all grew less than 10%. The pattern of “steady at the top, rapid in the middle, slow at the tail” is gradually emerging.

Profitability: total profit of 24.364 billion yuan, two companies turn losses into profits

More impressive than scale is profit recovery. In 2025, the ten companies combined net profit reached 24.364 billion yuan, more than doubling from 9.942 billion yuan in 2024. Notably, CITIC Prudential Life, which lost 1.765 billion yuan in 2024, turned profitable with 5 billion yuan in 2025, setting a new record; China Everbright Sun Life ended three consecutive years of losses, earning 110 million yuan.

Industry insiders believe that this turnaround is largely due to the implementation of the “reporting and operation integration” policy. This policy was first rolled out in August 2023 in bancassurance channels. Since 2024, regulators have aggressively reduced bancassurance channel commission rates, significantly lowering the liability costs for bank-affiliated insurers. For example, China Cigna Life’s net profit increased from about 535 million yuan in 2024 to approximately 3.312 billion yuan in 2025, a year-on-year growth of about 518.5%; the net profits of CCB Life and China Netherlands Life also grew by 198.6% and 300%, respectively.

However, behind high growth, there are also “base effects.” Although China Post Life’s net profit of 8.347 billion yuan remains the highest, its growth rate declined by 9.15% year-on-year, exposing its “revenue growth but profit stagnation” dilemma. Industry experts note that “when premium scale exceeds 100 billion yuan, fluctuations in investment income are amplified, and under new accounting standards, asset value volatility further increases net profit instability.”

Investments: Overall investment return rate declines across the board

If liability-side (premiums) growth benefits from channel dividends, the asset side (investments) reveals the true pressure faced by bank-affiliated insurers. In 2025, the investment performance of the ten insurers showed clear differentiation: while the overall investment return rate slightly increased, the comprehensive investment yield declined across all companies.

The average investment return rate was 4.153%, a slight increase of 0.061 percentage points from 2024’s 4.092%, seeming stable.

However, the comprehensive investment return rate fell across the board, with all ten companies experiencing year-on-year declines, averaging only 1.71%, down 8.004 percentage points from 2024. China Netherlands Life’s comprehensive investment yield was -2.26%, the only negative among them.

Industry analysts attribute this mainly to market volatility and interest rate fluctuations in 2025, which put pressure on fixed-income assets, while equity assets underperformed expectations. Additionally, some insurers’ bond investment reclassification gains in 2024 inflated the base for 2025’s comparison, affecting the year-on-year decline.

Asset scale: five companies’ net assets “shrink”

As of the end of 2025, the total assets of the ten companies increased by 9.59% to 2.7 trillion yuan, but net assets showed greater divergence: China Post Life (26.48 billion yuan) and ICBC-AXA Life (20.831 billion yuan) both exceeded 20 billion yuan. Meanwhile, CITIC Prudential Life, China Cigna Life, and China CMB Life experienced varying degrees of decline. The largest drops were seen in Bank of China Samsung Life and China Netherlands Life, with decreases of 88.52% and 77.29%; China Everbright Sun Life, CITIC Prudential Life, and China Cigna Life also declined by 37.65%, 21.43%, and 3.25%, respectively.

The decline in net assets directly erodes solvency margins. For example, China Everbright Sun Life’s core solvency ratio was 73.85%, and its comprehensive solvency ratio was 129.01% at the end of 2025. Although still above regulatory minimums, it is significantly below the industry average, indicating limited capital safety margins. To ease capital pressure, the company has taken measures such as issuing 1.2 billion yuan in capital supplement bonds and planning to complete at least 1.875 billion yuan in shareholder capital increases in the first quarter of 2026 to strengthen capital and improve solvency.

Moreover, rapid expansion has exposed compliance risks. In October 2025, ICBC-AXA Life was fined 1.15 million yuan for issues including “failure to strictly implement backtracking of sales behaviors and entrusting medical personnel to sell health insurance products”; in November, China Cigna Life’s Wuhan call center was fined 220,000 yuan for “deceiving policyholders,” with responsible person Jiang receiving a warning and a 70,000 yuan fine.

Experts suggest that future strategic focus for bank-affiliated insurers should shift from scale to value, reducing short-term savings and lump-sum business, increasing the proportion of long-term protection products, and lowering interest rate sensitivity; on the asset side, they should strengthen asset-liability matching, optimize investment structures, and enhance income stability; in capital management, options include issuing perpetual bonds, capital supplement bonds, and attracting strategic investors to solidify core capital, while bringing solvency considerations into business decision-making earlier.

For consumers, when purchasing insurance through banks, greater rationality is required—carefully review product terms, beware of sales misguidance, and actively safeguard their legal rights.