HK Stock Market Move | Among the non-life insurance stocks, the collective rise is significant, with a noticeable improvement in industry investment returns over 24 years. Institutions claim that both the liability and asset sides of the industry have improved.

In the stock market, insurance stocks collectively rose. As of the time of writing, New China Life Insurance (01336) rose by 6.24% to HK$28.1; China Life Insurance (02628) rose by 5.13% to HK$15.98; CHINA TAIPING (00966) rose by 3.77% to HK$12.66; and Ping An Insurance (02318) rose by 3.28% to HK$48.75. On the news front, the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission recently disclosed the fourth-quarter 2024 insurance fund utilization table. The data shows that as of the end of 2024, the balance of insurance company funds amounted to 33.26 trillion yuan, an increase of 15.08% year-on-year. In 2024, the annualized financial investment yield of insurance companies was 3.43%, an increase of about 1.2 percentage points year-on-year; the annualized comprehensive investment yield was 7.21%, an increase of about 4 percentage points year-on-year, showing improvement in both measures. Soochow pointed out that the current market demand for savings remains strong. With continued regulatory guidance to reduce the cost of debt for insurance companies, the pressure on interest spreads is expected to gradually ease. The yield on the 10-year government bond has recently risen to around 1.72%. The bank predicts that with the domestic economic recovery, if long-term interest rates stabilize or rise, the pressure on insurance companies' new fixed-income investment yields will be alleviated.