Sunshine Insurance Group Company Limited (Sunshine Insurance or the Company, and its subsidiaries collectively the Group; HKG: 6963) is pleased to announce the audited consolidated results for the year ended 31 December 2023 (the Reporting Period).
2023 Annual Results Highlights:
- GWPs increased by 9.3% YoY to RMB118.91 billion;
- Insurance revenue increased by 7.5% to RMB59.90 billion;
- Net profit attributable to equity owners of the parent reached RMB3.74 billion;
- Embedded value was RMB104.06 billion, up 6.4% from the end of last year on a comparable basis;
- Comprehensive investment yield was 4.8%;
- As of December 31, 2023, the number of active customers was approximately 31.54 million.
In 2023, with the overall recovery in China’s economy and steady progress in high-quality development, the Group actively seized the development opportunities arising from the economic recovery, the rising awareness of insurance protection among residents, the increasing diversity of insurance needs and the growing demand for pension insurance brought about by the ageing population. With in-depth research, development and innovation, the Group effectively formulated and fully activated the “New Sunshine Strategy” with “Sunshine of Technology” created by data intelligence, “Sunshine of Value” created by model innovation, and “Sunshine of Caring” created by a culture of goodness with love and responsibility as its three core elements, and achieved steady development in core business of insurance industry with a high level of strategic determination and solid execution, resulting in continuous improvement in value creation and effective implement of customer idea.
During the Reporting Period, the gross written premiums (GWPs) of the Group were RMB118.91 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 9.3%, and the insurance revenue reached RMB59.9 billion, representing a year-on-year increase of 7.5%. The net profit attributable to equity owners of the parent was RMB3.74 billion. The embedded value was RMB104.06 billion, up 6.4% from the end of last year on a comparable basis. The total investment yield was 3.3% and the consolidated investment yield was 4.8%. As the end of 2023, the Group had approximately 31.54 million active customers.
Positive Development in Core Business with Remarkable Results in Value Creation Project
In 2023, based on its core business of insurance, Sunshine Insurance has laid a solid foundation for its high-value growth by continuing to promote the innovation and value development of life insurance business, strengthening core competency and doing a good job in asset management and risk management with a clear strategic consistency.
In terms of life insurance, the path of differentiation and value realization for Sunshine Life Insurance is becoming increasingly clear with its “one body” and “two wings” project. The business value ratio and persistency ratio have been steadily improved, and the pursuit of the “five highs” of “high-morality, high-productivity, high-value, high-income, and high-quality” has initially been achieved, highlighting the industry’s comparative advantages. During the Reporting Period, the Group’s total life insurance premium income reached RMB74.60 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. The first-year regular premiums (“FYRPs”) reached RMB18.10 billion, a year-on-year increase of 22.7%. The value of one year’s new business was RMB3.60 billion, a year-on-year increase of 44.2% on a comparable basis. FYRPs from individual insurance channel for the year reached RMB4.30 billion, a year-on-year increase of 46.5%. FYRPs with Sunshine’s characteristics from worksite marketing achieved more than double. The Company’s operating indicators, including the education level of its workforce, productivity per person, product value ratio, 13-month persistency ratio, and agent income, have been improved in an all-round way.
In terms of property insurance, Sunshine P&C has made breakthroughs in all “three life table” projects. The intelligent automobile insurance life table has achieved the “last mile” connectivity, truly establishing industry-leading risk pricing capabilities. Full intelligence of rigid risk cost management and optimal allocation of resources provided a technological model guarantee for auto insurance to become a stable and profitable business. The non-auto data life table and credit insurance life table have also witnessed substantial progress and have been gradually applied to the operation side. During the Reporting Period, Sunshine P&C witnessed rapid growth in business scale, continuous optimization of business structure and quality. It achieved a premium income of RMB44.24 billion, a year-on-year increase of 9.6%. The underwriting combined ratio was 98.7%, a year-on-year optimization of 0.7 percentage point, indicating sustained enhancement in profitability.
