20 years ago, Chinese Life Insurance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Chinese Life", 601628sh，2628.HK) stepped onto the stage of the international capital market, setting a record for the world's largest IPO that year.
Over the past 20 years, Chinese Life has grown step by step from a traditional state-owned insurance company to a modern state-controlled financial insurance company.
As a first-hand witness of the 20-year development process, Li Mingguang, Secretary of the Party Committee and President of Chinese Life Insurance Company, said at the 2023 Open Day event: "We can proudly say that Chinese Life has fully fulfilled the promise made when it was listed 20 years ago. ”
At that time, when the United States and Hong Kong were listed, Chinese Life wrote in the prospectus that the company seeks to consolidate its leading position in China's insurance industry and become one of the world's leading life insurance companies, with the goal of achieving sustainable business growth and creating long-term shareholder value.
In the past 20 years, the premium income of Chinese Life has increased from less than 150 billion yuan to more than 600 billion yuan in 2022, the embedded value has increased by more than one trillion yuan, and the total assets and investment assets have both exceeded the 5 trillion yuan mark, achieving a growth of more than 15 times.
These figures are the results of generations of China Life people who have forged ahead and continued to forge ahead. Over the past 20 years, Chinese Life has continuously deepened reforms, successively launched a series of reforms such as "three reforms of labor and personnel allocation", "deepening the reform of operation and management system", "new generation", "Dingxin project" and "eight major projects", and took the lead in establishing a complete risk prevention and control system and criss-crossing operation and management system, forming an integrated and diversified development layout, and exploring a high-quality development path with national life characteristics.
2023 is the first year for the full implementation of the spirit of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, and it is also a key year for promoting the "14th Five-Year Plan". The ** financial work conference held at the end of October 2023 pointed out that large state-owned financial institutions should be supported to become better and stronger, be the main force in serving the real economy and maintaining the ballast stone of financial stability, and give full play to the economic shock absorber and social stabilizer function of the insurance industry.
As a financial central enterprise and the "head goose" of the industry, Chinese Life shoulders the historical mission of continuing to be better and stronger.
Ninety thousand miles of wind and peng, the Chinese people raise their ambitions and set sail on a new journey.
Reborn and improve corporate governance
Since China's accession to the WTO and the opening up of the insurance market, international giants have come one after another. Competing on the same stage as established international companies and entering the world stage, Chinese Life, which was then a wholly state-owned traditional insurance company, must establish a modern enterprise system that matches its development goals.
As early as 2000, Chinese Life made a major decision on the reform of the shareholding system and established the development direction of establishing a modern enterprise system. In 2002, it put forward the goal of "achieving a premium of 100 billion yuan and ranking among the world's top 500". Becoming a public company through listing can not only help enterprises obtain more funds and resources, but also improve the social reputation and brand value of enterprises, and improve the flexibility, competitiveness and international influence of enterprises.
On June 30, 2003, Chinese Life Insurance Company was reorganized into Chinese Life Insurance (Group) Company, and exclusively initiated the establishment of Chinese Life Insurance Co., Ltd. ***
After the reorganization and restructuring, Chinese Life initially established a standardized corporate governance structure in accordance with the modern enterprise system, formed three committees and one layer, and set up special committees such as the audit committee, remuneration committee, risk management committee and strategy committee under the board of directors, initially realizing the checks and balances between decision-making bodies, supervisory bodies and business managers.
In the course of 20 years of development, Chinese Life has continuously adjusted and optimized the structure of special committees of the board of directors. At present, the Board of Directors has five special committees: the Audit Committee, the Nomination and Remuneration Committee, the Risk Management and Consumer Rights Protection Committee, the Strategy and Asset Liability Management Committee, and the Related Party Transaction Control Committee, all of which are chaired by independent directors with high professional qualifications in relevant professional fields. In addition, its board of directors has become increasingly diverse, and the board's decision-making ability has also been continuously improved.
On December 17, 2003, Chinese Life was listed in New York and simultaneously listed in Hong Kong on December 18. Through the restructuring and listing, the company's actual solvency limit has increased from 2945.6 billion yuan increased to 581$7.7 billion, with a minimum solvency of 28 times to 5575 times, the capital strength has increased greatly, laying a solid foundation for subsequent development.
The restructuring and listing is a new starting point for Chinese Life, and the transformation from a wholly state-owned enterprise to an international public company is a huge change. For Chinese Life, it is more important to change the operating mechanism internally and strengthen management.
Gradually on the right track as an international public company, Chinese Life's corporate governance and operation management have become increasingly mature and standardized, and have established a good reputation for integrity and stability and strict internal control in the international and domestic capital markets.
