Social Security Fund and representatives of independent directors as well as the industrial analysts and the media representatives. The executives attending the briefing in Hong Kong include Ms. Ding Xiangqun, Chair of the PICC Group and PICC P&C. Mr. Yu Ze, Vice President of PICC Group and President of PICC P&C. The executives attending the briefing in Beijing include Mr. Zhao Peng, Vice Chairman and President of PICC Group. Mr. Xiao Jianyou, Executive Director and Vice President of PICC Group and President of PICC Life. Mr. Cai Jiwei, VP of PICC Group. Mr. Zhang Jinhai, VP of PICC. Mr. Shao Liduo, President of the PICC Health. There are three items on the agenda. First, Chair Ding will make opening remarks. Then President Zhao will introduce the operating performance. Finally, there will be a management Q&A. First, I would like to invite Chair Ding for opening remarks.
Ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. Welcome. Dear investors, analysts and friends. For the first time, today's annual results announcement. It is our pleasure and honor to have the face-to-face opportunity with the investor community. For a very long time we have received the long-term support and assistance from investors, analysts and the media. Therefore, with this opportunity, I would also like to express my heartfelt thanks to you all. Today I would like to present three points. First, a brief overview of the past year. Second, our future strategic direction that you may be particularly interested in and lastly our key initiatives for the year 2025. Let me start with 2024. Last year, or you could say it was a quite extraordinary year and for PICC Group it was also a year of perseverance.
We faced multiple challenges including the transformation of the old and new driving forces, the downward trend of interest rates and the fluctuations in the capital market. Nevertheless, PICC Group actively leveraged the functions of insurance and achieved high quality growth. Yesterday we published our results. The results show that we achieved a steady progress with the total operating revenue of CNY 79.4 billion, year-on-year increase of 6.4% and net profits reached CNY 42.9 billion, a YoY increase of 88.2% and our ROE was 16.7%, increase of a 7.1 percentage point compared to the previous year. These are the major statistics. We also showed effective insurance performance. We maintained the industry's highest figures and we ranked the top in the industry. The underwriting liabilities, number of claims and payout expenses. Last year we handled nearly 500,000 claims daily, totaling payouts of CNY 1.23 billion.
That really demonstrated the functions of insurance. The innovation driver is also yielding results. Let's take P&C as an example. We actively explore the new models for risk reduction in property insurance and steadily promote the DIP health ecosystem. We've also introduced pioneering products such as comprehensive long-term catastrophe insurance that cover all types of disasters and catastrophes. So these show our efforts on innovation. We also demonstrated strong and effective risk and prevention. Our major insurance subsidiaries improved comprehensive risk ratings and good performance in key monitoring indicators. For more details, our President Zhao Peng will present shortly. That is the first point review of our performance in 2024. Second. And the new journey what is the future strategic direction of PICC? I believe many of you are interested at this point.
We already had thorough discussions at a group level and debate on the national circumstances as well as the development strategies that the Group. We launched this systematic planning at the Group's new work meeting at the beginning of year determined to implement the excellence or world class first class strategy as the Insurance Financial Group. In broad terms, it refers to solid implementation of the Five Key Articles by adhering to the mission of people's insurance, serving the people with a focus on the functions of insurance risk protection and capital circulation, striving to be the leader in safeguarding people's wellbeing, the pioneer in social governance and the pillar supporting the real economy with our commitment to the path of financial development of Chinese characteristics, building a world class insurance financial group that is the goal that we set for ourselves and for the excellence or the first class.
We also provide explanations clearly, and it means excellent functions, efficient operations, distinct businesses, modern governance, and international competitiveness, thereby achieving the real five actions on these different fronts. And the first is outstanding functions, which is closely related to the Chinese characteristics. We highlight functionality, supply-side structural reform, and continue to lead in serving economic security, social protection, disaster prevention while consolidating and elevating our market increments to match China's vast market with first-class protection functionality. So this is the first dimension of the action strategy, also known as the first-class strategy. Second, efficient operation. We center on value and benefit as the two centers and pursue high quality, better profitability, superior structure, and stronger technology to lead in value creation and achieve the first operational performance. And third, distinct core businesses.
Because we are a comprehensive financial group, we need to concentrate our core business which is property and casualty, PICC Life insurance and investments in the three core segments. We will consolidate the core advantages of P&C insurance, enhance competitiveness in life insurance and promote investments to play a vital role in business development and profit growth by contributing to the comprehensive strength of the PICC Group. This focuses on first-class comprehensive services and for modern governance. We adhere to the two unifications, advance the modernization of the governance system and governance capabilities. We optimize the groups and business portfolios. The resource allocation ensures long-term stability with first-class governance capabilities. This international competitiveness.
We maintain an open mindset, steadily expand overseas markets and participate in global market competition and for the Belt and Road Initiative we would like to shape first class international presence so as a comprehensive financial group. This is how the five first class strategy should be interpreted. 2025 marks the first year of the implementation of the five excellence or first class strategy. We will focus on deepening six reforms while solidly executing four priorities. Drawing momentum from reforms, vitality from innovation and efficiency from management. Striving to convert our motivation into tangible achievements for the deepening of six reforms. As I said, we will draw momentum from reforms and that is about the governance and the structure, the organizational structure and utilization as well as the personnel system. That is based on analysis of.
The reality of the PICC Group.
For governance reform. It focuses on the governance body's responsibilities and we will use the minimum cost to achieve the maximum effectiveness on the reform of the governance and for the strategic management. At a group level, we will improve the functioning structure of the group. We will strengthen and refine line management and group capabilities, allocate resources at the group level and effectively respond to market competition. So that is on the strategic management group. Next is grassroots development mechanisms. We need on that front to balance regulation and flexibility so that we can truly continue to serve the building of the service ecosystem. And for grassroots, we need to further expand the space for development and elevate our market competitiveness. And the fourth is the customer resource sharing mechanism, we maximize customer value with platform services, strengthen one-stop customer service for PICC products and services.
We will deepen on the one-stop service so the good products and services that can be provisioned in a more convenient manner, so that's reform on customer experience with sharing.
Next is the digital reform .