In the area of asset management, facing challenges brought by market fluctuations, the Group has ensured the healthy and steady development of the core business through clear strategic consistency, appropriate choices align with the reality, and exceptional asset correlation. It has also closely followed the national development strategy, continuously improving its capabilities and allocation ratio of investment for future-oriented industries, and seizing the initiative in strategic implementation. During the Reporting Period, the Group’s asset management business maintained healthy development, with a total investment income of RMB14.62 billion, a total investment yield of 3.3% and a consolidated investment yield of 4.8%.
Building New Strategy of “Technological Sunshine” with Data Intelligence, Enhancing Overall Technological Capabilities
The Central Financial Work Conference held in 2023 clearly put forth the goal of “building a strong financial nation and making great strides in technological finance, green finance, inclusive finance, pension finance and digital finance”. During the Reporting Period, the Group, focusing on the two initiatives, “technological finance” and “digital finance”, improved innovative mechanisms, fostered innovative culture, deepened product orientation and intensified efforts in “three robots” project, namely sales robot, service robot and management robot. AI products gradually took shape and began testings in institution businesses.
The Group also embraced the trend of AI innovation and listed the independently developed AI large models as its strategic project. It also pioneered developing the Sunshine GPT large model with independent intellectual property rights, which has already been applied in customer service, sales support, intelligent claims and other scenarios.
Meanwhile, the Group continued to strengthen digital customer insights, marketing, operations, risk control and product innovation, gaining remarkable results. In terms of customer insights, the customer conversion rate has increased by 99.5% year-on-year through big data integration and customer portrait applications. In terms of marketing support, the use of big data and text exploration facilitated sales, empowering an increase in per capita productivity. In terms of operational services, intelligent businesses handling like intelligent consultation and assessment are provided to customers, with a 91% of Online self-service processing rate of property and life insurance business customers and 90.2% of customer satisfaction for intelligent services. In terms of risk prevention, 210 new risk monitoring and identification indicators have been launched, with 147 optimizations, effectively monitoring, identifying and controlling risks. In terms of product innovation, the “Mileage-based New Energy Vehicle Model” utilized data exploration technology to significantly enhance the capabilities of the new energy vehicle business.
Furthermore, the Group actively promoted the digital and intelligent transformation of the entire industry. With a great sense of responsibility and mission, it took the initiative in holding the first InsurTech Digital Intelligence Conference which gathered more than 150 industry insiders and outsiders, and published the first white paper on the application of large model technology in the insurance industry. It also initiated the establishment of the InsurTech Digital Intelligence Innovation Consortium, gathered industry forces of insurtech intelligence, and promoted innovative all-round breakthroughs in Sunshine Technology.
Building “Sunshine of Caring” with a Culture of Love and Responsibility and Moving Customer Operation Capabilities to a New Level
Grounded and focused on the ideology of “finance for the people and the culture of love and responsibility”, the Group effectively implemented the “customer-centered” core value and built a customer-driven development mode in 2023 from strategic deployment to business implementation, remaining committed to building the “Sunshine of Caring”.
Sunshine Life took the implementation of “Matrix Plan” as the first step to ensure that customers’ thoughts and actions can be put into practice. Focusing on the needs of the whole life cycle of customers’ families, based on the large-scale research of more than 20,000 customers, and through in-depth research and thorough analysis of multi-dimensional issues such as life stages, categorization of needs, and product correspondences, Sunshine Life has creatively introduced the truly customer-centric product allocation philosophy of “3 insurance policies for your lifetime of safety and security, 5 policies for the whole family, and 7 policies of Sunshine Insurance bring you a promising future” (“3/5/7”), making the Group the first company in the industry to make it clear to society in a simple and clear way that one needs a few insurance policies for one’s whole life, which is not easy to explain.
Aiming at its advantageous areas, Sunshine P&C continued to promote the implementation of “Partnership Action” risk management services, focused on the innovation and practice of the “insurance + service + technology” model, created exclusive risk management solutions for a number of industries, and built the “Sunshine Partnership” applet, a lightweight enterprise customer service platform that combines “disaster warning, online service, risk control and security”, to effectively help customers identify and dispose of hidden security risks, and manage risks from the perspective of customers in real sense. In 2023, it provided technology disaster mitigation and professional risk consulting services to 14,000 corporate clients.
