China Life Insurance earns 422 million yuan daily in 2025; management reveals new trends in fund allocation

China Jingjing, a reporter from China Business News, reports from Beijing

At the venue of China Life’s performance briefing / interviewee / photo

A-share listed insurance companies’ 2025 performance reports have been released one after another.

China Life Insurance Company Limited (hereinafter “China Life,” 601628.SH, 2628.HK) recently disclosed its 2025 performance report: In 2025, the company’s net profit attributable to shareholders reached RMB 154.078 billion, up 44.1% year over year, equivalent to about RMB 0.422 billion per day; total premium income first surpassed the RMB 700 billion mark, reaching RMB 729.887 billion, up 8.7%.

This performance is inseparable from the support of investment returns. In 2025, China Life’s total investment income was RMB 387.694 billion, an increase of RMB 79.443 billion over the prior year, up 25.8% year over year; the total investment return rate was 6.09%, up 59 basis points compared with the same period last year.

At the 2025 performance meeting, Liu Hui, vice president of China Life and secretary to its board of directors, told reporters from media outlets including the China Business Journal that in 2025, China Life continued to strengthen asset-liability linkage management, promoted product and business diversification in depth, scientifically controlled liability costs, and effectively improved investment-to-production efficiency; at the same time, it took a forward-looking approach to seize market opportunities, continuously optimized the structure of asset allocation, and enhanced the stability of investment portfolio returns and the potential for long-term payouts, resulting in steady growth in operating performance.

Equity investments increased by RMB 450 billion

From the perspective of asset allocation structure, as of the end of 2025, China Life’s invested asset scale was RMB 7.4 trillion, up 12.3% from the end of the previous year. Among them, the allocation proportion of stocks and funds (excluding money market funds) rose from 12.18% at the end of 2024 to 16.89%. The proportion of financial assets fixed to maturity dates was 70.51%, mainly consisting of bonds, time deposits, and debt-type financial products.

In terms of credit asset investment, it mainly includes credit bonds and debt-type financial products, with investment mainly directed to sectors such as banks, transportation, non-bank financial institutions, public utilities, and energy. As of the end of 2025, China Life’s holdings of credit bonds with an external rating of AAA accounted for over 99%; debt-type financial products with an external rating of AAA accounted for over 99%.

In terms of equity investments, in 2025 China Life steadily carried out high-dividend-stock allocation. The scale of equity investments in the public market exceeded RMB 120 billion, an increase of over RMB 45 billion from the beginning of the year. For alternative investments, it focused on high-quality entities and core assets, innovated investment models, and strengthened forward-looking planning.

At the performance meeting, Liu Hui said there were three reasons for the sharp rise in China Life’s investment income in 2025: first, it firmly went long on Chinese assets. In 2025, it strategically increased the equity proportion by nearly 5 percentage points, bringing the equity investment scale to over RMB 120 billion, with a focus on technology stock investments aligned with the direction of China’s new quality productive forces; second, in the past few years it seized opportunities when interest rates were high and large-scale issuance of long-term bonds took place, increasing long-term bond allocation across cycles. As it stands, it has accumulated over RMB 3 trillion in long-term bonds, and during the period of falling interest rates it also increased allocation to high-dividend stocks; third, it captured structural opportunities in the market, and in equity investments it focused on the growth style’s breakout phase.

Regarding the equity investment layout that has drawn significant attention from the market, Liu Hui revealed that it mainly allocates through direct equity investments focusing on core assets to develop green “dual-carbon” assets with stable cash flows; it uses PE funds to invest in emerging industries, for example, investing nearly RMB 20 billion in a series of big health funds to cultivate 22 listed companies, with total market capitalization exceeding RMB 1 trillion. In the science and technology innovation sector, it issued a science and technology innovation fund with RMB 5 billion to nurture multiple artificial intelligence companies. Recently, it also initiated a 40 billion RMB Yangtze River Delta science and technology innovation fund, focusing on technology tracks such as artificial intelligence and integrated circuits.

Aiming at artificial intelligence and semiconductors

In a low interest rate environment, what truly tests an insurance company is its long-term asset-liability management capability. At the performance meeting, China Life’s chief actuary Hou Jin said: “The company has achieved an upgrade of asset-liability linkage, mainly reflected in four aspects: first, it promotes the transformation of floating-income-type businesses in parallel, increases equity investments, and strengthens account-level refined management; second, it takes an overall view of scientific management of liability duration and flexible regulation of asset duration, achieving an effective duration gap of less than 1.5 years; third, it actively responds to changes in market interest rates, coordinating dynamic adjustments to product assumed rates with timing and best-choice allocation of fixed-income assets, which reduces the guaranteed cost ratio of new business liabilities by more than 60 basis points; fourth, it creates and realizes value more steadily, with stronger and more resilient internal capital creation capacity.”

In the future, how will China Life’s insurance funds be allocated?

Liu Hui explained in detail that in terms of equity investments, China Life will continue to push for medium- and long-term funds to enter the market, focusing on two categories of assets: first, technology stock investments that represent the direction of China’s new quality productive forces, following the main line of technological iteration and domestic substitution, and looking along the full industrial chain of artificial intelligence for investment targets with explosive growth opportunities; second, allocation to high-quality high-dividend stocks, constructing a diversified dividend portfolio to respond to falling interest rates.

In terms of fixed income, at present China’s bond market is showing low-level volatility with the center of gravity moving up. The yield on 10-year government bonds is trading between 1.75% and 1.9%, slightly higher than last year’s yield midpoint. China Life will pay attention to allocation opportunities brought by the rise in long-term bond yields, and at the same time will use diversified fixed-income strategies to find products with good value for money for investment, including RMB 2nd- and 10th-year bonds and other relatively better fixed-income products, as well as alternative credit plans.

For the investment directions during the “15th Five-Year Plan to 5th Five-Year Plan” period, Liu Hui further disclosed that China Life will continue to follow the deployment to nurture and grow emerging industries and to make proactive arrangements for future industries, and will keep using diversified tools such as merger and acquisition funds, PE funds, and S funds, focusing on three major directions: including artificial intelligence and semiconductors, closely tracking the main line of technological iteration and domestic substitution, and digging for investment targets with explosive growth opportunities along the full industrial chain of artificial intelligence; big health and biotechnology, focusing on areas such as innovative drugs and devices, intelligent diagnosis and treatment, and chronic disease management; and green energy and new infrastructure, going deep into clean energy sectors such as wind power and nuclear power, while focusing on investment opportunities such as new energy storage and computing power coordination.

(Editor: Li Hui; Review: He Shasha; Proofread: Zhai Jun)

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