Multiple listed banks saw a double increase in insurance premiums and income from agency sales last year. Dividend insurance became the main force in the bancassurance channel.

By ( Peng Yan

As listed banks increasingly release their 2025 annual reports, relevant data on bancassurance distribution is also coming out. The data show that last year, many banks’ bancassurance premium volumes and agency income all achieved year-over-year growth, becoming an important growth driver for banks’ fee-based intermediary business income.

Interviewees believe that, against the backdrop of continued narrowing of net interest margins, stepping up bancassurance distribution has become an important way for banks to increase profits and optimize their income structure. Going forward, banks will accelerate their deployment of bancassurance distribution, transforming from traditional deposit-and-loan institutions into comprehensive wealth management platforms, and driving bancassurance channels to become a key engine for the growth of non-interest income.

Banks strengthen insurance product marketing

Judging from the operating situation of major state-owned banks, in 2025, in Postal Savings Bank of China’s agency insurance business, the share of long-term single-premium installment (with scheduled premium payment) business continued to rise. The bank focused on stepping up promotion efforts for products such as dividend insurance and annuity insurance, while steadily nurturing new growth points such as internet insurance. During the reporting period, Postal Savings Bank of China’s agency insurance long-term single-premium installment premiums reached 103.41B yuan, accounting for 58.26%, up 4.78 percentage points year over year. Agricultural Bank of Communications’ bancassurance balance for personal insurance products was 374.0 billion yuan, up 14.61% year over year. China Construction Bank’s insurance business income was 5.87B yuan, an increase of 553 million yuan compared with 2024.

Meanwhile, multiple joint-stock banks also saw both premium scale and agency income from their agency insurance businesses grow year over year last year. For example, in 2025, CITIC Bank’s insurance distribution business volume reached 24.57B yuan, up 24.69% year over year. The sales share of long-term protection-type products was 59.51%, up 1.68 percentage points year over year. Ping An Bank’s 2025 agency personal insurance premium volume grew 35.3% year over year. It achieved wealth management fee income of 5.06B yuan, up 15.8% year over year; among this, agency personal insurance income was 1.29B yuan, up 53.3% year over year.

From sales conditions at front-line branches, banks are generally stepping up marketing efforts for insurance products. Insurance products distributed through banks are favored by investors; especially after dividend insurance products were listed and promoted, sales through bancassurance channels have continued to rise.

Multiple banks mentioned their insurance product-related plans in their 2025 annual reports. Ping An Bank said that in 2025, in line with market trends, it introduced multiple dividend insurance products and high-end medical insurance products, continuously improving the richness of insurers’ “product shelves.” CITIC Bank noted that in 2025, it continued to optimize the structure of insurance distribution products, deepen tiered and categorized operations, and work with high-quality insurance companies to build a保障 system covering needs such as health, retirement, and wealth inheritance. It also enhanced business value and optimized business structure through scenario-based activities and professional services. In 2026, it will accelerate capacity release in wealth management business, seize structural opportunities such as the capital market and dividend insurance, deepen capabilities in investment research and investment advisory, and provide customers with distinctive, professional asset allocation plans.

Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, told Securities Daily reporters that dividend insurance performs outstandingly in sales in bancassurance channels for two main reasons: first, dividend insurance’s “guaranteed return + floating dividends” model satisfies customers’ needs for principal safety and long-term locked-in interest rates, while also preserving the possibility of participating in market dividend/risk-on upside, making it more aligned with the risk preferences of bank customer segments; second, banks adopt targeted business strategies, promoting dividend insurance as a key distributed product.

Bancassurance business is expected to maintain high growth

Growth in banks’ bancassurance distribution business directly drives listed insurers’ bancassurance-channel premiums to rise sharply. In 2025, China Life’s total bancassurance premiums reached 110.87B yuan, exceeding the trillion-yuan mark for the first time, up 45.5% year over year. New business premiums were 58.51B yuan, up 95.7% year over year. Bancassurance channel customer managers numbered 20k; average productivity per capita grew 53.7% year over year. In the same period, Sun Life’s bancassurance premium income was 67.46 billion yuan, up 34.8% year over year, including new business premiums of 34.09 billion yuan, up 69% year over year. Activity-based productivity per capita was 148k yuan, maintaining a high level.

Regarding the core driving factors behind the high growth of banks’ bancassurance distribution business in 2025, Xue Hongyan, a special research fellow at SuShang Bank, told Securities Daily reporters that it mainly comes from the combined force of three aspects: bank business transformation, regulatory standardization, and residents’ demand. Under the pressure of continued narrowing net interest margins, banks urgently seek growth points in low-capital intermediary businesses, with agency insurance becoming an important direction for focus. Regulatory policies are pushing bancassurance channels to shift from “scale first” to “value-oriented,” creating a favorable environment for healthy business development. Against the backdrop of falling market interest rates, residents’ demand for steady asset allocation has increased significantly; funds with lower-risk preferences are shifting toward bancassurance products that combine safety and yield elasticity, jointly driving the rapid rise of distribution scale.

Liao Feipeng, a researcher at Postal Savings Bank of China, told Securities Daily reporters that the reasons banks achieved high growth in agency insurance business in 2025 mainly include three points: first, deposit interest rates are falling, accelerating the trend of residents “moving deposits”; second, banks’ net interest margins are narrowing, making agency insurance business income an important profit-growth point; third, the “bank-reporting and bank-recording integration” policy is driving value in bancassurance channels back to fundamentals, and bancassurance cooperation continues to deepen.

Looking ahead at future development trends, industry insiders said that under the continued driving force of falling market interest rates and residents’ steady allocation needs, bancassurance business in 2026 is expected to maintain high growth.

Xue Hongyan believes that in the future, regarding product structure, dividend insurance will continue to occupy an important position. Meanwhile, the product matrix will expand toward diversified directions such as protection-type, retirement-type, and health-type products, covering customers’ wealth management needs across their entire life cycle. In terms of channel models, banks will upgrade from simple sales cooperation to in-depth customer operations; leveraging branch networks and customer profiling capabilities, they will build a comprehensive service system of “deposit substitution + wealth value appreciation.” In terms of profit models, banks will focus on the sustainability of intermediary business income, transforming from one-time transaction services to full-cycle value companionship services, so as to make bancassurance channels the core engine of non-interest income growth.

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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