I believe you know that direction very well already. What we need to do is to improve top-level design and enhance digital applications facing the grassroots level. That's quite important. We need to enhance grassroots level resource sharing so customers can benefit from our digital services and people on the front line and across levels also have access to better digital services. For the last personnel reforms, we will systematically review and adjust the position's ranking performance such as compensation, talent systems and mechanisms within the group so that we can cultivate a favorable environment for dedication and entrepreneurship.
For the four priorities, we will continue to draw momentum from innovation, seek results from management. We serve our mission and deepen financial supply-side structural reforms. Leveraging insurance capabilities to help people sense of gain, happiness, and security while exploring new venues for growth, and the second is high-quality development. For that concept, there are several main aspects. First is the provision of product quality, second service and claims, structural optimization, and lastly profit generation so that we can create new momentum and advantages for future development, and the third priority is robust risk control and prevention with a balance between growth and safety.
We lead the industry in compliance and work on stronger risk provision and control in key areas with also a strong risk compliance culture. Securing the risk bottom line and that is the third priority and the last priority in this strategy is on the team building the workforce. We will coordinate the three talent pools of management professionals and sales for first class team. Last but not least, I would like to once again thank you all for your continued support to PICC Group. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Chair Ding. Next, allow me to invite President to present business topics. Dear guests, investors, analysts, media friends. Good afternoon. Recently the various companies are announcing their results. I know you have a busy time. Thank you very much for attending our business. Briefly, just now our chairperson gave you an overview. I wanted to give you more details on our operation in 2024. We earned revenue of RMB 537.7 billion, up 6.7%, and net profit hit RMB 42.9 billion, up 88.2%. Net assets amounted to RMB 367.2 billion, up 10.7%. ROE stood at 16.7%, up 7.1%. Our total assets reached RMB 1.7729 trillion, up 13.4%. The board recommended a whole year distribution of the dividend of RMB 0.18, payout ratio of 54.24%.
2024 we achieved a good result in high quality functioning. The role of insurance as a lever. We served 302 million individual customers and 7.72 million institutional clients, covered 31.75 trillion of risks and paid 484.5 billion RMB in claims, or 1.23 billion RMB a day, and settled 180 million claims, all tops of the industry. We also handled 255 catastrophes and major accidents, winning the recognition of our regulators and the local authorities. Second, winning the efforts in major areas of finance. Tech insurance provided this protection of 31 trillion RMB, covering 120,000 high-tech companies, over 2,000 specialized innovative companies, and they invested 32 billion RMB in technology companies.
Green finance provided protection of RMB 184 trillion and rose 11.59 billion NEVs and a total green investment of 100 billion including 100,442 oriented health insurance projects and provided the 52 million rural households with RMB 2.1 trillion of protection and such as 18 million new urban dwellers. Our pension finance managed annually as much as RMB 645 billion and launched industry first an online medical insurance product for middle-aged and elderly individuals. We also launched in digital finance a computer-empowered industry chain and released cybersecurity insurance risk and our insurance for Cybersecurity rose by 31%. We also moved ahead in terms of innovation. We conducted over 16 million risk reduction services, achieved a loss reduction of RMB 1.6 billion and we also launched eight categories of 34 health managing services with a revenue of 63%.
And in terms of innovation, we earned a synergistic premium of RMB 24.8 billion, up 7.5%. In product innovation, we provided 34 trillion of insurance coverage and premium in terms of RMB 14 billion. In terms of tech innovation, we built a knowledge project and increased our tech investment by 34%. We also upgraded our mobile services, generating premium of RMB 145 billion, and served nearly 110 million customers. We also developed a fraud detection model and reduced the loss at RMB 1.7 billion. Fourth, we also optimized the structure. The group made a total revenue of RMB 622 billion, up 12.5%. Insurance revenue RMB 537 billion, up 6.7%. Household vehicle premium contribution reached 74.3%, up 1%. Individual premium grew by 18%, 13.7% above the overall premium. Growth rate for our regular premium contribution appears at 67.9%, up 4.3%.
MI grew by 10% year-on-year and non-MI premium grew by 51% and expanded their share by 3.2%. PICC held first. Auto premium grew by 50% in terms of share by 3.9%. Investment yield reached RMB 82.2 billion up 86%. Total investment yield was 5.6% up 2.3%. We also comprehensively reduced costs and improved efficiency. The expense rate fell by 13.1% and the PICC P&C expense ratio dropped by 1.4%. Also we reduced our health insurance expense by RMB 1.4 billion and also saved RMB 900 million by centralized procurement. We hit a total profit of RMB 70 billion nearly 1.1 times year-on-year and we also distributed RMB 0.50 per share up 15.4%. Our solvency ratio has been on the rise in the capital trends.
Also on the right, the core solvency ratio reached 225% up 31% and the comprehensive solvency ratio reaches 281% up 30%. Our subsidiaries remain reasonably solvent. The group combined net assets valued at RMB 367.2 billion up 10.7%. PICC Life and Health all achieving double-digit growth in net assets. We enhanced ESG management and sustainability has been also improved. The group regarded sustainability as the current requirements. Our governance mechanism continue to improve their top level design on green financing asset innovative green financial project increased green management implemented the parent systems and engage itself in public welfare, charity and strengthen the green and the low carbon operations. The company's sustainability also won recognition of external agencies. MSCI recently upgraded the ESG and the PICC ESG rating to AA level, the highest among domestic insurance companies.
Next, sector breakdown for P&C in 2024. P&C continues to improve its structure with catastrophe net loss above the five-year average by 51%. Sound performance was delivered. Insurance revenue reached RMB 485.2 billion, up 6.1%. Net profit [reached] RMB 33.2 billion, up 31%. Net assets [reached] RMB 250 billion, up 11.7%. Combined ratio down to 95.5%, outperforming the industry. ROE 13.5%, up 2.4%. In addition to interim distribution [of] RMB 0.332 per share, final dividend will be paid in 2024 for the full-year distribution coming to RMB 0.54, up 10.4%. For auto insurance, the structure optimized. Motor premium reached 74%, up 1%. The third-party liability insurance for motor vehicles was on average capped at RMB 2.8 million, up 4.6%, and our profitability also runs up. Combined ratio was 94%, down by 2.3%. Underwriting profit came to RMB 1.3 billion, up 7%. We also improved the customer operation. We underwrote 110 million vehicles, up 5.3%.
