【英语财经】中国金融业新亮点：保险 China insurer valuations double those of banks as premiums soar

While investors shun Chinese bank stocks over fears of exposure to rising bad debt and a slowing economy, insurance has emerged as a bright spot in the financial sector, with an emerging middle class expected to buy more cover.

China's eight Hong Kong-listed insurers were valued at a median 10.7 times estimated 12-month forward earnings in early December, compared with 5 times for banks and 8.5 times for securities brokers, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Growth expectations are being fuelled by China’s low rate of insurance penetration, giving providers room to catch up. Premiums were only 3 per cent of Chinese gross domestic product in 2014, compared with 7 per cent in the US and 11 per cent in Japan, according to Swiss Re.

“The insurance industry is brimming with fertile soil. The room for growth is gigantic,” said analysts at Huatai Securities.

Chinese bank earnings are stagnant and asset growth is slowing amid a debt hangover from the lending binge that followed the global financial crisis. In contrast, insurance premiums grew by 20 per cent in the year to October, on pace to reach Rmb2.24tn ($349bn) for the full year.

The government is also pushing supportive policies to expand the role of private insurance in filling out the country’s patchy social safety net.

“Whether it’s infrastructure, medical care, pensions, and even education reform — these all need the insurance industry’s participation,” said Meng Zhaoyi, executive director at China Taiping Insurance.

Now the challenge for insurers is managing assets that have swelled to $1.85tn. Long restricted to government bonds, insurers have recently been permitted freer rein, allowing them to seek higher yields — and take on greater risk.

High-profile property acquisitions such as Anbang Insurance’s purchase of New York’s Waldorf Astoria Hotel signal the beginning of a wave of outbound investment. Cushman and Wakefield expects Chinese insurers to buy $73bn in foreign real estate by 2019 on top of $13bn invested already.

Insurers have also diversified their domestic portfolios to include higher-yielding investment in the shadow-banking sector.

“Increased alternative investments make Chinese life insurers’ credit profiles more vulnerable to an economic downturn as these types of investments are generally less liquid than straight bonds, and are focused on the infrastructure and real estate sectors,” rating agency Fitch said.

Just as China’s state-owned banks are forced to lend to unprofitable projects to support government policy priorities, insurers have also been pressed into a kind of national service. At the height of China’s summer stock market rout, the insurance regulator introduced long-awaited rule changes allowing insurers to increase their equity allocations. It was a clear signal that authorities expected the groups to join the “national team” of state-owned financial institutions in propping up the market.

Listed insurers including China Life and Ping An fell shy of earnings forecasts in the third quarter in part due to investment losses from the stock market rout. The market has since recovered, which will boost fourth-quarter results.

Beyond investment risk, the main challenge facing insurers is a lack of consumer awareness. Most so-called life insurance products are more akin to certificates of deposit, where the customer pays a single, lump-sum premium and is guaranteed a payout in several years’ time.

Policymakers and insurers want to promote the sale of protection-type insurance products, where payouts are contingent on death, illness, accidents or disaster. The challenge is overcoming Chinese consumers’ reluctance to shell out for a product where a payout is not guaranteed. “Peace of mind” remains an undervalued commodity for Chinese consumers.

“The general public still considers insurance an investment product. So it’s not just the life insurance companies that have to change; the culture has to change,” said Walkman Lee, partner at KPMG China in Beijing, who leads the firm’s insurance consulting practice.

To achieve this shift, the industry needs to overcome a reputation for questionable sales tactics. China Life, the country’s second-largest insurer by revenue, has a sales staff of 949,000 people. By comparison, US insurer State Farm, which has similar revenue, has only 18,000. That has created unprecedented challenges for training and monitoring.

“The Chinese consumer severely distrusts anyone trying to sell them insurance,” said Sam Radwan, partner at Enhance, a consultancy focused on China’s insurance industry.

While life insurance accounts for two-thirds of premiums, auto insurance is the fastest-growing. Recent deregulation of auto insurance prices has created opportunities for insurers to introduce risk-based pricing based on analytics. Mr Lee says a few auto insurers are already experimenting with so-called usage-based insurance, where the customer installs a device in his car that tells insurers how much he drives, and how safely.

“What the insurance industry is growing into is different from what we see today. You know more or less what the Chinese banking industry will be in the next five years. The insurance industry is still shaping itself,” said Mr Radwan.

