China Insurance Premiums Rise 3.3% in First Half; Disaster Claims Reach RMB 11.05 Billion

The China Insurance Association held its second regular press conference of 2026 on July 31. In the first half, the insurance market ran broadly stable, with original premium income reaching RMB 3.86 trillion, up 3.3% year on year; claims and benefits paid amounted to RMB 1.40 trillion, up 3.8%. Property insurers recorded original premium income of RMB 984.6 billion, up 2.1%, while life insurers recorded RMB 2.8716 trillion, up 3.6%.

Since May 2026, affected by heavy rainfall and typhoons, regions including Guangxi, Hubei and Gansu have suffered urban waterlogging, reservoir breaches and landslides. In response to natural disasters across 20 provinces, the insurance industry received a cumulative 533,000 reported claims, with estimated losses of RMB 11.05 billion and paid claims of RMB 5.53 billion, of which flood and typhoon disaster payments totalled RMB 5.21 billion. Catastrophe insurance payments exceeded RMB 500 million.

In disaster response, the industry has implemented an advance payment mechanism. Local insurance associations issued special guidelines for advance payments in major disasters, clarifying the scope of application, processing conditions and payment standards, and moderately raising the advance payment ratio for low-income households, monitored households and agriculture-related small and micro enterprises. Before disasters, local insurance associations issued mutual recognition guidelines for vehicle insurance in disasters, with insurers conducting risk inspections and emergency drills and pre-positioning rescue supplies and cross-regional support forces. During disasters, city and provincial emergency response mechanisms were activated, with police-insurance and government-insurance cooperation enabling non-discriminatory free rescue. After disasters, the 'three exemptions and four quick actions' convenience services were implemented.

Pension insurance business is transitioning from a single 'capital reserve' model to a comprehensive solution of 'capital reserve plus risk protection plus health and care services'. China Pacific Insurance upgraded its 'big health' strategy into a 'big health and care' strategy, making it one of its core development strategies, deepening multi-pillar pension finance business and building a full-chain health and care service loop covering 'prevention, diagnosis, treatment, recovery and care'. Ping An Life has built a 'insurance plus healthcare plus elderly care' full lifecycle service loop, with a full-lifecycle pension product system on the product side and a full-scenario service network covering 'online, hospital, home and enterprise' on the service side. China Life continues to improve its commercial pension product system and steadily upgrades age-friendly services. Taikang Insurance has established a 'one community, one medical institution' model integrating care and medical treatment, deploying 48 elderly care projects across 37 key cities. Its Taikang Home Shenyuan, operating for ten years, has delayed the average time for care-level upgrades by more than five years through early intervention.