Individual non-auto insurance penetration reached 76% of 5.7%. Auto insurance as well as non-auto insurance by CNY 22.5 billion RMB up to 22.2%. We also grew our NEV business premium went up by 58.7%. Also the NEV ratio was below 100% and achieved profitable operation for non-auto insurance first we earned a premium of individual business of CNY 48.5 billion on the combined ratio stayed below 95%. We also improved the corporate business. The combined ratio was down by 3% and 31.4% in risk reduction. Service coverage ratio rose to 6.76% premiums for products related to technology reached 75.9% and became a new growth engine.
We are enhancing ability-based service capacity, the coverage ratio of insurance and personal accident insurance spent CNY 320 million, up 21%, for our non-auto insurance. Premiums receivable down by 5.1%, receivable rate at 2.2%. We bolstered financial strength, the net loss and LAE reserve grew by 58%, and also we have operating cash flow up by 77%, and the gross loss ratio at 211%, combined operating ratio at 233%, both reasonably sufficient.
Next, PICC Life, we then reached a revenue of RMB 22.4 billion with 23% net profit of RMB 17.1 billion, significant growth. Net assets RMB 39.6 billion, 10.1% higher. Beginning contractual service margin RMB 92.6 billion, 22.4% compared to the beginning of this year. Regular premiums RMB 84.23 billion, up only 13.5%, and the 13-month persistency ratio 96.3%, 4.1 percentage points higher, and NBV had increased significantly in terms of comparable standards.
NBV rates grew by 7.6 basis points year on year and with NBV growing 1.1 times, the effect of EV increased to 31.7% compared to the year beginning and intrinsic value 47.7% and channel transformation is effective. Individual channel regular premium 10 years and more is 58.7%. 5- to 7-year bank insurance grew 39.9% for 5 years and more and 7.9% group insurance grew by 10.6% for short term premiums. E commerce growth year premium by 63.6% and quality of individual agents also continue to improve and we see monthly average number of affluent agents grew 8.22% on average for months impacted agents 9.3%. NFYC 5.6%. NIWP team group 8.4%. For PICC Health realized RMB 27.2 billion revenue 6.2% higher and net profit RMB 5.7 billion up 2.1 times and ROE 43.2% up 25.1%. Net assets of RMB 14.8 billion 26.2% higher insurance service margin 20.2% 18.9% higher and 13 month persistency 93.9% with 5.1% higher and comparable standards.
NBV grew 1.24% and the effective EV increased to 35.2% compared to the beginning and intrinsic value 42.2% short term 4.8 percentage points and we now have already served six million customers across 31 provinces and 333 cities with the online health insurance which reached CNY 17.8 billion up 7.5% maintaining market leadership in the personal insurance market and we also continue to progress with the health ecosystem added nearly 9,800,600 partner institutions with 4,700 hospitals implementing one-stop claim services and for investment as an assessment wise the Group insurance funds exceeded CNY 1.6 trillion growing 14.6% covering real economy CNY 1.22 trillion YoY 26.6% higher to the equity investment of CNY 82.8 billion up 86.2% with total return of 5.6% up 2.3 fixed income ROE 4.3% up 0.3% OCI stock investment return is 36.3% now forming the CSI 300 dividend index by 10.7 percentage points with sustained optimization asset allocation for fixed income investment rebalance
stable returns with extended duration, actively seizing long term treasury and government deployment opportunities with the proportion of 9.9% in equity investment continuously optimizing position structure ongoing, increased investment in stable profit models and higher dividend OCI stocks growing 26.4% active management shows continuous enhancement over the past few years of return in stock asset operations of performance outperformed CSI 300 index by 27.9% and wealth management abilities are continuously improving.
67% of portfolio based asset management products in the top 50% of the market and 20% rank top 10% and we develop innovative businesses in ABS, CMBS and REITs. In 2025, PICC Group will formally implement central policies following the mission of people's insurance service people and we will solely implement the five major areas of finance optimize the supply of insurance services, reform to address healthcare development challenges, advanced and innovation and models, products, mechanisms and technologies will enhance proactively and a comprehensiveness in risk control improve compliance and management at the grassroots level and we have every confidence that we will achieve that all the goals for the 14th Five-Year Plan and lay a solid foundation for 15th Five-Year Plan and that concludes my introduction. Thank you.
Thank you, President Zhao. Now let's kick off our Q&A session. The Hong Kong and the Beijing venues will take time to ask questions, and those raised in Beijing will be moderated by Mr. Zeng, Secretary of the Board of PICC. Please let us know your name and institution. Please answer no more than two questions. First, let me remind our question from Hong Kong. Please raise your hand. Okay, the lady in the middle. First, I would like to congratulate the management on good performance from UBS. I've got two questions. First, in terms of advancing the high-quality development of PICC, may I invite the Chair to discuss the upcoming priorities, the concrete work you pay attention to. Second, you mentioned you would like to develop a world-class insurance group.
In terms of ROE, do you have some medium- to long-term targets for your assessment of subsidiaries? And do you have corresponding changes for adjustments? Thank you.
Okay, thank you. On high quality development, I'm happy to address your question. I would like to invite the President to address your second one regarding high quality development. Your question itself is a high quality question. Because high quality development is the first and foremost priority for developing a socialist modernized country. In respect of requirements for PICC to grow into a world class insurance group along the new journey, at the new stage of development, PICC will comprehensively implement new concept of development and move forward the group's high quality development. As I mentioned briefly in my opening remarks, around the targets of high quality development we do four things specifically in order to achieve our milestones.
Among the four, the first is to provide the high quality product supply. Second, upgrade our services to upgrade to high quality. Three, high quality restructuring of our portfolio and fourth, the high quality generation of our firm's our operating results in terms of moving for high quality product supply. The high quality development requires a better livelihood and that will need to be realized by the supply of high quality products. We will center around the major strategies, key areas and vulnerabilities of socioeconomic development and then advance our innovation. For example, we captured the socioeconomic trend such as the risk of pricing for new energy vehicles which has received a lot of attention.