Since its overseas listing, Chinese Life has given full play to its localization advantages, and at the same time absorbed the advanced experience of many overseas counterparts, and its competitiveness has been qualitatively improved, and it has always maintained the leading edge of life insurance "head goose". At the end of November 2006, the total market value of Chinese Life exceeded 500 billion Hong Kong dollars, becoming the world's leading listed life insurance company by market value at that time.
After three years of overseas listing, Chinese Life returned to A-shares. On January 9, 2007, the total market value of Shanghai and Shenzhen exceeded the 10 trillion mark for the first time. On the same day, Chinese Shou landed on the Shanghai Stock Exchange with 18The first A-share insurance company to be listed on the A-share market became the first insurance company to be listed on the A-share market, and it is also the first insurance company to be listed in Hong Kong, Shanghai and New York (it has been delisted from the New York Stock Exchange). After the A-share listing, the total market value of Chinese Life exceeded 400 billion yuan.
Fourteen days after the A-share listing (January 23, 2007), Chinese Life A-shares entered the SSE 180, SSE 50, CSI 300, CSI 100, CSI 800 and Xiaokang Index. Two months later (12 March 2007), its H-shares were selected as constituent stocks of the Hang Seng Index, becoming the first constituent stock of the Hang Seng Index of Mainland insurance.
Improving corporate governance is the primary task for financial enterprises to deepen reform and achieve high-quality development. As a listed insurance company, Chinese Life is committed to the construction of corporate governance, internal control mechanism and compliance system, and is the first batch of practitioners of the internal control standard system of Chinese enterprises.
Since its listing, Chinese Life has benchmarked against the highest international and domestic internal control standards, and established a governance system with "reasonable structure, sound mechanism, strict system and efficient operation" from corporate governance structure, risk control, talent reserve to investment level. As early as 2004, Chinese Life built a comprehensive risk management system and formed the concept of "risk control and compliance create value".
The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China and the first financial work conference both put forward the principle of "party management of finance", requiring financial institutions to adhere to the people-centered value orientation. As a financial central enterprise, Chinese Life has always adhered to the organic integration of party leadership and corporate governance, highlighted the "party building guidance" in corporate governance, integrated party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance, and built a corporate governance mechanism with Chinese life characteristics.
Over the past 20 years since its listing, Chinese Life has always practiced the core concept of corporate culture of "becoming oneself and achieving oneself", cultivating the people-centered "national life feeling", anchoring the goal of "building a world-class and responsible life insurance company" all the way forward, "new every day, new every day, and new every day".
Reform and innovation, and fully fulfill the promise
When it went public in 2003, Chinese Life wrote its vision in the prospectus: to become a world-class life insurance company, achieve sustainable business growth and create long-term shareholder value.
In the past 20 years, Chinese Life has become a leading life insurance company in China to a leading life insurance company in the world. In July of the year of listing, among the top 500 global enterprises in 2002 selected by Fortune magazine in the United States, Chinese Life was selected with 290th in operating income, 351st in profit and 224th in assets, becoming the only insurance company in mainland China to enter the top 500 in the world at that time. Twenty years later, Chinese's ranking has risen to 40th. Its "brand" ranked 92nd in the world's top 500, and has been among the top 10 of "China's 500 most valuable brands" for 20 consecutive years, with its brand value increasing from 42.7 billion yuan to 452.5 billion yuan.
The promise made back then, 20 years later, seems to be a reality step by step in Chinese's life. The process of Chinese Life fulfilling its commitment is also a process of continuous reform and forging resilience in the tortuous development of China's life insurance industry.
Over the past 20 years, China's insurance industry has experienced many ups and downs. In 2003, the year of the listing of Chinese Life, it coincided with the prosperous and pioneering period of China's insurance industry, and the insurance industry began to enter the rapid development channel. Chinese Life Insurance is the leader in the life insurance market with a far leading market share.
In June 2006, the "Opinions on the Reform and Development of the Insurance Industry" (i.e., the "Ten Articles of the Insurance") was promulgated, which opened a window for the development of the insurance industry and provided policy dividends.
In this year, Chinese Life Group put forward the group development strategy of "strong main business and moderate diversification". Under this strategy, the business scope of Chinese Life Group covers life insurance, property insurance, corporate and occupational annuity, banking, asset management, wealth management, industrial investment, overseas business and other fields, and gradually realizes the implementation of the comprehensive financial layout strategy from single insurance to insurance, banking and investment.
In terms of the main insurance business, by the time of the return to A-shares in 2007, the premium market size of Chinese Life still maintained an absolute advantage of nearly 40%.
Since the international financial crisis in 2008, China's insurance industry has shifted to the mode of promoting development through structural adjustment, and has sought to form a new competitive advantage in the process of adjustment and transformation.
