At the 2025 Lujiazui Forum on June 18, Li Yunze, director of the National Financial Supervision and Administration Commission, highlighted China’s broad prospects for high-level financial opening up. He emphasized that China will further expand the breadth and depth of financial opening up, steadily increase institutional opening up of the financial sector, continuously optimize the business environment for foreign investment, and jointly build a global financial safety net.
Key Developments
Foreign Insurance Institutions: Two foreign insurance institutions have been approved to establish insurance asset management companies in Shanghai. The premium market share of foreign insurance companies has increased to 9%.
Asset Growth: The total assets of foreign banks and insurance institutions exceed 7 trillion yuan, with nearly half of the 40 largest insurance companies having entered China.
Market Performance: In 2024, several foreign-funded companies entered the top 10 in terms of insurance business revenue among life insurance companies. AIA Life ranked third overall with a business revenue of 71.837 billion yuan, up 18.23% year-on-year from 60.761 billion yuan in 2023. China Merchants Sheung Kwan’s insurance business revenue was 41.483 billion yuan, up 19.74% year-on-year from 34.646 billion yuan in 2023. China Life Insurance achieved an insurance business revenue of 30.42 billion yuan, up 31.19% year-on-year from 23.187 billion yuan in 2023.
Market Share: Foreign institutions such as MetLife and HSBC Life have seen their market share rise against the trend. MetLife’s market share increased by 0.52 percentage points, while HSBC Life Insurance’s market share increased by 0.50 percentage points.
Foreign Capital Investment
Foreign capital has continuously increased its investment in the Chinese market through capital increases:
China Italy Property & Casualty Insurance Co., Ltd.: Its foreign shareholder, Generali Insurance of Italy, increased its capital twice, totaling 392 million yuan. After the capital increase, the registered capital of Zhongyi Property & Casualty Insurance will reach 1.692 billion yuan.
Allianz Investment: A subsidiary of Allianz Group of Germany, increased its investment in National Pension by 228 million yuan.
HSBC Life Insurance (Asia) Limited: The wholly-owned shareholder of HSBC Life Insurance, planning to increase its investment in the company by 362 million yuan.
CITIC-Prudential: Jointly increased its investment by the Chinese shareholder CITIC Financial Holdings Limited and the foreign shareholder Prudential Group of the UK by 2.5 billion yuan.
Conclusion
The intensive increase in foreign capital investment reflects its optimism and support for the domestic insurance market. A relevant person in charge of HSBC Life Insurance previously told the Economic Information Daily reporter in an interview, “This capital increase reflects the firm support of the company’s shareholders for the long-term, healthy and stable development of HSBC Life Insurance in the Chinese market, and will further improve the company’s solvency level and enhance its ability to resist risks.”
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