For high-quality development and corresponding policy supply, we need to improve the risk pricing capability of our NEV and also the auto insurance for intelligent driving as well as the liability insurance and home insurance. With all these high-quality developments, we can make the socioeconomic development more secure and resilient, and so another example, we base ourselves on the pain points and difficulties in terms of health and elderly care and develop accordingly the elderly care product development system that covers the whole population across their life cycles, package the products and services for insurance and health management. We address the market needs for the elderly care insurance. We also go along with the requirement of insurance diversification and lead our development by the diversification of product, insurance, customer services.
We will also develop so-called product factory to offer customers with insurance and financial services. In terms of moving forward the high quality supply products, these are the areas where we'll make explorations. Second, in terms of the high quality upgrading of services, one-month services is a key lever of customer experiences providing first-year comprehensive services. We need to first focus on customer experience of our services. From that perspective, we need to start with the origin of insurance and do the job in handling claims and better improve our services. Develop the standardized, consistent and transparent claim service procedures. Intensify the adoption of digital technologies. By technological empowerment, we can make our claim services faster, better and more heartwarming. With a high quality claim system, we are going to realize our core mission of insurance.
Additionally, we are going to further improve our business model so as to marry insurance and services. So in terms of upgraded services, health management, rehabilitation and healthcare services, we have our upcoming considerations and arrangements. The next one is about the third priority, namely the high-quality restructuring. High-quality development process is also a process where the industries undergo transformation and upgrading. With the emerging industries will prosper. There will be inevitably the structural changes to be modernized industrial systems. Insurance services need to go along with industrial assurance for more productivity. To improve our business structure, we would like to be salient in our core business and balance in our structure. And that is the common hallmark of world's top insurance companies. We would like to adapt ourselves to the socioeconomic transformation and serve the needs of our customers.
They will vigorously develop not only auto insurance but also commercial non-auto insurance in the P&C business. That is one example of the structural shift. Moreover, we are going to roll out our risk reduction services so we do not only do ex-post claim handling but also the ex ante risk alert so as to reduce the losses and therefore compensation. We will then improve our operating efficiency in this way. This reduction is a lever of structural improvements. For life insurance, we are going to develop more 10-year business and also expand the scope and improve the quality of our protection business. For commercial health insurance, we are making active exploration in terms of the commercial health insurance well connected with the basic insurance.
We are going to follow the guidance of the government authorities, the ministries and commissions of the government, and go along the policy of connecting basic medical insurance and commercial ones and make our impact in terms of investment. We will also play up the role of insurance as a pension investor and also make transition towards the alternative investment and the business, and so the structural high quality changes as well is followed by the generation of high quality results. That is also my expectation of our sustainability. Our results are economic, social and also relevant in terms of risk and compliance because they are essential dimensions also of the high quality development.
We need to stick to the correct concepts of operation performance and risk enhancing improvement management of underwriting and also do better job in terms of affiliability management and consistently improve our capability pursue better management in terms of the social contribution behind all the targets there is profound connotation. Our services are not slogans, bars reflective enabling services. So we need to use that insurance to guard the people's livelihood will need to be a leader in terms of such a guardianship and also service of the real economy and the provision of first tier protection. So these are the targets of our high quality development as a leader of the insurance sector. Solid protection of risks and compliance operation are also the areas that we need to exemplify as the inevitable and essential requirements.
We need to be more resilient against the risk so that we can go farther ahead steadily. Thank you. I'd like to take up the second question. In the company we propose a target to be a world class insurance and financial group that includes the creation of first class operating results. So the long term ROE will need to outperform the industry average among listed companies so as to create more value to shareholders. While assessing the performance of the subsidiaries, we focus on six priorities. The first is the focus on serving the national strategies and world economy and the people-centered and social development with a good job in terms of writing the Five Major Finance Articles. We are also rolling out a plan to attract long term capital.
Second, stable business growth. With that, we place more focus on the quality of growth. We continuously optimize the business structure, and we actively improve the sustainability of the whole company, and the third is the continuous improvement of the effectiveness. As the chairperson mentioned, we only adhere to quality first and prioritization of effectiveness. We continue to address both the cost reduction and efficiency gain on both the asset and liability side so that we can improve the underwriting profitability as well as ROI, ROE, and the fourth is concentration on coordination because we have the group advantage so we can strategize and coordinate the six aspects covering the strategy, business, customer, channel in products and services so that we can truly accelerate the growth.
As the agreement is a focus on the reform, depending on efforts, we'll continue to promote the innovation of the product and service and management system in particular focus on insurance serving the customers with new business models and technologies. We're also researching and then the mid and long term performance indicators that we will look at the net profits, ROE and ROI especially for three to five years duration of six income risk prevention control will continue to promote the comprehensive risk management and upgrade our action plan with enhanced focus on key areas and our priority is the asset liability management and proactively address these issues starting from 2024. Thank you very much, Chairperson Ding and Mr. Zhao, and now we'll give the floor to the leading of the second row in Beijing. All right, thank you for the introduction.
My name is Sun Ting. I'm with Guotai Junan Securities. So congratulations. Seems like the results are very satisfactory, and data beat, and also showed the growth. I have two questions, and the first one is for property insurance because we know the combined ratio actually increased last year slightly. My question is for 2025: are there any guidance for the major indicators? For example, the auto and non-auto on the premium growth and also combined ratios, expectations and dimensions. The second question is about the overall group performance. We noticed for the recently concluded sessions and the government work report also mentioned insurance multiple times. I would like to know one about the development directions, which seem to show uncertainties in the long term for the entire industry in the future.
So how do you see the new development of ESG for the group in the future? So what is your thinking on the future development? Okay, thank you for your question. First on 2024 performance, well, in the past five years that was now the year that we had the biggest losses from catastrophes which happened non-stop from the beginning to the end of the year and started with freezing and a snowstorm we did not expect happen after October but the last one was in Hainan quite substantial losses. So net losses as Jefferson said actually is 51% higher than average over the past five years. And the specific amount was last year was CNY 15.57 billion. On the end it's CNY 5.2 billion higher than average compared in 2023 it's 11.8. So that's CNY 2.7 billion higher than 2023 and so that's 1.4% higher than 23.