Additional reporting by Ma Nan

Foreign insurers find China market hard to resist

Oliver Ralph

When it comes to China, some overseas insurers have taken the same line as other companies: never mind the profits for the moment, just look at the growth.

And the growth is, indeed, something to behold. Two years ago, Munich Re forecast that China would jump from the world’s 10th largest insurance market in 2006 to its third largest by 2020. In that period, premiums in the country are expected to jump from ￠56bn to ￠460bn.

Regulations prevent most overseas companies from owning more than half of a Chinese insurer, so joint ventures are the preferred operating model.

The UK’s Prudential, for example, has had a joint venture with conglomerate Citic since 2000. Aviva has had a joint venture with Cofco, a food and oil company, for more than a decade. One of the exceptions is AIA, which was the first overseas insurer to be granted a licence in China.

France’s Axa is among the largest overseas insurers in the country. It operates via two joint ventures — in life and health it works with banking group ICBC, while in property and casualty it signed an agreement with local insurer Tianping in 2013.

That has helped it to take advantage of a rule change in 2012 that allowed overseas insurers to operate in the lucrative third party motor liability business. It says that both its joint ventures are profitable.

“China has been good for us, but it is a very long term project,” says Denis Duverne, Axa’s deputy chief executive.

But while overseas insurers have enthusiastically put capital into China, many have struggled to make an impact. In the year to October, foreign insurers’ market share was 5.8 per cent for life and 4.8 per cent for property and casualty, according to government figures.

And according to data from EY, more than two-thirds of foreign life companies failed to make a profit in China in 2013, while for property and casualty the figure was just under half.

It is hardly surprising, then, that some overseas insurers have started to take a different approach.

Last month Germany’s Allianz, which has operated in China since 1910, set up a new joint venture with Hillhouse Capital and Baidu, the internet company. But rather than targeting traditional distribution channels such as banks and agents, the new venture will focus on digital opportunities with a range of travel, motor and health policies.

投资者因担忧中国坏账攀升和经济放缓而远离中资银行股，保险业则脱颖而出，成为中国金融业中的一个亮点——中国新兴的中产阶级有望更多地购买保险。

汤森路透(Thomson Reuters)的数据显示，12月初，按未来12个月预期盈利计算，在香港上市的8家中资保险公司的预期市盈率中值为10.7倍；相比之下，银行与券商的预期市盈率分别为5倍和8.5倍。

中国较低的保险普及率推升了对保险业增长的预期，也为保险公司提供了追赶的空间。瑞士再保险公司(Swiss Re)的数据显示，2014年，保费仅占中国国内生产总值(GDP)的3%，而在美国和日本，这一比例分别为7%和11%。

华泰证券(Huatai Securities)的分析师称：“保险业有着广阔的沃土。增长空间巨大。”

中国在全球金融危机之后掀起放贷潮，由此造成了大量债务，在这种背景下，中资银行盈利增长停滞，资产增长放缓。相比之下，今年前10月，保险业保费收入增长了20%，全年有望达到2.24万亿元人民币（合3490亿美元）。

中国政府也采取支持性政策，以扩大商业保险在填补不完善的社会保障体系方面的作用。

中国太平保险(China Taiping Insurance)执行董事孟昭亿说：“无论是基础设施、医疗、养老金，甚至是教育改革，所有这些都需要保险业的参与。”

如今，保险公司面临的挑战是如何管理已暴增至1.85万亿美元的资产。长期以来，保险公司的投资方向被限定在国债上，但近期已获准更加自由地进行投资，允许他们追求更高的收益率——同时也承担更大的风险。

一些引人瞩目的地产收购案——如安邦保险(Anbang Insurance)收购纽约华尔道夫酒店(Waldorf Astoria hotel)——开启了中国保险业对外投资潮。根据高纬物业(Cushman & Wakefield)，中资保险公司对境外地产投资额已达130亿美元，到2019年将再收购730亿美元。

中资保险公司还对国内投资组合进行多元化，开始涉足对影子银行业的收益率较高的投资。

评级机构惠誉(Fitch)称：“另类投资的增加使得中资寿险公司的信用记录更容易受到经济低迷的影响，因为这些类型的投资与普通债券相比通常流动性较差，而且集中在基础设施、房地产领域。”

正如中国的国有银行被迫放贷给不赚钱的项目以支持政府的优先政策一样，中资保险公司也承受着不得不“为国效力”的压力。今夏中国股市暴跌之际，保险监管机构公布了行业期待已久的规则修订，允许保险公司增加股票配置。这是一个明确的信号，表明当局希望保险公司加入由国有金融机构组成的“国家队”一起救市。

