The insurance industry will maintain steady growth in asset size in 2024, crossing three thresholds of 33 trillion yuan, 34 trillion yuan, and 35 trillion yuan. According to data released by the State Administration of Financial Supervision and Administration, as of the end of the third quarter of 2024, the total assets of insurance companies and insurance asset management companies amounted to 35 trillion yuan, an increase of 3.5 trillion yuan or 11.2% from the beginning of 2024. At the symposium on high-quality development of the insurance industry held in November 2024, Li Yunze, Director of the State Administration of Financial Regulation, stated that the insurance industry should deeply grasp the rare historical opportunity, establish a broad insurance concept, and actively integrate into the overall economic and social development. In September 2024, the State Council issued several opinions on strengthening supervision and risk prevention to promote high-quality development of the insurance industry. Xiao Yuanqi, Deputy Director of the State Administration of Financial Regulation, stated that since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's insurance industry has developed rapidly and played an important role in safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods, disaster prevention and reduction, and serving the real economy. However, due to various internal and external factors, the foundation for high-quality development of the industry needs to be further consolidated. The issuance of Several Opinions has made a comprehensive and systematic deployment and planning for the high-quality development of China's insurance industry in the future, which is of great significance for giving full play to the functions of the insurance industry as an economic shock absorber and social stabilizer, improving the insurance guarantee ability and service level, promoting the construction of a financial power, and serving the overall situation of Chinese path to modernization. According to research institutions, insurance losses caused by natural disasters worldwide in 2024 are higher than the average level of the past 30 years. From international experience, catastrophe insurance is an important tool for compensating for losses caused by natural disasters. In February 2024, the State Administration for Financial Regulation and the Ministry of Finance jointly issued the "Notice on Expanding the Coverage of Urban and Rural Residential Catastrophe Insurance and Further Improving the Catastrophe Insurance System", proposing to expand the liability of catastrophic insurance, increase the basic insurance amount, and support the development of commercial catastrophic insurance. Subsequently, the country's first comprehensive catastrophic insurance covering all types of disasters, with wide coverage and long cycles, was implemented in Hebei, benefiting more than 74 million urban and rural residents, forming a multi-level and three-dimensional risk sharing mechanism, effectively improving the efficiency of major disaster compensation and disaster relief, as well as the ability of the whole society to resist natural disasters. It is reported that the Hebei Provincial Government invests 200 million yuan in fiscal funds every year, and residents in the province can receive 2 billion yuan in risk protection. The amplification effect of fiscal funds is significant, and fixed disaster prevention and reduction costs are paid from insurance premiums every year, achieving a transition from passive post disaster emergency to active risk prevention. In September 2024, the super typhoon "Capricorn" made landfall in Wenchang, Hainan and Xuwen, Guangdong. This is the strongest autumn typhoon to make landfall in China in decades, causing significant economic losses. The insurance industry overcame difficulties such as communication, electricity, and water supply damage, took the initiative, and for the first time, issued industry guidelines for typhoon disaster claims, achieving quick and early claims, and effectively supporting risk reduction and post disaster reconstruction. Yu Hua, president of the China Insurance Association, said that the Insurance Association will continue to strengthen communication and cooperation with government regulators, enterprises and all sectors of society, further improve the mechanism, enrich products, strengthen services, deepen technology empowerment, and do a good job of publicity in the field of catastrophe insurance, so as to promote the high-quality development of China's catastrophe insurance. In November 2024, the 10th meeting and the 10th member meeting of the Council of China's "the Belt and Road" Reinsurance Community were held in Kunming, Yunnan Province. More than 120 representatives from regulatory agencies, member companies, observer companies, and important partners attended the meeting. The Community officially released the "the Belt and Road" Green Insurance Principles, which defined the integration of green development concepts into organizational governance, as well as the identification and assessment of project environmental risks and the development of differentiated insurance schemes. The community takes the lead in committing to implementing principles and encourages more insurance entities to join, leading the industry to carry out higher standards of green practices. The Community also released the Remote Observation and Assessment System for Risks of Overseas Projects, enabling the risk reduction of the "the Belt and Road" by using international advanced satellite remote sensing technology, which provides a powerful tool for accurate identification and assessment of risks of overseas projects. Liu Yuanzhang, the assistant to the president of China Reinsurance, the chairman of the community, said that the community should strengthen its political responsibility, accurately match the security needs of "going global" enterprises, promote green development and technological innovation, make a good link between the insurance industry and various ministries, international insurance industry, and create a brand image of China's "the Belt and Road" reinsurance community on the international stage. Vigorously serving technological innovation, technology insurance is an important component of technology finance and an important guarantee for serving technological innovation. Yin Jiang'ao, Director of the Property and Insurance Supervision Department of the State Administration of Financial Regulation, stated that from January to August 2024, technology insurance premiums amounted to 38.8 billion yuan, providing risk protection for technology activities such as research and development, achievement transformation, and promotion and application of over 7 trillion yuan. For example, the first batch of insurance compensation mechanism for major technical equipment and key new material applications provides nearly 1 trillion yuan in risk protection. In December 2024, PICC Property&Casualty Guangdong Branch launched the "Technology Research and Development Application Comprehensive Insurance" at the 26th China International High tech Achievement Trading Fair. This is the first comprehensive insurance product in China that guarantees the entire chain and process of technology research and development, achievement transfer and transformation activities. After a new technology makes a breakthrough in the laboratory environment, there is still a long way to go before it can truly enter the market, and it also faces many risks. The insurance coverage of this type of insurance covers the