Just according to the Hong Kong new standards that would be 98.8% and also net profit on the 57.13.
For the new standards in Hong Kong and our old standards when it comes to agricultural insurance and what in China we had lots of reserves on and so for the catastrophe in last year and the year before we could use those reserves for the Hong Kong accounting standards that is not accounted for the actual losses if we use the IFRS more accurate is the 98.5% because that looks at the current year present year revenues but for the old standards the combined ratio for the domestic standards that will be 97.9% and for Hong Kong will be 98.1% and so it actually dropped 0.1 percentage points both which means that for PICC P&C their resilience against catastrophes continues to improve as we said in previous announcements after Doksuri we have the capacity to combat two and after last year we have the capability to actually combat three Doksuri level typhoons meaning a loss of above RMB 3 billion for each typhoon disaster and in the end without affecting our combined ratio of
a round 98% or 97% depending on the standards in Hong Kong or domestic market and with the leadership of the group the PICC Property and Casualty has launched a series of reforms on system standard mechanisms which achieved great success in terms of the professional capability of the teams of the workforce and also the management control capabilities of the underwriting thus solid foundation for 2025 our resilience improved and I would like to note 98.5% or 98.8% combined ratio as new standards which does not include the non-fulfillment expenses and for that our standards are relatively prudent and conservative look at our peer companies and with the current situation we are the combined ratio of ours is higher than the peers by 0.5 percentage points that is the non-fulfillment expenses and that is only about 0.1 but the and so with a new standard it's inflated by about 0.5 so in 2025 we'll continue to strengthen our core business.
Our plan is to now the overall business development should be aligned with the GDP growth of China continue to improve the underwriting capacity and with the normal levels and without significant policy changes we expect that the auto insurance development at the same speed as the market and for a combined ratio our target last year is less than.
I would like to note that for January and February of 2025 the rate is actually only around 93 for auto insurance combined ratio, so it enters 96 cents. Overall across all insurance types is about under 94, and for new energy vehicles it's within 100 as we said for non-vehicles and within 100, and we want also the commercial vehicles to be below 100. For non auto insurance our anticipation is under 100, and we decided to give us an internal target of under 99 or around that, and we had internal discussion of whether it could be lower than 99, but we want to go more around 91. We can have a simple estimate that if it's 90 and 99.96 or 96 or 100 for these two indicators, and then our underwriting profit would double.
To that end, our company will continue to invest resources into the review of the performance along the entire chain. Not just the goals and targets, but each and every company is asked to have their own implementation of strategies with resource allocations and also with the performance review, we ensure the targets and goals are met. Here I would like to report to you that with the consolidation of the entire auto insurance right now finally start to be profitable. For the first two months we actually see that the claims and expense ratios can further reduce. Our target now is lowered from 97% to 96%. For personal non-auto we believe there is further room for development.
As the government's support and promotion of the culture-oriented tourism industries, we will also have a large room for development for service-oriented property insurance. We will also continue to strengthen the pricing models, and also the systems are independent to ensure our underwriting. And for a while we only improved the coverage and penetration for the corporate clients with the registered capital above RMB 200 million, but we have insufficient coverage for those with registered capital below that figure. So that is also a room for improvement for the non-auto insurance profitability, and then the objective reason with the catastrophe for last year. But there's also subjective reason for the expense ratio to continue to decrease. And so we will strengthen the risk prevention, control and governance improvement.
And also, we further standardized and regulated the pricing system to avoid the unnecessary fees from the intermediaries. And for the agriculture insurance, what we also talked about last year is the more efforts on precision, so the precision in underwriting and claims. Well, because the non-standard degree is too high, we need to further implement precision of the management control of the agri insurance. And so we also need to expand the long-term care insurance and also the occupational injury insurance. And so that's for 2024 and 2025.
Okay, thank you very much. And we just mentioned the government work report which mentioned insurance a couple of times. And that brings opportunities and new thinking to the insurance industry. PICC and I would like to share with you our preliminary sample for the government report of 2025. Insurance was mentioned seven times and finance 22 times.
In terms of the numbers mentioning two times more than 2024 content-wise.
The government report mentioned that we need to expand the export credit insurance underwriting scale and coverage and that is about the foreign trade and foreign capital for example on deposit insurance fund and also more channels to participate in social insurance and that is an inevitable requirement as China deepens the new type of urbanization strategy and also we need to further enhance the adjustment system of the basic health insurance and the endowment benefit system and also strengthen the establishment of long term care system and also the elderly care insurance and that is the implementation of social protection and services for related policies and subsidies of insurance which covers lots of fields and as you can see that demonstrates that insurance itself can absorb the shock to the state economy and stabilize society.
That is why, in the process of China's modernization, the insurance industry plays a unique and irreplaceable support and guarantee function that is vital for the industry and for PICC. This is a historical opportunity for growth.
More specifically, we can understand the matter in the following. First, the Chinese modernization requires a material basis and that will breed opportunities. We are well off both materially, spiritually, that is essential requirement of socialist modernization. By 2035, China's most strengths in technology, economy and the comprehensive strength will of course lead forward and per capita GDP will embark on a new height to reach the level of a moderately developed country. According to the global insurance development and economic growth which form a S curve by experience, when per capita GDP reaches $10,000-$30,000, the demand for insurance will accelerate. In 2020 for the density of insurance is RMB 4,045 and the depth of insurance is 4.2% compared with the global average. There remain an ample space of development. This is a material basis that will create huge potential for insurance.
The second perspective is the opportunities arising from common prosperity which is also essential requirement of the Chinese modernization. In China, middle income group has exceeded 400 million people by 2035, the common prosperity of the entire population will undergo substantial progress. In the next 15 years, it is projected that the middle income group will exceed 800 million people. With larger and larger the middle income group, the demand for insurance will be rapidly unlocked. Diseases need to be treated, the elderly need to be cared and the weak be protected. I believe all these requirements will translate into huge insurance demand. For example, for the year 2023, the expenditure of commercial health insurance represents only 6.7% of the total medical bill of the country and that shows tremendous expense for health insurance.
