End-September Stock Surge Boosts Profits for Listed Insurers' Q3 Reports
A wave of "market conditions" in September has added significant "impetus" to the net profit performance of listed insurance companies in the third quarter. As the disclosure of the third-quarter reports approaches, several A-share listed companies have recently released performance "pre-joy" announcements.
On October 16th, China Life Insurance Company Limited (China Life) issued a performance increase forecast announcement, stating that it expects the net profit attributable to the parent company for the first three quarters to increase by approximately 165% to 185% year-on-year. Prior to this, New China Life Insurance, China Pacific Insurance (Group) Co., Ltd. (China Pacific), and People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited (PICC) had all recently released performance increase forecasts, announcing that their net profits attributable to the parent company for the first three quarters would achieve substantial growth, with increases ranging from 60-70% to doubling. As for the reasons for the significant increase in net profits, all four listed insurance companies attributed it to the recovery of the capital market, which led to a substantial increase in their investment returns.
The prosperity of the asset side in the third quarter, combined with the warmth of the liability side, has led industry analysts to generally favor the "resonance of assets and liabilities" in the third-quarter reports of listed insurance companies. The stock prices of the insurance sector have also shown a significant increase over the past period. However, some industry insiders have expressed that the current logic of the sector's rise is overly dependent on the stock returns of the asset side, and more attention should be paid to the long-term core profit trend.
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Listed Insurance Companies' Third-Quarter Reports "Pre-Joy"
As of October 15th, New China Life Insurance (601336.SH; 01336.HK), People's Insurance Company (Group) of China Limited (601319.SH; 01339.HK), China Pacific Insurance (601601.SH; 02601.HK), and China Life Insurance Company Limited (601628.SH; 02628.HK) have successively released performance increase forecasts, with the increases in net profit attributable to the parent company for the first three quarters generally exceeding market expectations.
Among these four listed insurance companies, China Life has the highest expected increase, reaching 165% to 185%, while New China Life's expected increase is also close to doubling, at 95% to 115%; China Pacific and PICC's expected increases in net profit attributable to the parent company for the first three quarters are 60% to 70% and 65% to 85%, respectively.
All four insurance companies attribute the main reason for the expected growth in performance for the first three quarters to the recent rise in the capital market.
Data from Guotai Junan Securities shows that as of the end of September this year, the CSI 300 Index had risen by 17.1% compared to the beginning of the year (compared to a decrease of 4.7% for the same period last year), with a single-quarter increase of 16.1% in the third quarter (compared to a decrease of 4.0% for the same period last year).
China Life, which has the highest expected increase in net profit attributable to the parent company, stated that the company seized market opportunities for cross-cycle allocation and continued to promote the optimization of equity investment structure. In the third quarter of 2024, the stock market significantly recovered, and the company's investment returns increased significantly year-on-year.
New China Life, which also expects a near-doubling, stated that in the first three quarters, the company moderately increased its investment in equity assets, raising the proportion of equity assets in its portfolio; at the same time, it strengthened the quality management of insurance liabilities and optimized its business structure. The recent recovery and rise in the capital market have pushed up investment returns, leading to a significant year-on-year increase in net profits.Industry insiders have indicated that the leading increase in net profit attributable to the parent company for these two listed insurance companies in the first three quarters is mainly due to their relatively high proportion of equity assets compared to others, resulting in greater profit elasticity. According to calculations by Dongwu Securities, as of the end of the first half of this year, the ratio of the listed insurance companies' stock balance to equity was 160% for New China Life Insurance and 88% for China Life Insurance, higher than the other three A-share listed insurance companies. If we calculate the proportion of the trading stocks (classified as financial assets measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in profit or loss for the period, hereinafter referred to as "FVTPL") balance of the listed insurance companies during the same period to the equity stock investment ratio, China Life Insurance and New China Life Insurance are still the highest among the five A-share listed insurance companies, reaching 92% and 88% respectively, while Ping An Insurance has a ratio of only 38%.
Under the new financial asset accounting standards, the proportion of equity assets placed in FVTPL has increased significantly compared to the original standards, amplifying the impact of market fluctuations on the net profit of listed insurance companies. The higher the proportion, the greater the volatility of net profit. When the capital market rises, the net profit performance will be very eye-catching, but when the capital market falls, the net profit will also be greatly affected, which can be described as a "double-edged sword."