In February 2009, the former China Insurance Regulatory Commission further clarified the focus and direction of the business restructuring of the life insurance industry, and guided the industry to vigorously develop risk protection and long-term savings business.
In 2011, due to the impact of the new bancassurance regulations, the insurance industry's premiums shrank significantly, and since then, the life insurance industry has begun to seek transformation and breakthrough, transforming from products and channels to "customer-centric" and "return to protection".
In 2013, the market-oriented reform of life insurance rates was launched, and the upper limit of the predetermined interest rate of ordinary life insurance, universal insurance, and participating insurance was gradually relaxed, and the insurance industry bid farewell to the 2A predetermined interest rate of 5%.
In 2014, the new "National Ten Measures" were released, and the insurance industry entered a new stage of development.
Since 2016, the regulatory authorities have successively issued a series of new regulations, emphasizing the "surname of insurance" and returning to protection. Under the continuous optimization of business structure and increased team transformation, in the first half of this year, the premium growth rate of Chinese life personal insurance channel returned to double digits, leading the development of the industry.
In 2017, the scale of Chinese life insurance exceeded 500 billion yuan, becoming the first domestic life insurance company with a total premium of more than 500 billion yuan.
Since 2018, the insurance industry has entered a new period of transformation, and it is increasingly difficult for traditional models to adapt to current developments. In the period of adjustment and transformation of the industry, Chinese Life is also seeking transformation. As a financial central enterprise and the "head goose" of the industry, Chinese Life has always adhered to the core values of "risk is life, compliance creates value", and has always adhered to steady and compliant development.
In 2019, Chinese Life launched the "Dingxin Project". Soon, the epidemic that lasted for three years was encountered, and the current round of transformation that the entire insurance industry, including Chinese Life, was implementing, may be the most difficult for the insurance industry. Despite this, the three-year reform has achieved remarkable results, and many changes have taken place in terms of business structure and management. In 2020, the scale of premiums has reached 600 billion yuan, from 500 billion yuan to 600 billion yuan, in only three years.
The Dingxin Project Reform Project has also been recognized by the industry and has been selected as an "Excellent Reform Case in the Blue Book of China's Financial Outlook".
As the management of Chinese Life said, reform is always on the way. On this basis, Chinese Life continued to "catch up with the exam", and launched the "eight major projects" at the end of 2022, namely: led by the "Party Building Leading Foundation Building Project", supported by the "Talent Construction Consolidation Project", with the "Sales Channel Strengthening Project", "Comprehensive Marketing Cohesion Project", "Customer Management Jinshan Project", "Government-Enterprise Cooperation and People's Heart Project" and "Healthy Elderly Care Ecological Project" as the main body, and based on the "Financial Technology Digital Project".
According to the deployment of the "Eight Major Projects", in the next deepening reform, Chinese Life will deeply implement basic reengineering and difficult research, actively target new customer groups, new models and new capabilities, comprehensively upgrade the company's development momentum, and accelerate quality change, efficiency change and power change.
Speaking at the 2023 Open Day, Li Mingguang said: "Taking history as a mirror, experience is precious and must be persistent. Enterprises are always moving forward in inheritance and development. We always believe that only by constantly developing and improving Chinese life can we better fulfill our responsibilities for the society and serve customers. ”
After 20 years of exploration and reform, we have now borne fruit. Data shows that in the 20 years since its overseas listing, the premium income of Chinese Life has increased from less than 150 billion yuan in 2003 to 6151 at the end of 2022900 million yuan, and the embedded value increased from 90 billion yuan to 123 trillion yuan, total assets from 328.7 billion yuan to 525 trillion yuan, and the scale of investment assets increased from 279.2 billion yuan to 506 trillion yuan.
Through continuous transformation and reform, the Chinese have achieved steady progress in the past 20 years.
Leading the future, the head goose is stronger and better
How to seize the historical opportunities of the new era, reflect the times, precision and popularity in development, and give new connotations to be better and stronger is related to the development of Chinese life in the next 20 years.
Over the past 20 years, after many transformations, especially the accumulation of Dingxin projects, Chinese Life has been in a leading position in the industry in terms of corporate governance, strategic layout and business structure. Standing in a new historical period, facing many factors driving social change, Chinese Life needs to rethink the future development path.
On the road to becoming a world-class life insurance company, Chinese Life also needs to find new development momentum. In the face of opportunities and challenges, Chinese Life will continue to deepen reform and innovation on the solid foundation accumulated in the past 20 years, and continuously enhance the core competitiveness of Chinese Life in the new era.
How to enhance the core competitiveness of Chinese life?The management of Chinese Life can be summarized into two key words: one is a strong foundation, and the other is excellent service.