Next up on elderly care in 2023, the reserve was only 15.1% of GDP, and the commercial insurance was only RMB 6 trillion-RMB 7 trillion. So there's a huge task in this space both for pillar three of pension. So I think this is also a wonderful opportunity for the vulnerable. 400 million farmers and 300 million new urban dwellers all need inclusive insurance services which will embrace an important space for development after coming prosperity. Let's be mindful of the modernization of national governance which will also bring us a lot of space for development. The modernized governance is both the target and the driver of modernization. Insurance helps to stabilize society and ensure effective social governance. Stabilizing and enhancing social governance, especially the response to public emergencies, will be crucial. Earlier on in our practice, we have already had excellent cases of practice.
We also benefited from the active exploration by both regulators and PICC. More and more ministries and local governments have already included insurance into the toolkit for social governance. In terms of serving the innovation of social governance, I believe there's a broad prospect for insurance to play its role. Let's take liability insurance as an example. In the P&C industry, liability insurance accounts for less than 10% in premium but in developed countries such as Europe, Japan, Korea, this ratio is typically above 15%. That is also an indicator of the development stage from now to around 2035, we can anticipate a strategic period of opportunity and also the opportunity that PICC needs to firmly grasp and leverage. Thank you. Thank you.
According to my observation, well, Madame Ding being focused on the future opportunities and thinking and messaging you're discussing the customer year initiatives. Many of the participants in Hong Kong were nodding and my recommendation was in doing this morning she used to work in the banking sector and local markets and she ended up discussed a lot of opportunities when she talked to us and she just now shared many with you as well. I do recommend Madame Ding to actually speak more to us so as to broaden our thinking. Indeed, there are a lot of things we need to step up our supply. Back to Hong Kong Benny, who would like to ask a question? The lady in the second row. Thank you for this opportunity. Michelle from Citi, an analyst. I'd like to also congratulate the management on good performance. I have two questions.
First, as Madame Ding mentioned just now, PICC Group the target is to be a world-class insurance and financial group. Specifically to break it down to the subsidiaries like PICC Life and PICC Health what are the development positions of NEV Insurance? It has also been a new direction which has received a lot of attention in the industry. Last year the combined ratio was 107% for the industry as a whole. Then with the regulators issuing many policies, including the promotion, the opinions on the promotion of high quality development NEVs and the whole platform for auto insurance. I'd like to ask the management to give us the current observation of the operating results of NEV and what new policies can we expect for NEV related auto insurance. Thank you.
You know, under the target of developing the world-class insurance financial group, what are the positions and targets for our subsidiaries? Indeed, when we make our timing, we need to give so there's consideration to these important issues which are covered by your very good question. To build such a group, we need to consolidate and leverage the leading position of PICC in the industry. That is for the overall analysis. But we also have a lot of subsidiaries, including the P&C life and health subsidiaries which all require clear targets and positions. These subsidiaries need to either be world leading or domestically leading. So these benchmarking shall be translated into practice by balance and gradient pattern of development. P&C is our core business, our main business as well. So when we develop it, we need to also move forward the development of life, personal and other insurances.
That is called gradual and balanced development externally in their specific fields. We require the subsidiaries then to upgrade and improve their capabilities to be bigger and better. They need to build a P&C brand and contribute value to the society and deliver market competitiveness. So these are the overall requirements for all these subsidiaries and the positions for them. For example, for P&C, P&C is our core sub in the PICC Group. P&C is taking leadership position. So it is of course required to always consolidate its competitive edge and also attach itself to the improved economic structure. We must be robust in protection. The function has been fully leveraged. It needs to be robust in protection and strength optimal in structure and competitive internationally as a P&C company and its comprehensive strength needs to be leading when compared with these global counterparts for personal insurance.
As I said, the core competitors used to be constantly in place for health and pension which are our areas of weakness for the PICC and as a company. The personal insurance company needs to also improve its branding and increase its contribution for life. It needs to better protect households and preserve wealth across generations so as to contribute to the pension insurance protection system for aging population. It needs to have growth increased value, solid teams leading services and solid capital accumulation so as to join the top league among life insurance companies in China. For PICC Life P&C, Life needs to play its supporting role for using health insurance to support people's livelihood and also develop a health protection system with health insurance taking the leadership role well governed and first-tier in terms of both scale and quality.
Another important arm of PICC is investment, which is at par with protection of insurance. We also make it clear investment and ensuring there shall be the dual wheels in driving PICC forward in terms of developing a business and growing profitability. Investment will play a key role. PICC Asset is an important subsidiary and main investment platform of the group. We need to beef up the capability of making equity investments in PE/VC early stage and when companies are small. And we also need to invest more into the hardcore technology companies and use good investment performance to serve the socio-economic development and insurance development.
We also need to actually expand the third party business to meet the wealth management needs of the people so as to develop a first-class asset manager with service to the overall development, extraordinary performance and a strong comprehensive capability. Okay, thank you. Let me address your second question. Indeed, for NEV, many policies have been launched. As the largest insurer in the market, the PICC owns the responsibility as a centrally owned financial institution. We take the lead in following the guidelines and developing a strategy and push forward the green transition from the real economy service to auto insurance. We indeed co-developed the carbon platform together with the two other industry leaders who have enrolled 10 institutions and signed already the first order. In terms of developing NEVs, our advantages have been increasing.
In 2024 the company underwrote 11,590,000 NEVs, up 57.3%, representing 11% of the underwritten vehicles. The premium revenue was RMB 50.8 billion, up 58%. Its premium revenue has accounted for 70.2% of the total. So we have covered the largest NEV market and the customer base as well as the data protection and that supports the company in leading in terms of the risk pricing. I want to share with you, dear investors and reporters. We have a pricing pilot. Last year we made an industry cooperation with a small insurance company. We found our pricing to be pretty accurate last year.
This year we would like to package as a standardized pricing product, share it free of charge with the insurance as a means for them to use so as to increase the industry's capability in terms of coping with the development of NEVs and growing the ability of insurance as a whole. In terms of serving the country's green transition, our overall prices have been leading the household NEVs. As I said, have been profitable for underwriting and the commercial insurance combined ratio has been more than 5% versus 2023. The new profitability level beats the market and our peers.