多家上市保险公司——包括中国人寿(China Life)和中国平安(Ping An)——第三季度均未实现预期盈利，部分是由于股市暴跌造成的投资亏损。之后股市回升料将提升保险公司第四季度的业绩。

除了投资风险，保险公司面临的主要挑战是消费者缺乏保险意识。多数所谓的寿险产品更类似于定期存单——客户一次性支付保费，数年后保证得到赔付。

政策制定者和保险公司希望推动保障型保险产品的销售，这类产品的理赔取决于死亡、疾病、意外事故或灾难。挑战在于克服中国消费者不愿意为一款没有回报保证的产品掏钱。“心安”对中国消费者而言仍是一种价值被低估的商品。

毕马威中国(KPMG China)驻北京合伙人、保险咨询业务主管李乐文(Walkman Lee)说：“公众仍将保险视为一种投资产品。因此，不仅是寿险公司必须变革；保险文化也需要变化。”

要实现这种转变，保险业需要洗清其遭到质疑的销售策略带来的不良声誉。按收入算，中国人寿是中国第二大保险公司，该公司拥有94.9万名销售人员。相比之下，与其收入相当的美国州立农业保险(State Farm)只有1.8万名销售人员。中资保险公司庞大的销售队伍给培训和监督带来了前所未有的挑战。

专注中国保险业的咨询公司Enhance的合伙人萨姆?拉德温(Sam Radwan)说：“中国消费者严重不信任任何试图向他们推销保险的人。”

虽然寿险占到了保费收入的三分之二，但车险增长最快。近期政府对车险价格放宽管制，为保险公司创造了引入基于分析的风险定价模式的机会。李乐文表示，一些车险公司已尝试推出“基于驾驶情况的保险”，即所谓UBI模式——客户只需在自己的车中安装一款装置，让保险公司可以了解汽车的行使里程，以及司机驾驶习惯的安全程度。

“中国保险业的未来将大异于我们今天所看到的。你多少都会知道中国银行业五年后会是什么样子，但保险业仍在自我塑造，”拉德温说。

外资险商难以抗拒中国市场

当谈到中国时，一些海外保险公司的看法与其他领域的公司如出一辙：不要在意眼前利润，只看增长情况。

而中国保险业的增长确实值得期待。两年前，慕尼黑再保险公司(Munich Re)预计，2020年，中国保险市场规模在世界的排名将从2006年的第10位跃升至第3位。同一时期，中国保费收入预计将从560亿欧元跃升至4600亿欧元。

由于相关规定不允许大多数外资企业在中资保险公司拥有过半股权，因此，成立合资公司是外资险商首选的运营模式。

例如，英国保诚集团(Prudential)自2000年就与中信集团(Citic)成立有一家合资公司。英国寿险公司英杰华(Aviva)10多年前也与粮食及食用油企业——中粮集团(Cofco)成立了一家合资公司。友邦保险(AIA)是一个例外，该公司是第一家在中国获得独资营运牌照的海外保险公司。

在华最大海外保险公司之一法国安盛集团(Axa)有两家合资公司：在寿险、健康险领域与中国工商银行(ICBC)合作；而在财产及意外保险领域，该公司在2013年与中国太平保险签署了合作协议。

这使安盛能够获益于2012年的一项规则修订，新规允许海外保险公司参与车险中利润丰厚的第三方责任险业务。安盛称，两家合资公司都处于盈利状态。

安盛集团副总裁德尼?迪韦纳(Denis Duverne)说：“我们在中国的经营一直不错，但这是非常长期的事业。”

虽然海外保险公司满怀热切地将资本投入中国，但许多公司很难有所作为。官方数据显示，今年1至10月，外资保险公司在中国寿险市场、财产及意外险市场分别占据5.8%和4.8%份额。

安永(EY)的数据显示，2013年，超过三分之二的外资寿险公司未能在华实现盈利，而对于经营财产及意外险的外资公司而言，将近一半的公司未实现盈利。

这也就难怪一些外资保险公司开始采取不同策略。

上月，最早在1910年就进入中国的德国保险公司安联(Allianz)与高瓴资本(Hillhouse Capital)以及中国互联网公司百度(Baidu)共同组建了一家合资公司。新公司将专注于旅游险、车险及健康险方面的“数字机遇”，而非银行、代理商等传统分销渠道。

Ma Nan补充报道

译者/陈隆祥