"Strong foundation" refers to enhancing the internal strength of the development of Chinese's life at four levels and practicing solid basic skills
The first is to consolidate the foundation of the sales force. The marketing team is the core competitiveness of Chinese Life, and will give full play to the company's strong comprehensive strength advantages, customer resource advantages, professional management advantages, good reputation and other unique advantages, strengthen the resource empowerment, training empowerment, technology empowerment and management empowerment of the sales team, further implement the reform of the marketing system, continue to promote optimal growth and education, optimize and upgrade the traditional team, explore the construction of a new team, and create a professional, professional and comprehensive China Life characteristic marketing team.
The second is to consolidate the foundation of digital operation. Vigorously promote the construction of digital China Life, with the help of digital and intelligent tools, big data into risk identification, product innovation, precision marketing, service optimization, and internal control capabilities.
The third is to consolidate the foundation of asset-liability linkage. As one of the largest institutional investors, Chinese Life will adhere to the effective linkage of assets and liabilities, strengthen investment capabilities and investment system construction, continue to optimize the allocation strategy of large types of assets, and stabilize the investment level.
Fourth, consolidate the foundation of refined management. Through the continuous optimization of the criss-crossing operation and management system, the input-output efficiency of sales channels is improved, the operating costs are effectively controlled, and the endogenous development momentum of grassroots institutions is enhanced.
"Excellent service" highlights the essential characteristics of insurance services and builds high-quality services into an important growth point for Chinese Life. There are three main meanings:
First, do a good job in sales service. Sales staff is the first contact point of customers, Chinese Life will continue to improve the quality of the sales team, establish the first sense of service, and impress customers with professionalism.
The second is to optimize operational services. It will further improve the service system, strengthen the hierarchical and classified services for customers, promote the transformation of customer service centers into experience centers, strengthen the protection of customer rights and interests, and provide customers with rich policy services and value-added services.
The third is to strengthen ecological services. Focusing on the focus of the big health and big pension ecology, we will vigorously promote the construction of the "product + service" ecosystem, promote the further integration of products and related services, enrich the service scenarios of "product + health" and "product + pension", and accelerate the formation of new business models.
In the past year since the implementation of the "Eight Major Projects", a number of phased achievements have been formed. On this basis, through further "strengthening the foundation" and "excellent service", Chinese Shou will draw a new growth point for competitiveness.
When the reform enters the stage of refinement, as a financial central enterprise, the core of Chinese Life is to be better and stronger, and to implement "people-centered" in every link of reform and development.
Insurance is popular, and insurance products have covered various industries and entered thousands of households. At the same time, it has a natural people's nature, involving people's life, old age, sickness, death and disability, and is closely related to everyone.
Over the past 20 years, Chinese Life has created a series of insurance products suitable for the needs of the times around the needs of consumers at each stage of social development, and created a number of service brands such as one-day compensation for critical illness, air customer service, intelligent insurance application, and life insurance APP respecting the elderly, and provided customers with hundreds of value-added services.
In the era of intelligent development, Chinese Life also uses digitalization as the "engine" to create intelligent services that "benefit the people" in all scenarios, and polishing the details of digitalization and customer service through the concept of "people-centered" is the "core" of its high-quality development of digital finance.
In today's era of deepening aging society, medical care and nursing care have become the rigid needs of the people, and they are also the starting point for the implementation of people's nature in Chinese life.
After more than ten years of exploration, Chinese Life focuses on "big pension" and has built a multi-level, all-round, full life cycle, and whole industrial chain industrial layout. In 2022, the first batch of personal pension business will be launched, and the development and layout of health care resources will be accelerated through the establishment of China Life Pension**.
The "Health and Elderly Care Ecological Construction Project" in the "Eight Major Projects" of Chinese Life Insurance takes the insurance business as the core and takes "people-centered" as the starting point and foothold of the construction of "insurance + health care" to create a high-quality, efficient, online and offline integrated health management service system.
In 2023, Chinese Life further clarified the "one main and multiple auxiliary" pension service supply system, that is, focusing on urban institutions with large demand and high occupancy rate, supplemented by suburban institutional pension, home pension and community pension, and jointly promoting the "insurance + pension" model.
Over the past 20 years, Chinese Life has been sharing the same destiny with the country, practicing the original mission of "serving the overall development of the country and protecting the people's better life", and has achieved the glory of the industry's leading geese and the excellent performance of listed insurance companies.
What will Chinese life look like in the next 20 years?In Li Mingguang's view, this depends on whether generations of national life people can maintain their original intentions, and "the original intention of Chinese life has never wavered."
The blueprint for the way forward has been drawn. Standing at a new historical starting point, Chinese Life will ride the giant ship of the era of Chinese-style modernization and sail to the sea of stars of world-class life insurance companies, creating the glory and dream of Chinese Life.
Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice.