HK Stock Market Move | Non-life insurance stocks fell in the afternoon, with differentiated growth in life insurance premiums in December. The industry's strong start to the year saw a slowing momentum in new single sales.

The stock prices of domestic insurance companies fell in the afternoon. As of the time of publication, New China Life Insurance (01336) fell by 2.91% to HK$23.35; China Pacific Insurance (02601) fell by 2.62% to HK$22.3; China Life Insurance (02628) fell by 2.43% to HK$13.66; and PICC P&C (02328) fell by 0.97% to HK$12.22. Zhaojin International released a research report pointing out that in December, there was a significant differentiation in the growth rate of life insurance premiums of listed insurance companies. Due to the slowing momentum in new policy sales at the beginning of 2025, the growth rate of insurance premiums of insurance companies in November and December weakened month-on-month. In December, the life insurance premium income of six listed insurance companies was 82.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.5%, a decrease of 1.9 percentage points from November. The growth rate of life insurance premiums in December was differentiated, influenced by the pace of the new year sales and differentiated product strategies. Looking ahead, the bank expects the new business value (NBV) of listed life insurance companies in 2025 to maintain stable growth, benefiting from the continuous improvement of NBV value rate. The fluctuation in first-year new life insurance premiums is expected to ease after the first quarter of 2025, as starting in April 2025, new life insurance sales will generally face the impact of a higher base, combined with the possibility of a further reduction in predetermined interest rates throughout the year, which will also have a certain impact on customer underwriting demand. The bank continues to point out that in December, the property insurance premium income of five listed insurance companies was 93.2 billion yuan, flat year-on-year (November: +8.4% year-on-year), mainly affected by the slowdown in non-auto insurance business growth.