China Life Insurance's 2025 profits surge by 44%, CEO Liming Guang responds to Q4 losses

Interface News Reporter | Lv Wenqi

“The leader in life insurance” reveals its 2025 report card.

On March 25, China Life Insurance (601628.SH; 02628.HK) announced its 2025 annual performance report, showing that in 2025, China Life’s total premium income exceeded 700 billion yuan for the first time, reaching 729.887 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.7%; it achieved a net profit attributable to shareholders of the parent company of 154.078 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 44.1%.

At the performance meeting held on March 26, China Life’s Chairman Cai Xiliang described the performance in 2025 as “full of red.” Although China Life achieved significant growth in various indicators, due to intensified fluctuations in the stock and bond markets in the fourth quarter of 2025, the fair value changes resulted in a noticeable narrowing of profit or loss, leading to a single-quarter net loss of 13.726 billion yuan.

In response, China Life’s President Li Mingguang stated that most investment assets and insurance contract liabilities of life insurance companies need to be measured at current market value, and changes in market value will be reflected in the profit and loss statement or balance sheet; therefore, net profit and net assets fluctuate with the market, which is a normal phenomenon and an industry norm.

Li Mingguang pointed out that the negative net profit of China Life in the fourth quarter of 2025 was mainly due to structural adjustments in the capital market during the fourth quarter, causing a pullback in some stocks and funds held by the company. This volatility is mostly temporary and reflects changes in the capital market, not the company’s long-term operational trend.

He further noted that life insurance companies operate with long cycles and cross-cycle characteristics. China Life’s investments are value investments and long-term investments, and both asset-liability management and investment management should be observed over a longer cycle, suggesting that everyone should reduce excessive interpretations of single-quarter profits. China Life has always adhered to long-termism, insisted on the linkage of assets and liabilities, continuously improved its management capabilities over long and cross cycles, and strived to create sustainable value for investors. China’s economic foundation is stable, has many advantages, is resilient, and has great potential; the long-term supportive conditions and basic trends remain unchanged, which will lay a solid foundation for the company’s development.

Thanks to the rise in the equity market, China Life achieved its best investment results in recent years. In 2025, China Life realized a total investment income of 387.694 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 25.8%; the total investment return rate was 6.09%, an increase of 59 basis points compared to the same period in 2024.

At the performance meeting, China Life’s Vice President, Secretary of the Board, and Chief Investment Officer Liu Hui stated that the company’s investment performance benefited from the high-quality development of the Chinese economy and the stabilization and warming of the capital market. It also benefited from the company’s long-standing adherence to a value investment and prudent investment strategy, as well as accurate analysis and flexible tactical operations regarding the market.

When discussing investment strategies, Liu Hui stated that equity investment is the key to enhancing returns, fixed income investment is the ballast for stable returns, and alternative investments are the growth pole for enriching returns. In 2025, China Life actively promoted the entry of medium- and long-term funds into the market, seized favorable market opportunities, strategically increased the equity ratio by 5 percentage points, and focused on new productive forces and high-dividend quality assets. The overall scale of equity investments exceeded 1.2 trillion yuan. At the same time, it consistently and steadily conducted fixed income allocations, having accumulated 30 trillion yuan in long-term quality assets. In a low-interest-rate environment, it further strengthened strategic allocations and active management, continuously optimized asset-liability matching, and solidified the fixed income base. Additionally, it fully leveraged the advantages of long-term capital and patient capital, increased product innovation and strategy innovation, and built a full-spectrum, full-lifecycle alternative investment ecosystem, with the overall scale of alternative investments exceeding 1 trillion yuan, opening up long-term growth space.

Regarding the equity investment strategy for 2026, Liu Hui stated that China Life will focus on three major directions: first, the AI and semiconductor industries; second, the health and biomedicine fields; and third, green energy and new infrastructure, with a deep focus on wind power, nuclear power, and new energy storage areas.

In light of the recent tensions in the Middle East and the growing market concern over the spillover risks of U.S.-Iran conflicts, Liu Hui remarked that the current geopolitical conflicts are still evolving, and their impact on global financial markets is uncertain. However, based on historical experience, such conflicts often indirectly impact the pricing of major asset classes through energy price fluctuations and changes in inflation expectations.

“The company’s overseas asset allocation is relatively low, so its overall impact on the investment portfolio is limited,” Liu Hui stated, adding that they will continue to monitor the transmission effects of the changes in the Middle East situation on global markets.

Against this backdrop, China Life will rely on the “long-term capital, patient capital” attributes of insurance funds to dynamically adjust its asset allocation structure, seizing allocation windows amidst market fluctuations, and focusing on high-quality assets with long-term cash flow and dividend capabilities to hedge against short-term uncertainties and enhance the cross-cycle stability of the portfolio.