Tall order
The fourth quarter is traditionally a low season for insurers. Analysts said insurers will have to improve the quality of their products to survive the winter chill. That's a tall order for companies that have been obsessed with chasing premium income in the past decade.
"It seems that the nearly 10 new investment policies released between April and October won't help in a short term," said Deng. "Insurers need to improve their products and sales channels in the long term."
As early as 2004, some analysts started to worry about the "bubble" in the life insurance sector, which has recorded nearly 30 percent annual growth since 1996. The pursuit of larger premium income spawned the common practice of focusing on the development and sale of insurance policies as wealth management tools, which promised certain returns when clients deposited money with insurers over a fixed term.
It was not until 2011 that the insurance regulator implemented new auditing rules that excluded a large portion of income from investment-related products from the calculation of premium income.
The rules were aimed at helping insurers refocus on products that would insure consumers against risks, rather than on products that took their money for investment purposes.
Executives of the four listed insurance companies have said on different occasions that slower industrial growth will allow more time for them to readjust their business focus. But in reality, the economic slowdown seems to have highlighted the insurers' hot pursuit of more income.
The China Insurance Regulatory Commission said in a statement last week that it received 10,289 complaints against insurers in the first nine months of this year, nearly triple the number a year earlier.
Landmark building should respect the public's feeling
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