Soochow: Shanghai introduces new health insurance policies to actively support the development of commercial insurance and innovative drugs and medical devices.

Soochow released a research report stating that the total premium of health insurance in the first half of 2025 amounted to 622.3 billion yuan, an increase of 2.3% compared to the previous year, accounting for 21% of the total life insurance premiums. By innovating product design, strengthening policy support, and covering innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices, it will help further stimulate the potential of the health insurance market, expand business scale, and improve profitability. Recently, seven departments in Shanghai jointly issued "Several Measures to Promote the High-Quality Development of Commercial Health Insurance to Support Innovation in the Biomedical Industry", to promote the joint development of medical insurance and commercial insurance to support innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices. The new policy is expected to fully leverage the advantages of commercial insurance in medical expense settlement, support the smooth progress of medical insurance payment reform, provide strong financial support for the development of "new innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices", and enhance the accessibility and affordability of innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices. Soochow's main views are as follows: Event: On August 6, seven departments in Shanghai jointly issued "Several Measures to Promote the High-Quality Development of Commercial Health Insurance to Support Innovation in the Biomedical Industry", to promote the joint development of medical insurance and commercial insurance to support innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices. Expand the coverage of commercial health insurance, strengthen support for innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices Encourage health insurance to include medical new technologies, new drugs, new medical devices, and new consumables that are in demand and supply into the scope of coverage; explore mechanisms such as collective negotiation of drug prices, communication on new drug listings, payment based on efficacy, and installment payments between insurance institutions and pharmaceutical companies, to enhance the accessibility and affordability of innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices; explore the establishment of diversified payment and multi-party coordination mechanisms, facilitate the entry of innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices into hospitals, drug formularies, and prescriptions, and innovative drug application cases within the scope of commercial health insurance coverage may not be subject to disease-based payment. Diversify commercial health insurance product forms, provide inclusive protection and local characteristics Continue to optimize and strengthen "Shanghai Health Care"; accelerate the development of commercial nursing insurance; around the needs of groups such as the elderly and the sick, encourage the inclusion of elderly people, people with previous conditions, and those with chronic diseases in the coverage; explore the "insured group" model to support key areas of economic and social development in Shanghai. Enhance medical insurance-commercial insurance cooperation through data empowerment Deepen the sharing of medical, medical insurance, and commercial insurance data, and expand the scope of data sharing. Encourage medical institutions and pharmaceutical companies to provide timely information on the diseases and indications covered by innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices, and clinical trial data to commercial insurance companies as pricing references. Utilize the "Shanghai Insurance Code" platform to achieve product docking, claims settlement, policy promotion, etc., achieve full coverage of secondary and tertiary hospitals, and explore the expansion of direct compensation services to hospital special needs departments and international departments. Optimize support from medical insurance personal accounts, fiscal funds, and other sources for the development of commercial medical insurance For group health insurance that meets the conditions, premiums can be shared by companies and employees, with the personal portion paid by medical insurance personal account surplus funds. Qualified public institutions can use fiscal funds to purchase and establish supplementary commercial health insurance related policies as required by the system. Encourage companies to make good use of the enterprise income tax policy of deducting 5% of total employee wages. Support eligible market entities in Shanghai to invest in or hold shares in commercial health insurance companies. Under the support of policies, it is expected to achieve a win-win cooperation among medical, insurance, and pharmaceutical sectors In the first half of 2025, the total premium of health insurance amounted to 622.3 billion yuan, an increase of 2.3% compared to the previous year, accounting for 21% of the total life insurance premiums. By innovating product design, strengthening policy support, and covering innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices, it will help further stimulate the potential of the health insurance market, expand business scale, and improve profitability. The new policy is expected to fully leverage the advantages of commercial insurance in medical expense settlement, support the smooth progress of medical insurance payment reform, provide strong financial support for the development of "new innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices", and enhance the accessibility and affordability of innovative pharmaceutical and medical devices. Improvement on the liability side and asset side, with considerable valuation upside The market's savings demand is still strong, and with regulatory reduction in the pre-set interest rate and proactive transformation of insurance companies, the cost of liabilities is expected to gradually decrease, alleviating pressure on the loss margin. The recent stabilization of the 10-year treasury bond yield around 1.7% is expected to mitigate the pressure on the investment yield of new fixed-income investments for insurance companies as the long-term interest rates repair and increase in conjunction with domestic economic recovery. Currently, public funds are still under-allocated in insurance stocks, the estimated valuation of the insurance sector on August 6, 2025 ranges from 0.61-0.94 times PEV and 1.02-2.23 times PB, which is at historically low levels, and the industry maintains a "buy" rating. Risk Warning Trend of downward long-term interest rates; sustained downturn in the stock market; lower-than-expected growth in new policies.