"In the second half of the year, the company will place greater emphasis on efficiency priority, long-term concepts, and risk prevention and resolution." China Life Insurance Company Limited Chairman Cai Xiliang used three instances of "greater emphasis" to open the company's 2025 interim performance conference, while also signaling the direction for second-half development. Additionally, the management team addressed hot topics including investment strategies, predetermined interest rate adjustments, and channel transformation.

For the life insurance sector leader, what sustains its industry position? How does it view and respond to changes in the life insurance industry?

**"High-Quality Performance Results"**

Following the release of its half-year results, China Life Insurance held simultaneous 2025 interim performance conferences in Beijing and Hong Kong, attracting widespread market attention.

The performance report shows that China Life Insurance achieved its highest total premium growth rate in the same period over the past five years in the first half, maintaining industry leadership in both scale and value. Furthermore, the company realized net profit attributable to shareholders of RMB 40.931 billion in the first half, a year-on-year increase of 6.9%.

"The company's multiple core indicators reached historic highs for the same period, delivering outstanding results characterized by steady progress, quality improvement amid advancement, simultaneous growth in quantity and quality, and balanced efficiency and speed," Cai Xiliang stated regarding first-half business development. He noted that facing a complex and volatile market environment, the company overcame challenges, maintained strategic focus, vigorously promoted transformation, and delivered impressive results with high gold content.

Insurance companies' investment performance is crucial, directly affecting their profitability. Investment returns represent one of the core profit sources, and efficient capital management can enhance risk resilience, while superior investment performance can boost market competitiveness. For China Life Insurance, which saw both total assets and investment assets surpass RMB 7 trillion in the first half, the company achieved total investment returns of RMB 127.506 billion, up 4.2% year-on-year.

China Life Insurance Vice President and Board Secretary Liu Hui stated that since last year, the company has firmly believed in equity investment market opportunities and increased investment intensity, with equity asset allocation adding over RMB 150 billion in the first half.

Regarding equity investments, the company will continue optimizing equity allocation structure, focusing on new quality productive forces and high-quality dividend stocks, continuously enhancing the stability of equity allocation and long-term return potential. "The company will continue steady allocation in equity investments according to asset allocation needs, optimizing equity investment structure. Currently, the equity investment ratio aligns with the company's asset allocation center, and future equity allocation will pay greater attention to high-dividend stock allocation," Liu Hui explained.

Notably, Cai Xiliang also outlined second-half development directions. Discussing second-half development plans, Cai Xiliang stated that China's fundamentally positive long-term economic outlook provides strong support for the financial insurance industry. China Life Insurance will focus on three key directions: first, closely aligning with service missions and customer needs, exploring potential growth points in pension, health, and wealth management sectors, optimizing product and service supply while enriching insurance application scenarios; second, maintaining long-cycle and cross-cycle operations, emphasizing long-term value stability while focusing on reasonable premium growth to ensure sustainable healthy development; third, concentrating on intensive connotative development, strengthening cost reduction and efficiency improvement, marketing system reform, health and elderly care ecosystem construction, and technology empowerment to consolidate core competitiveness.

**"Optimistic About Future Life Insurance Development"**

Facing complex and volatile market environments, how to respond through development stability is particularly noteworthy for China Life Insurance.

A major current change in the life insurance sector is predetermined interest rate adjustments. As the industry leader, what impacts will this change bring?

"After predetermined interest rate adjustments, the company can respond quickly and launch products agilely, reaching customers promptly. The overall impact is expected to be relatively limited," China Life Insurance President Li Mingguang stated. Regarding this predetermined interest rate reduction, the company has made comprehensive preparations, including new product reserves, sales management, personnel training, system construction, policy promotion, and public opinion monitoring, forming a comprehensive operational management system spanning front, middle, and back offices.

New business value serves as the growth engine for life insurance companies, with changes reflecting not only current operational quality but also indicating future profit potential and market competitiveness. From first-half specific business development, the interim report shows China Life Insurance's new business value reached RMB 24.337 billion, up 9.5% year-on-year. Specifically for individual insurance channels, first-half total premiums reached RMB 400.448 billion, up 2.6% year-on-year; renewal premiums were RMB 326.56 billion, up 10.4% year-on-year.

