Since its listing, Zhongan has recorded annual losses for the third consecutive year.
On March 23, Internet insurance company Zhongan Online (6060.HK) released its full-year 2019 performance report. During the reporting period, Zhongan Online recorded a premium income of 14.63 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 30%.
Zhongan Insurance has risen to 11th place in the national property and casualty insurance market rankings, and continues to rank first in the national Internet non-car and casualty insurance market. In the whole year, 486 million users were served, and total insurance policies exceeded 8 billion.
Mapping; data source: financial report (the same below)
In 2019, Zhongan Online realized a net loss of RMB 454 million, compared with a loss of RMB 1.796 billion in the same period last year. This is the third consecutive year that Zhongan Online has recorded annual losses since its listing. In the first half of 2019, Zhongan Online achieved a profit of RMB 90 million for the first time due to an investment income of RMB 758 million. However, in the following third quarter, Zhongan Online’s net loss reached 401 million.
According to the financial report, Zhongan Online’s comprehensive cost rate in 2019 continued to optimize, reaching 113.3%, a year-on-year decrease of 7.6 percentage points, but higher than 108% in the first half of 2019, and the underwriting loss narrowed to 1.699 billion Yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 7.4%. In addition, its investment income increased due to the favorable A-share market, reaching 1.816 billion yuan during the period, a year-on-year increase of 264%.
For the financial report, Zhong Xing, CEO of ZhongAn Online, said: “In 2019, under the background of the restructuring of the property and casualty insurance industry, the slowdown in overall growth and the highly competitive industry, ZhongAn insisted on quality growth. “
At present, Zhongan Online has formed six major ecology: health, consumer finance, automotive, consumer life, travel, and others. Specifically, in 2019, healthy ecology surpassed consumer finance, ranking first among the six major ecosystems. During the period, fee income was 4.806 billion yuan, accounting for 33% of revenue. The payout rate is 53%. The total premium of the core product of the health and ecological “Exclusive Series” increased by 146.4% year-on-year. The growth rate of the total premium driving the healthy ecology reached 67.6%.
In addition, the company deepened its strategic cooperation with ecological partners such as Ant Financial, and its total ecological premium for consumer consumption reached 3.729 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 130.8%.
During the reporting period, Zhongan Online also reduced its consumer finance and some non-core businesses, including health group insurance with higher payout rates and airline travel services with higher channel rates. Among them, consumer finance previously led the six major ecosystems and was reduced to the third largest source of premium income in 2019. During the period, premium income was 3.091 billion yuan, accounting for 21%, and the compensation rate increased by 24.7 percentage points year-on-year to 97%.
In the field of consumer finance, Zhongan Online mainly conducts business through credit guarantee. The cooperative companies include the Internet scene platform Siku and Wing Payment, as well as the Internet financial platform Xiaoying Technology and Lexin.
On February 19th, Huaxing Capital released a research report, stating that ZhongAn Online is the first company in the Chinese market to provide high-end medical insurance at the price of mid-range medical insurance, and its exclusive series is ZhongAn Premium. The core factors of growth and performance improvement, for the first time covered ZhongAn Online and assigned a “Buy” rating, with a target price of HK $ 38.
On March 4th, China Merchants Bank International released a report. Benefiting from increased user insurance awareness and increased Internet insurance penetration rate, Zhongan Online’s healthy ecological business is expected to maintain high growth, and its target price will be HK $ 28.2 Raised to HK $ 34.2.