entire cycle of technology research and development, achievement transformation and application from the laboratory to the production line. For the first time, "technology readiness" has been introduced as a standard for evaluating scientific and technological activities in insurance products, and the labor costs of external R&D personnel and maintenance costs of equipment and instruments have also been included in the claims scope of R&D expenses. In addition, this insurance has a wide coverage range, achieving extensive coverage of diversified technology innovation entities such as technology enterprises, research institutes, pilot platforms, and investors. The relevant person in charge of the Actuarial Department of PICC Property and Casualty Insurance introduced that the general risks of natural disasters and accidents, as well as the special risks of sudden public health emergencies, corporate bankruptcies, and policy adjustments, are all within the scope of protection, and strive to meet the risk protection needs of research and development activities and the transformation of scientific and technological achievements as much as possible. The reporter learned in the interview that in 2024, PICC will upgrade and optimize the exclusive product system, and science and technology insurance will provide risk protection of 33.4 trillion yuan in the first three quarters alone, with an increase of 47.3% in the scale of exclusive product risk protection for science and technology activities. PICC successively released "PICC Meteorological Index Insurance Pricing Model", "PICC China Earthquake Catastrophe Model" and "Cyber Security Insurance Risk Pricing Model" at major events such as the China International Service Trade Fair, PICC Catastrophe Insurance Forum and Financial Street Forum. Yin Jiangao stated that the State Administration for Financial Regulation will focus on establishing a technology insurance policy system, improving the insurance product and service system covering the entire life cycle of technology enterprises, and following the overall idea of "government guidance and market leadership", starting from the following three aspects. One is to enrich the products. Innovate technology insurance products around the full cycle of technology enterprises and the full process of technological innovation to meet their needs. The second is to improve policies. The State Administration for Financial Regulation, together with relevant departments, will increase policy support for technology insurance, establish and improve a multi-level, wide coverage, and classified support policy system. The third is to promote pilot projects. Technology insurance has strong professionalism and unique risk characteristics, which are different from ordinary insurance. The State Administration for Financial Regulation will establish a multi-party data resource sharing platform, build a composite talent team, and cultivate supporting service institutions to promote the "doing well" of technology insurance. Leveraging the advantages of long-term funds, insurance funds are a typical medium - to long-term fund. In recent years, the State Administration for Financial Regulation has continued to deepen the market-oriented reform of insurance fund utilization, enhance market vitality, support insurance funds to leverage their advantages such as long term, large scale, and stable sources, and provide diversified financing services for the real economy. The investment methods of insurance funds are relatively diverse, including bonds, stocks, securities investment funds, insurance asset management products, trust plans, unlisted enterprise equity, public infrastructure securities investment funds, etc. According to data from the State Administration of Financial Regulation, as of now, the registered scale of insurance asset management products and insurance private equity funds supporting the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt exceeds 1.7 trillion yuan, the scale supporting the coordinated development of Beijing Tianjin Hebei is nearly 750 billion yuan, and the registered scale of products supporting the construction of the Guangdong Hong Kong Macao Greater Bay Area exceeds 430 billion yuan. In addition, insurance funds have invested over 600 billion yuan in technology companies through listed company stocks, direct equity investments, venture capital funds, private equity funds, and other means. Recently, the asset company of China Life Group successfully launched the "China Life - Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Equity Investment Plan", with a scale of 5 billion yuan, to invest in the Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Fund in the form of S shares. The Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Fund was established in October 2018 and is the first government investment fund in China to focus on hard technology investment. It is also an important lever for Beijing to promote the construction of an international science and technology innovation center. The fund adopts a government guided and market-oriented operation mode, and has played a significant driving role in promoting early, small, and long-term investment of social capital for more than 6 years. Through deep cooperation with leading enterprises, universities, and research institutes, it has supported a group of funds focused on hard technology investment and incubated and landed a number of high-quality technology enterprises. The Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China pointed out the need to improve the system and mechanism for developing new quality productive forces according to local conditions, encourage and regulate the development of angel investment, venture capital, private equity investment, and patient capital. "China Life - Beijing Science and Technology Innovation Equity Investment Plan" is a further step of China Life to participate in the venture capital master fund with unique regional endowment advantages through S share investment, which is based on the previous S investment strategy. Through the innovative measures of "quasi index investment" in the field of "four investment", it "bridges the way" between insurance funds and venture capital, explores a feasible path for insurance funds to further support the development of new quality productivity, adds a strong boost to the construction of Beijing International Science and Technology Innovation Center, and provides incremental patient capital for the development of venture capital in China. The reporter learned in the interview that in recent years, the State Administration for Financial Regulation has successively issued a series of regulatory policies, allowing insurance funds to invest in public infrastructure securities investment funds, canceling the industry scope of financial equity investment, lifting the limit on the fundraising scale of single venture capital funds, supporting insurance companies to play the role of value investors and institutional investors, and helping to increase the proportion of direct financing. As of now, insurance funds have invested 2.8 trillion yuan in long-term equity and over 3.3 trillion yuan in stocks and equity funds. Industry insiders suggest that the insurance industry should fully leverage the long-term investment advantages of insurance funds, continue to support major national strategies, increase investment in key areas such as strategic emerging industries, advanced manufacturing, and new infrastructure, and better serve the development of new quality productivity. (New Society)