In the face of changes in the interest rate market and investment environment, savers are making their own responses.
In the 2025 mid-year report of banks, a detail is quietly changing: customers' money is &#34;migrating&#34; to insurance products.
This &#34;migration&#34; does not appear in the prominent headlines of financial reports but is hidden in some scattered disclosures:
Some banks have added &#34;agency insurance income&#34; to their fee income, while others have casually noted &#34;increased insurance business&#34; in their non-interest income.
What seems like just a few inconspicuous lines of text marks a significant shift—insurance is becoming the &#34;new battlefield&#34; for bank wealth management.
<h2>Insurance Agency Performance &#34;Reports Good News&#34;</h2>
By sorting through the 2025 mid-year reports of listed banks, it can be found that the data on insurance agency business has been brought to the forefront.
It should be noted that the disclosure standards of various A-share listed banks are not uniform; some disclose &#34;agency insurance income,&#34; while others disclose &#34;insurance agency commission,&#34; and most institutions do not disclose this data.
For example, Shanghai Bank mentioned in its mid-year report that both the scale and income from insurance agency sales have achieved growth, with insurance agency income increasing by 16.59% year-on-year.
Ping An Bank's financial report also has similar statements. In the first half of 2025, the bank's wealth management fee income totaled 2.466 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 12.8%. Among this, agency personal insurance income reached 666 million yuan, a significant increase of 46.1%, surpassing fund agency sales (4.7%) and wealth management agency sales (16.3%).
&#34;In 2021, we initiated the new bancassurance business reform... embedding agency insurance business into the wealth management system... opening up new avenues for the development of our private banking wealth business,&#34; Ping An Bank recorded in its 2025 mid-year report.
One of the larger state-owned banks, China Construction Bank, also maintained growth in insurance business income. In the first half of 2025, CCB's insurance business income was 2.784 billion yuan, an increase of 446 million yuan compared to the same period last year.
Although Agricultural Bank of China did not separately list the figures for insurance agency sales and income, it disclosed in its mid-year report: &#34;(In the non-interest income section) other business income increased by 1.362 billion yuan, mainly due to the increase in insurance business income.&#34;
As a regional city commercial bank, Changsha Bank's disclosed data is more straightforward: agency business fee income was 235 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 48.51%. Changsha Bank's mid-year report further explained that &#34;the growth in agency business fee income is mainly due to the bank's vigorous development of wealth management, increasing the allocation of customer insurance, trust, and other products, driving continuous growth in wealth management income.&#34;
This is enough to illustrate that insurance agency sales have gradually become a stable pillar of non-interest income for various banks.
<h2>Why is this so?</h2>
&#34;Agency insurance income&#34; or &#34;insurance agency commission&#34; comes from the sales commissions earned by banks as sales channels for insurance companies selling products.
Since the aforementioned income differs from the interest margin and does not require banks to bear much risk or occupy too much capital, it is often classified as &#34;intermediary business income.&#34;
However, the foundation of this income is the growth in the sales scale of insurance products, so the increase in bank revenue is actually driven by the popularity of insurance product sales—meaning that investors are more favorably inclined towards insurance products than ever before.
So what has led to this result?
Industry opinions suggest that this is related to two factors. First, the continuous decline in bank savings rates has prompted savings funds to start &#34;looking outward,&#34; with life insurance products that have relatively stable and higher rates than savings rates quickly becoming the focus of investors;
On the other hand, from the bank's perspective, in the current volatile market environment, encouraging customers to purchase insurance products with no real-time pricing and a long-term stable yield calculation mechanism is a good choice. It alleviates customer anxiety while also contributing to the bank's commission income.
Interestingly, some major banks that focus on wealth management are even willing to &#34;take small losses&#34; in the short term: commission income is declining, but they are still striving to boost insurance sales, guiding customers' funds into long-term insurance products.
<h2>Which Insurance Products Are More Favored?</h2>
So, what characteristics of insurance products are more favored?
We can gain some clues from the banks' interim report data. Since the disclosure standards and completeness of banks' interim reports are not uniform, these statements are merely &#34;the tip of the iceberg&#34; of the entire industry data.
First, long-term protection products.
For example, CITIC Bank directly mentioned in its interim report: In the first half of 2025, its agency insurance business scale reached 16.264 billion yuan, with long-term protection products accounting for 64% of sales, and this proportion has been increasing for six consecutive years.
The so-called &#34;long-term protection products&#34; typically include whole life insurance, pension annuities, and long-term health insurance, which not only have long coverage periods but also combine capital accumulation and wealth management functions.
Second, insurance products aimed at individuals.
Bank of Communications provided a scale change metric: By mid-2025, the balance of personal insurance products sold by Bocom was 353.53 billion yuan, an increase from 326.33 billion yuan at the end of last year.
The aforementioned &#34;balance-style&#34; disclosure indicates that the amount of customer funds being accumulated in insurance products is growing larger, and insurance is becoming a long-term allocation option alongside funds and wealth management.
Third, exclusive insurance products.
Bank of China disclosed in its interim report: &#34;Optimize the all-weather exclusive agency product system for private banking, and increase exclusive insurance products for private banking clients.&#34;
Although the above description is brief, it reflects the thoughts of channel clients.
<h2>Facing the Challenge of &#34;Unified Reporting and Banking&#34;</h2>
As bank funds flow into insurance products, there are also challenges; the implementation of the &#34;unified reporting and banking&#34; policy has been highly focused on by bank channels.
<blockquote>
In the interim report of a joint-stock bank, an intriguing contradiction in the insurance agency data was found: while agency insurance income declined, the premium amount for agency performance showed a significant increase.
Considering that agency insurance premiums = total scale of customer insurance purchases, equivalent to policy sales volume, its growth indicates that the scale of policies purchased through the aforementioned bank channels is increasing
However, agency insurance income = the commission obtained by banks selling insurance, which is equivalent to commission income. Its decline means that the &#34;commission cake&#34; allocated to relevant banks has actually shrunk.
</blockquote>
Therefore, it is highly likely that, with the demand for transparency in regulatory policies, the incentive rates left by insurance products in sales channels may be reduced once, establishing a more objective and transparent sales atmosphere under the promotion of policies.
Banks that transform early and adapt sooner may be expected to gain the trust of more clients looking for transformation investments.
Risk Warning and Disclaimer
The market has risks, and investment requires caution. This article does not constitute personal investment advice and does not take into account the specific investment goals, financial conditions, or needs of individual users. Users should consider whether any opinions, views, or conclusions in this article align with their specific circumstances. Investing based on this is at one's own risk

601577

000001

601939

CICHY

00939

With the changes in the interest rate market and investment environment, depositor funds are gradually flowing towards insurance products, becoming a new focus of bank wealth management. The mid-2025 report shows that some banks have seen significant growth in their insurance agency business revenue, such as PAB's agency personal insurance revenue, which increased by 46.1% year-on-year. China Construction Bank and Bank of Changsha also reported an increase in insurance business revenue, marking the growing importance of insurance in banking operations

- In 2025, banks are witnessing a shift as customers increasingly invest in insurance products, reflecting a significant change in wealth management strategies.  
- This trend is driven by declining savings rates, prompting investors to seek stable, higher-yielding insurance options, while banks benefit from reduced risk and stable commission income.  
- Despite challenges from regulatory policies, the growth in insurance sales indicates a growing preference for long-term insurance products among investors, positioning insurance as a key component of banks' non-interest income.

"Capital Migration" Under the Bank Counter