Multiple listed banks saw a double increase in insurance premiums and income from agency sales last year. Dividend insurance became the main force in the bancassurance channel.

As listed banks publish their 2025 annual reports in sequence, data related to bancassurance agency services is also coming out. The figures show that last year, many banks saw year-over-year growth in both their bancassurance premium volume and agency revenue, making bancassurance an important growth driver for banks’ fee-based intermediary business income.

Interviewees believe that against the backdrop of steadily narrowing net interest margins, ramping up insurance distribution through banking channels has become an important way for banks to increase profits and optimize their income structure. In the future, banks will accelerate their placement of bancassurance distribution, transforming from traditional deposit-and-loan institutions into integrated wealth management platforms, and driving bancassurance channels to become a key growth engine for non-interest income.

Banks strengthen marketing of insurance products

Judging from the operating conditions of large state-owned banks, in 2025, the share of long-term single-premium and periodic-premium insurance agency business at Postal Savings Bank of China continued to rise. The bank stepped up efforts to promote products such as dividend insurance and annuity insurance, while steadily cultivating new growth points including internet insurance. During the reporting period, Postal Savings Bank of China’s long-term periodic-premium insurance agency premium sales reached 1034.06 billion yuan, accounting for 58.26%—up 4.78 percentage points year over year; Bank of Communications’ outstanding balance of personal insurance distributed through the bank reached 374.0 billion yuan, up 14.61% year over year; and Construction Bank’s insurance business income was 5.868 billion yuan, an increase of 0.553 billion yuan compared with 2024.

Meanwhile, many joint-stock banks also recorded year-over-year growth in both the premium scale and agency revenue of their insurance agency business last year. For example, in 2025, China CITIC Bank’s bancassurance distribution business scale reached 24.572 billion yuan, up 24.69% year over year; the share of sales volume for long-term protection-oriented products was 59.51%, up 1.68 percentage points year over year. In 2025, Ping An Bank’s personal insurance agency premium volume grew 35.3% year over year; it achieved wealth management fee income of 5.061 billion yuan, up 15.8% year over year, including 1.292 billion yuan in personal insurance agency income, up 53.3% year over year.

From sales at frontline branches, banks are generally increasing marketing efforts for insurance products. Insurance products distributed by banks have been favored by investors, and especially after dividend insurance products were listed and promoted, sales through bancassurance channels have continued to rise.

Many banks also mentioned their arrangements for insurance products in their 2025 annual reports. Ping An Bank said that in 2025 it followed market trends to introduce multiple dividend insurance and high-end medical insurance products, continuously improving the richness of its insurance “shelf” offerings. China CITIC Bank said that in 2025 it continued to optimize the product structure of insurance distribution, deepened tiered and segmented operations, worked with high-quality insurance companies to build a protection system covering needs such as health, retirement, and wealth inheritance, and enhanced business value and optimized business structure through scenario-based activities and professional services. In 2026, it will accelerate capacity release in wealth management business, seize structural opportunities such as the capital market and dividend insurance, deepen investment research and customer advisory capabilities, and provide customers with distinctive and professional asset allocation solutions.

Yang Haiping, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of Finance and Law, told reporters from Securities Daily that dividend insurance has performed outstandingly in sales through bancassurance channels, mainly for two reasons: first, dividend insurance’s model of “guaranteed returns + floating dividends” both meets clients’ needs for principal safety and long-term locked-in interest rates, and also preserves the possibility of participating in market dividends and benefits—making it more aligned with the risk preferences of bank client segments; second, banks adopt targeted business strategies and promote dividend insurance as a key distribution product.

Bancassurance business is expected to maintain high growth

Growth in banks’ insurance distribution business directly drives listed insurance companies’ bancassurance channel premiums to rise sharply. In 2025, China Life’s total bancassurance channel premiums reached 110.874 billion yuan, breaking the 100 billion yuan mark for the first time, up 45.5% year over year; new business premiums were 58.506 billion yuan, up 95.7%; bancassurance channel customer managers reached 20,000, and per-capita productivity increased 53.7% year over year. Over the same period, Sunlight Life’s bancassurance channel premium income was 67.46 billion yuan, up 34.8%, including new business premiums of 34.09 billion yuan, up 69%. Activity-based per-capita productivity was 148,000 yuan, maintaining a high level.

Regarding the core drivers behind the high growth in banks’ insurance distribution business in 2025, Xue Hongyan, a special research fellow at Sushang Bank, told reporters from Securities Daily that it mainly stems from the combined force of three factors: banks’ business transformation, regulatory standardization, and residents’ demand. Under the pressure of steadily narrowing net interest margins, banks urgently seek growth points in intermediary businesses with light capital, and insurance agency becomes an important direction to push; regulatory policies shift bancassurance channels from “scale first” to “value-oriented,” creating a favorable environment for healthy business development; and with market interest rates falling, residents’ demand for stable asset allocation rises significantly, and low-risk preference funds turn toward bancassurance products that combine safety with yield flexibility—together driving a rapid increase in distribution scale.

Lou Feipeng, a researcher at Postal Savings Bank of China, told reporters from Securities Daily that the reasons for the high growth in banks’ insurance distribution business in 2025 are mainly threefold: first, deposit interest rates are falling, accelerating residents’ “deposit migration” trend; second, banks’ net interest margins are narrowing, making insurance distribution agency business income an important profit growth point; and third, the “bank issuance and product combined as one-stop” policy drives the value of bancassurance channels to return, and bancassurance cooperation continues to deepen.

Looking ahead, industry participants said that driven by the continued decline in market interest rates and sustained demand from residents for stable allocation, bancassurance business in 2026 is expected to maintain a high-growth trend.

Xue Hongyan believes that in the future, banks’ insurance distribution—on the product side—will continue to have dividend insurance occupy an important position, while the product matrix will expand in a diversified direction such as protection-oriented, retirement-oriented, and health-oriented offerings, covering customers’ wealth management needs across their full life cycle; on the channel model side, banks will upgrade from simple sales cooperation to deep customer operations, and build an integrated service system of “deposit replacement + wealth value enhancement” by relying on branch networks and customer-portrait capabilities; on the profit model side, banks will focus on the sustainability of intermediary income, shifting from single-transaction service to full-cycle value companionship services, thereby turning bancassurance channels into a core growth engine for non-interest income.

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