China Insurance News: Top 2014 Foreign and Local Insurers in China

Foreign insurer in China:

AXA Tian Ping is the top joint venture P&C insurer in 2014 with premium income of CNY6.61 billion (US$1.06 billion), according to new data release by CIRC. This is 4.5 times more than the second insurer which registered CNY1.46 billion in premium income.

While the top foreign life insurer in 2014 goes to ICBC-AXA Life, with life premium income jumped 49.7% y-o-y to CNY15.4 billion (US$2.46 billion). 

Local insurer in China:

PICC remained the top non-life insurer in 2014 with CNY252.42 billion (US$40.39 billion) in premium income, up 13.19% y-o-y. The top five remained unchanged from 2013. The other four consecutively are Ping An, CPIC, China Life, and China United.

The top life insurer in 2014 was China Life with premium income of CNY331.24 billion (US$52.97 billion), giving a growth of 1.38%,

On a separate headline, Anbang Insurance Group has received the approval from US regulators for the US$1.95 billion purchase of Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York.

China Insurance Regulatory Commission Announced Adoption of C-ROSS, New Solvency System 2015

China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC) has recently announced the full adoption of China Risk Oriented Solvency System (C-ROSS). It is officially the second generation of solvency regulatory mechanism in China. Transition period has started last 13 February 2015, and insurance companies with operational activities in China has been duly notified by the regulators. 

In this transitional period, insurance companies are required to submit solvency reports in both the existing solvency and the new C-ROSS regulations. 

"C-ROSS aims to ensure the solvency of insurance industry in China while improving its overall competitiveness, and promote risk management across the industry."

"C-ROSS adopts a qualitative supervisory approach complementing the quantitative assessment of an insurance company's solvency position. The new solvency system also promotes capital efficiency by linking capital requirements more closely to risks, with the valuation of assets and liabilities reflecting actual risk profiles."

To ensure smooth implementation of the new system, CIRC encourages each insurance company to set up a task force composed of people from the finance, actuarial, risk management, investment, business and information technology and other relevant departments.

In January 2015, Mr Chen Wenhui, CIRC Vice Chairman, said that C-ROSS implementation would allow insurers to release redundant capital totalling CNY550 billion (US$87.9 billion). The life insurance industry would be able to release CNY500 billion in excess funds while the non-life insurance sector would find that CNY50 billion is redundant capital.