And for underwriting to work with on the major OEMs and also the newcomers that in the industry with which will be established very good channels for management of control for underwriting and claim settlement. And second, we also have reached a deep collaboration with battery manufacturers as well as the repairers and maintenance service providers. And I would like to report to you on how we view the industry development in the future. First of all, we believe that the main key will be the cost reduction of new energy vehicles maintenance and repair cost, which is based on a risk sharing and risk sharing management mechanism and platform. And we now have the advantage on the market share of the vehicles as well as the channels.
We also boast great capabilities in pricing and we now are deeply integrated with the OEMs and also better manufacturers with that. The market continues to grow. You can expect that we will have a profitability on it for new energy vehicles that exceed our overall average auto insurance profitability. For the next two steps, on the one hand, we expect the policy to continue to implement. At the same time, we want to also have good interactions with the industry associations and auto insurance. Of course we will do more research on risk reduction management for safe driving. Now thank you very much, Alice. Back to Beijing for another question. Thank you, Mr. Ding. The gentleman on the second row, please. Congratulations for the excellent report. I am with CITIC. My name is Luo Xinxi.
My question first is about the dividends and second is the equity asset allocation. And so the first question is we know that the dividend level is higher, but the payout ratio. I would like to understand more about the considerations behind the adjustment of the dividend payout ratios and what is the future strategy. And the second is about equity asset investment with multiple ministries issued the guiding opinions on the mid- and long-term investment, institutional capital and the President Wu Qing. The CSRC also mentioned that the pension should actually allocate about 3% of the new growth to the stock market or the equity funds. I would like to know what is the plan for PICC on the equity allocation and whether you will improve the OCI equity allocation ratio and how is that accounted in the balance sheet for accounting reasons. Thank you for the question.
Actually there have been analysis and comments from institutions this morning. We see that dividend is quite a focus. And this morning I talked to the Secretary of the board, Mr. Zeng, and we were discussing that just this morning. So I would like to answer that question here. You mentioned the dividend payout, while according to the recommendations of the board last year was CNY 0.18 per share, 15.4% higher. And for property it's 10.4% higher and per share is CNY 0.54. And as to considerations and PICC P&C, they are now reporting under the new accounting rules already. But for the regulators and the governing authorities, they still regulate and review our performance based on the old accounting standards. So it's the time when forecast and IFRS 17 December 2024, the dividend payout actually accounted for or considered the discrepancies between the two different standards.
In old and new we try to strike a balance between the two aspects with the old standards, even though that is not disclosed. But I would like to report that with the old standards then the group dividend rate will be more than 30%. So we completely consider that. And for PICC P&C that would be above 40% which was also higher. However, with the new accounting standards, as you probably paid attention to after the implementation of the new standards, actual listed insurance companies, the net profitability showed more vitality. And that is not just the PICC that the common problem for the industry, as you know, with the new accounting rules, more financial assets are categorized as transactional financial assets. And the fluctuations of these transactional assets directly reflect in the profitability in the present period.
As you know very well, this is just a fluctuation that is on the books. Unless you monetize it, you would see that volatility is a bit greater than the market. That's why when we consider the dividends, we cannot simply look at the rates based on the new standards. You know that very well. For us we actually need to know where the group dividends come from, the dividends of the subsidiaries and for the PICC Life and I don't know whether you paid attention to the numbers for Life and the net profitability is RMB 17.1 billion and health is RMB 5.7 billion and together it's RMB 22.8 billion. With the 30% rule of the new accounting standards, the subsidiaries must be higher than that for the dividend. Otherwise where would the dividend capital the group?
And that may actually have an impact on the solvency and the capital position of subsidiaries. And from other perspective, we also reserve certain capital to increase the capital capabilities of the company. So for that we can increase the underwriting and disaster or risk capabilities. On the other hand, that is also sustainability and a long-term value creation for the shareholders. With that considered with the foundation of the existing dividend rate and the old rates.
Our goal is to achieve the growth for the per share dividend, so that is our target. The considerations behind it and we very much understand your concerns and also recommendations. In the future we want to focus on the long term stability and stable growth of a per share dividend, at the same time considering the dividend payout rate and also as we enter the new accounting rules. And in the meantime we will strengthen our profitable capabilities in order to provide our shareholders with sustainable and stable appreciable returns and to improve the investment balance of the company. I can answer the second question. Well, on January 22, six ministries and commissions of China co-issued the guiding opinions for the promotion of mid- and long-term capital into the market, the implementation plan and geared towards more mid- and long-term capital to the market.
We believe the implementation policy is conducive to market confidence improvement as well as the long term healthy development of the capital market. For the long term health of the capital market on the macro level, it is beneficial to the economic restructuring and upgrade of the country as well as the innovation and the development of the new quality productive forces and high quality development. On the micro level, we would very much like to see the healthy development of the capital market. We know if the stock market is good and so will the investment return on investment ROI ROE be and that will also be helpful forward to the performance of the PICC Group. For PICC, the leader of the industry, we accordingly will implement the requirements with regard to the market entry of the mid and long term capitals.
We will also proactively conduct multiple measures to contribute our strength to boost the confidence of the capital market. In terms of the specific equity investment strategies, we will continue to uphold long-term investment, value investment, prudent investment, and stable investment or cautious investment. To optimize our strategies, we will also lay a focus on the new quality productive forces development. We will also grasp technology innovation as well as the strategic emerging sectors to see what the new investment opportunities are. We will also proactively strategize around the services of insurance including risk reduction management in key areas such as digitalization, artificial intelligence technologies, and health, green, environmental protection, and renewables. These are the key areas.
We will also balance the relative returns, absolute returns, OCI, long term returns, value investment and we will also manage the volatility of the equity investment portfolios and so that we can dedicate ourselves to the stability of the equity investment portfolio. You have another question about OCI? The Chairperson already mentioned that the OCI allocation increased by 26.4% last year. OCI equity investment performance was quite impressive 36.3% of which is 10.7 percentage points higher than the Shanghai Shenzhen 300 index. We will continue to increase the OCI allocation this period. There are several major considerations. First is to stabilize the total returns of the portfolio because in recent years notice that the interest rate is on a downward trend. That is why the fixed return assets yield is under pressure.