At the same time, China Life Insurance's net profit "pre-joy" level in this year's third quarter report is the highest among several listed insurance companies. In addition to investment reasons, there is also the factor of a lower base. Looking at last year's third quarter report, China Life Insurance's net profit attributable to the parent company decreased by 47.8% year-on-year, with the largest decline among the five major A-share listed insurance companies.
Although the insurance sector's increase is at the forefront, long-term profitability still needs attention in the long run. In the view of industry analysts, the rise in the capital market not only increases the net profit of insurance companies as mentioned in the performance increase announcement, but also promotes their net assets and embedded value.
According to analysis by Huatai Securities, in terms of net assets, in addition to considering the impact of the fair value changes of FVTPL stocks and funds, the fair value changes of traditional insurance account FVOCI (financial assets measured at fair value with changes in fair value recognized in other comprehensive income) equity assets should also be considered. It is expected that the contribution of FVOCI to other comprehensive income (included in net assets) brought by the rise in the capital market, combined with the net profit growth brought by FVTPL equity assets, can significantly increase the net assets of each company, with an increase equivalent to 3% to 11% of the net assets at the end of the first half of this year. In addition, the impact of rising stock investments on the embedded value of life insurance companies may reach 2% to 5%.
Market sentiment and the improvement of listed insurance companies' profits complement each other, driving the insurance stocks to perform well. Data from Choice Financial Terminal shows that in the 120-day increase ranking of the Shenwan secondary industry index, the insurance sector ranks second among all A-share sectors with a 51.86% increase, only behind the real estate service sector.
However, in a research report released by CICC on October 9, it was stated that the logic of the insurance sector's rise is overly dependent on the stock returns of the asset side. "This logic has some truth, but it should be noted that stock investment returns fluctuate greatly between different years, and it is not simple to use the stock investment returns since the third quarter of this year to infer the subsequent long-term profitability. The current market's expectations for insurance companies' stock investment returns are already high, and we believe that there may be limited room for further exceeding expectations in the short term."
Data from Choice Financial Terminal shows that the recent 5-day increase in the insurance sector has narrowed to 1.85%.CICC believes that the initial logic for being bullish on life insurance investment opportunities is that the market has overestimated the interest rate risk of high-quality companies with a high degree of asset-liability matching. These companies are expected to have a long-term stable and upward core profit trend, even without considering the thickening of stock investments. At present, the valuation of high-quality life insurance companies has not yet reached a reasonable level and there is still room for recovery, with future stock prices likely to fluctuate upwards.
Optimistic about the increase in new business value in the third quarter report
After excluding the short-term investment fluctuations of insurance companies, one of the manifestations of their core profitability lies in the performance of the liability side.
Analyzing from the premium data and new business value rates in the past two months, industry analysts are generally optimistic about the new business value performance in the third quarter report.
Huaxi Securities stated that listed insurance companies have driven the unexpected growth of new business value (NBV) in the first half of this year by compensating for volume with price, and it is expected that the NBV of various insurance companies in the third quarter is likely to continue to accelerate. In terms of new policy premiums, the demand for new policies in August was stimulated by the suspension of sales, and according to the data disclosed by the State Financial Supervision Administration, the total premium income of the industry from January to August 2024 was 3.21 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 16.1%, an increase of 3.0 percentage points compared to January to July, mainly due to the short-term concentrated sales of new policies driven by this round of scheduled interest rate cuts, as well as the low base of premiums last year. In terms of new business value rates, as the product structure continues to optimize and the high-quality transformation of channels continues to deepen, the business quality of various insurance companies will continue to improve. "We expect the NBV growth rate of various insurance companies in the first three quarters to continue to improve compared to the mid-report. The high prosperity in 2024 is still expected to be maintained." Huaxi Securities stated. Founder Securities also expects that the average growth rate of NBV of listed insurance companies in the first nine months of this year will reach 33.8%.
Industry insiders generally believe that the prosperity of the asset side and the increase in NBV on the liability side will make the "asset-liability resonance" of listed insurance companies in the third quarter report. However, some insurance company insiders also told financial reporters that looking at September, the sales situation of dividend insurance on the liability side is also hard to say booming in the suspension environment. At present, many insurance companies have turned to the "New Year's Day Red" work for next year. In the future, it is still necessary to see whether the industry can have a good "selling point" next year, as well as the continuous deepening effect of "integrating reporting and practice" and other factors. "In the past two years, a lot of premiums have been obtained during the suspension period due to the reduction of scheduled interest rates, and the pressure is still considerable." The person said.