In accordance with the “four features” principle of “value, characteristics, practicality and usability”, the Group was making new strives to reshape its value-added service system and upgrade its unique team of “customer experience officers” to better “advocate for customers”. With the continuous enhancement of customer operation capabilities, the number of Group’s active customers has been growing steadily, reaching 31.54 million by the end of 2023.
Serving “National Priorities” and Conducting In-depth Practice of Social Responsibility
Finance is the bloodline of the real economy. As the only traditional insurance company being listed among 205 insurance companies established in this century, the Group actively plays a leading role in the response to national policy and regulatory requirements with stable corporate governance and scientific risk control, integrates with national strategies, enhances the quality of service to the real economy, and provides targeted and strong support for the development of real economy.
Throughout the year of 2023, the Group provided risk coverage of RMB61 trillion for the real economy. It also worked to assist in the green and low-carbon transformation by providing green insurance coverage of RMB12.2 trillion, with a sustainable investment balance exceeding RMB50 billion; promoted rural revitalization by launching comprehensive insurance assistance, expanding insurance coverage for agricultural products and providing a package of products such as “Poverty Prevention Insurance” and supplementary medical insurance to key assistance groups. In 2023, the Group provided agricultural risk coverage of RMB 28.60 billion for 917,000 farmer and paid out RMB 460 million in claims, delivering benefits to 368,000 farmers; served the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative by providing risk coverage of RMB98.16 billion for 402 related projects and long-term financial support of RMB 60.07 billion for large-scale investment projects; focused on the actual needs of SMEs by providing risk coverage of RMB304.02 billion for about 26,000 SMEs and helping about 68,200 SMEs obtain financing of RMB11.3 billion.
In addition, the Group actively fulfilled its social responsibilities and participated in public welfare. The Group gave full play to its advantages in financial technology and medical resources, and actively organized and participated in various public welfare activities such as education, elderly assistance and poverty alleviation. By the end of 2023, the Group had supported the construction of 73 schools in 24 provinces; provided training to 19,478 rural doctors; and granted parental maintenance allowances to 40,716 employees.
The year 2024 is crucial for achieving the goals and tasks outlined in China’s “14th Five-Year Plan”. With multiple favorable factors such as the long-term upward trend of China’s economy, the country’s policy orientation to support the development of the insurance industry, the market environment created by financial regulatory authorities, and the continuous advancement of high-quality development in the industry, the development space for the insurance industry is expected to further expand, and the long-term upward trend will remain unchanged. This year’s government work report clearly states that “vigorously developing technology finance, green finance, inclusive finance, aging finance, and digital finance” is a continuation of the emphasis on doing a good job in the five major areas of financial work, and it also points out the direction for the industry to assist in the implementation of the “14th Five-Year Plan” with high-quality development and serve the construction of Chinese-type modernization.
Looking ahead, the Group will uphold the original intention and entrepreneurial spirit, adhere to strategic determination and scientific corporate governance, and firmly hold the bottom line of preventing systemic financial risks, and continue to deepen the implementation of the New Sunshine Strategy rooted in high-quality development, and use it as a pivotal force for growth. The Group keeps breast of the service objectives of “Five Major Areas of Financial Work” and execute targeted innovative strategies accordingly. The ultimate aspiration is to achieve “technological leadership, robust value creation, and customer-centered thought”, thereby sustainably contributing to the construction of a strong financial nation and fostering high-quality financial growth.
About Sunshine Insurance Group Company Limited
Sunshine Insurance Group Company Limited is a fast-growing private insurance service group in China. Since its establishment, the Group has demonstrated unwavering commitment to its core business, embracing an industrial mindset within the financial industry. It prioritizes value creation and strives to emerge as a premier provider of family insurance services, while simultaneously serving as a dependable partner for enterprise risk management. The Group carries out life and health insurance business through Sunshine Life, property and casualty insurance business through Sunshine P&C, and manages insurance funds through Sunshine AMC. As of December 31, 2023, the Group has been ranked among the top 500 Chinese enterprises by the China Enterprise Confederation for 13 consecutive years and has been entitled as one of the “Top 500 Valuable Brands in China” by the World Brand Lab for 12 consecutive years.