Overview
From October 19 to 22, the Financial Street Forum annual conference was held in Beijing, with the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) hosting an insurance conference for the first time—themed “Global Resilience, Insurance Empowerment—Building an Open and Inclusive Insurance Ecosystem”—with four forums on technology, inclusive, pension and catastrophe insurance, linked across Beijing and Hong Kong.
This was the strategic tone-setting meeting for the insurance sector at the start of the 15th Five-Year Plan. NFRA head Ding Xiangqun stressed “bringing all financial activities under regulation, full coverage, no exceptions,” and noted the Insurance Law revision draft was publicly consulted in September. IAC head Zhao Yulong released the “15th Five-Year High-Quality Insurance Development Study,” rebuilding the evaluation system with 18 indicators (8 functional, 6 quality, 4 scale)—functional indicators outnumbering scale for the first time.
Vice head Cong Lin warned of “life insurers’ interest-spread risk under prolonged low rates” and urged the industry to “firmly abandon the scale complex,” marking a deep switch from “premium scale” to “functional value.”
Background & Interpretation
1. Regulatory and Industry Context
Three backgrounds overlap: cyclically, low rates are in deep water—the 750-day moving average yield curve keeps falling, the life preset-rate research value dropped to 1.90%, and “bancassurance price-parity” extends from expenses to products, with the asset-side/liability-side “scissors gap” hanging over life insurance; strategically, the 15th Five-Year opens with building a financial power; externally, geopolitics reprices global insurance—the Hormuz crisis lifted war-risk premiums.
2. Core Drivers and Underlying Mechanism
Regulation substitutes “institutional and rule supply” for “aggregate liquidity.” Five institutional arrangements are clear: evaluation-system shift, three patient-capital tools for insurers (equity investment, debt plans, securitization), tech-insurance supply expansion, inclusive insurance and the “sixth insurance” long-term care (LTC) expansion, and catastrophe-pricing infrastructure. The first insurance conference, focused on four themes, returns insurance to the people’s-livelihood governance board.
3. Market Structure and Industry Chain Impact
Insurance returns from “wealth choice” to “risk-protection institution.” LTC insurance (the sixth insurance) targets near-full national coverage by 2028, easing “one disabled, whole family burden”; catastrophe insurance improves disaster risk-sharing; pension insurance fills the third pillar; tech insurance builds co-insurance pools in commercial space, biomedicine and robotics. Insurer capital serves national strategy via three tools, with patient-capital channels clarified.
Implications & Outlook
Near term, regulators screen and rectify “quick-return” products and digest high-cost legacy policies, opening a compliance-upgrade window. Medium term, functional indicators dominate evaluation; insurers shift from scale races to value operation, expanding the four tracks. Long term, insurance becomes a financial-power pillar; Shanghai’s international reinsurance center and shipping-insurance discourse gain real footing.
Takeaways for Industry Participants
Insurers: abandon the scale complex, strengthen liability-cost management, deploy the three tools as patient capital; accelerate LTC, catastrophe and tech-insurance supply. Tech and real-economy firms: use tech-insurance co-pools to share R&D and commercialization risk. Investors: track Q3 investment yield and solvency. Regulatory coordination: advance Insurance Law revision and market-based exit of high-risk institutions.
This column compiles industry information and shares technical perspectives; it does not constitute investment advice.