Ping An Insurance first nine months profit falls 27.3 per cent on investment losses
Ping An Insurance reported a 27.3 per cent drop in net profit for the first nine months of 2026, driven by a 68.6 per cent plunge in investment income amid a volatile stock market. Operating profit rose 8.3 per cent, but new business value in life and health insurance fell 13.3 per cent.
China's Ping An Insurance (2318) reported a 27.3 per cent year-on-year fall in net profit in the first nine months of 2026, as investment income fell amid a volatile stock market, the company said in a stock exchange filing on Wednesday.
The insurer posted 96.65 billion yuan (HK$113.71 billion) in net profit for the nine months ended 30 September, according to the filing. Operating profit, which strips out short-term investment volatility and one-time items, rose 8.3 per cent year-on-year.
A weak stock market in China has weighed on Chinese insurers' investment returns as they have increased their equity holdings in response to Beijing's call to support the market. Ping An's investment income dropped 68.6 per cent year-on-year to 49.49 billion yuan in the first nine months of this year.
The new business value in its life and health insurance segment, which measures the profitability of new policies sold, fell 13.3 per cent year-on-year to 30.99 billion yuan. Policy sales at Chinese insurers slowed in the third quarter as regulators tightened scrutiny of the bancassurance channel and as insurers faced competition from bank deposits, Goldman Sachs said in a research note.
The number of retail customers rose 1.9 per cent from the end of last year to 255.8 million at end-September, the filing showed. Banking unit Ping An Bank last week reported its third-quarter net profit rose 0.2 per cent year-on-year.
China in September announced a capital injection of up to 70 billion yuan into five state-owned insurers, in an effort to ease pressure on insurers' core solvency ratios from falling long-term government bond yields.