According to Wang Peng, Associate Researcher at Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, new business value growth elements include product innovation, channel optimization, service upgrades, and effective risk management. Opportunities in the life insurance sector include growing protection needs, consumer upgrades, policy support, and technology empowerment.

China Life Insurance is also vigorously promoting floating return product development, with participating insurance achieving rapid growth, accounting for over 50% of individual insurance first-year regular premium income.

Discussing future industry development space, Li Mingguang stated at the conference, "Looking ahead, the supporting conditions and fundamental trends of China's long-term positive economic outlook remain unchanged, providing the greatest confidence for sustainable life insurance industry development. We firmly believe in the future development of China's life insurance industry."

Li Mingguang noted this confidence stems from three aspects: first, large development space; second, significant protection demand; third, substantial policy support. At the policy level, the State Council's new "National Ten Articles" and recently issued industry guidance documents form a high-quality development policy system, with closer government-insurance institution cooperation. Under government attention and guidance, the personal insurance industry's future development will reach new heights.

After the first-half work conference mentioned "steadily promoting sales channel transformation and upgrading, reshaping channel strategic positioning," Li Mingguang detailed company channel positioning and development approaches at the interim performance conference. Regarding future channel development, Li Mingguang stated that China Life Insurance will fully leverage extensive branch networks and diversified channel advantages, promoting integrated channel development, further integrating customer resources, team resources, and service resources to achieve "1+1>2" synergy effects while continuously improving customer service capabilities and injecting new momentum into high-quality development.

**"Expanding Inclusive Insurance Coverage and Accessibility"**

Focusing on products, for life insurance companies, writing inclusive insurance answers has become essential as policy systems accelerate improvement.

The recently released "Implementation Plan for High-Quality Development of Inclusive Finance in Banking and Insurance Industries" provides direction for industry inclusive financial services. When discussing company inclusive insurance development at the performance conference, Cai Xiliang stated that as a central financial enterprise, China Life Insurance effectively fulfills its functions as an "economic shock absorber" and "social stabilizer." In recent years, leveraging nationwide network advantages, industry-leading technology advantages, and continuous product innovation breakthroughs, the company has achieved outstanding results in inclusive insurance business. Future efforts will focus on "expansion, quality improvement, and sustainability," implementing the plan through three approaches to assist high-quality inclusive insurance development.

"First, persist in innovation-driven expansion. Thoroughly research specific population protection needs, strengthen scenario-based and refined product design, create high-quality inclusive product supply systems, and continuously expand inclusive insurance coverage and accessibility. Second, persist in service upgrades for quality improvement. Deepen construction of 'online one-click access, offline nearby presence' service networks, accelerate service model transformation from single 'risk compensation' to comprehensive 'insurance protection + health management' processes, providing customers with more convenient, secure, and caring service experiences. Third, persist in digital empowerment for sustainability. Leveraging data-driven and intelligent leadership, strengthen inclusive product precise pricing, efficient operations, and dynamic risk monitoring, balancing short-term inclusivity with long-term commitments to achieve organic unity of precise customer acquisition, service expansion, and efficient operations, ensuring long-term healthy sustainable development of inclusive insurance," Cai Xiliang explained.

Digitalization not only reduces inclusive insurance operational costs but also transforms insurance from "post-event compensation" to "pre-event prevention" through technology deployment, scenario innovation, and ecosystem integration, ultimately achieving balance between inclusivity and sustainability. From an industry perspective, as technology continues evolving, inclusive insurance will integrate more deeply into social governance, becoming key support for constructing multi-layered social security systems.

Regarding digital transformation promotion, China Life Insurance Vice President Ruan Qi outlined two key information points: method transformation and model transformation. At the performance conference, Ruan Qi stated that method transformation involves empowering offline teams through digital mobile technology, promoting sales and service model transformation. This phase focuses on process optimization and efficiency improvement without fundamental business model changes. This strategic choice stems from the company's large scale reality, aiming to stabilize business fundamentals. The second level is model transformation, fundamentally reconstructing business models and positioning China Life Insurance's second growth curve. The new model relies entirely on digital ecosystem construction, currently showing clear results, with new model premium income far exceeding initial annual internet channel budget targets. The new model's core advantage lies in significantly reducing marketing costs and effectively improving product market competitiveness.