We would like to moderately allocate more OCI shares and so that we can actually benefit from the interest from the notes. And the second is to stabilize the net profits of the group because based on the new accounting status, OCI shares are not accounted in the present period losses and gains. It does not affect the net profitability of the current period. That is also beneficial to the net profitability and the revenue of the group. And the third is to have a more diversified and decentralized investment so that it can be seen as a hedge against the risk. Okay, thank you very much, Mr. Zhao and also Mr. Cai. I now turn the floor to the Hong Kong venue for more questions. And this gentleman on the second row, I saw you nodding all the time. Thank you very much for the opportunity.
I'm with Bank of America. My name is Michael, and I have two questions. The first is about property PNC, and the second is about life. And PNC is about catastrophe claims losses and also corresponding strategies. Because last year Mr. Yu Ze said the word mid-sized medium-sized on a catastrophe, not as much as Doksuri catastrophes. But it was also mentioned in Q3 that it is due to the medium-sized catastrophes whose claim amount does not really reach the line. So there is not. So we cannot recover from the reinsurance. So for 2025, what is the coping strategy for potential situation? Will you readjust on the reinsurance strategy? The second question is about life in a low interest rate environment. There is quite some pressure on life insurance.
I would like to know for life insurance, what is the gearing ratio right now and what are the considerations on lowering the gearing ratio and how to really avoid the effect of the spread. Thank you.
Investors and analysts are raising the same question as our internal colleagues. When I talk to our head of strategy for the reinsurance plan, I asked the same question. I think the investors have the same level of certification as our managers. You know, as a PICC insurance company or insurance company staying included in our strategy. These are part of our professional ethics and our bottom line in terms of handling catastrophe and other disasters. Our common principle is pricing management and also risk reduction management. Catastrophe management in order to lower our exposure to the catastrophes or major accidents and their impact on our profitability. Reinsurance is one of the tools in our toolkit in our internal management discussion.
As a large company of five or 600 billion RMB, when we cope with the matters or Group's requirements or the Ministry of Finance requirements, we answer with more stable management and operation so as to cope with the activities caused by disasters. We don't want to use uncertainties to cope with uncertainties. We try to make ourselves more certain in our management so as to cope with the uncertainties of disasters. For long-term investors in PICC Group and PICC P&C, that is going to be a good long-term solution or answer. There are certain internal discussions. Shall we lower the threshold? Maybe the price will be more expensive but in case of catastrophe we can be better prepared. Indeed, the reinsurance market has been quite rigid and we need to increase our internal capacity to cope with that.
Over the past few years, the reinsurance market has been rigid for catastrophe, and we try to balance out the overcompensation cost and strike a balance between it and our protection capability when the company is increasingly resourceful. In terms of the threshold of compensation for both catastrophe and ordinary insurance, it has been increased from RMB 600 million to RMB 800 million, from RMB 800 million to RMB 1 billion. Once the threshold is kept very low among many subsidiaries, there may be some reckless operations in business operation. So we try to always refine our management to resolve those issues. As I will mention later, what troubles us is not a few catastrophes. We can handle two or three typhoon to three. Even without overcompensation, we can still cope. When it comes to the management of a catastrophe, reinsurance has been legit. We have done some work. We have held a conference of GI.
flood and reinsurance on an annual basis. We actually promote the performance of the Chinese government in terms of handling the city flooding and catastrophe. The flood in Zhengzhou and Henan will not recur very often. The Chinese government has done a lot. I would like the reinsurers to see the tangible impact of the work done by the Chinese government and we will also show them the impact the insurance companies have done in terms of risk reduction. If we compare the rain and the snow catastrophe last year versus those in 2008, we have actually reduced our losses tremendously. I hope the reinsurance market will be less rigid to China and will not transfer their rigidity from the international market to China. We have used coinsurance consortium to resolve a lot of the uncertain or emerging risks.
So we can actually also aggregate the capacity of direct insurance and free ourselves from the over-reliance on the reinsurance market. This is about the catastrophe for the medium level of losses last year. Our institutional business failed to achieve the expected results. It is not the case. Our combined ratio was too high. What mattered was the failure to properly control our expense ratio like in the case of auto insurance. So for medium-sized losses we need to first pay attention to expense and then second probably do our pricing. Pricing tends to float with expenses and pricing sometimes failed to function because it is not properly linked to the expenses. So we need to manage both the expense and second the pricing. Thirdly, we need to also probably do our risk reduction management.
We have achieved some results, but not as much as we have expected. The next lever is management of claims. In the past we end up typically with just the payment claims, but now we have done some screening and relocation before disasters. Now we also take active participation in disaster or emergency. That makes us much better off and much prepared. We come to the disaster site not only to provide relief, but also to accurately understand and assess the losses which will be crucial to our subsequent claim handling. We also want to remind the customers after disasters to manage their risks. So for both catastrophe and medium disasters we have such a host of management initiatives and solutions.
Hopefully in 2025 we can actually make the impact in numbers as well and bring it back to within 100 in terms of the liability losses and the response to the interest with different losses, so in 2024 both the group and PICC Life paid greater attention to the losses from the interest rate spread. Therefore, we took active measures to cope with this and increase the efficiency while cutting cost. By the end of last year in PICC Life, our overall liability cost was lowered to 3.2 and for new business the figure was even lower. 3.2 was for the entire business portfolio including renewal, so that dropped by 78 basis points. It is quite a big margin and in our history it was also the lowest level in terms of liability cost.
For this year, we believe that we see continued improvement of the overall economy and the macro package in terms of fiscal monetary policies, the vitality of technology innovation and the regained confidence in the capital market. The PICC Group will leverage the new momentum in the market and work on both the liability and asset side, optimize our product and business portfolio, increase the investment yield for the medium long term and better match the liability with the assets to increase our ability to protect ourselves from the interest spread loss risk and for liability side, we will focus more on cost management and improve the quality of liability.
But first we will need to consider the constraints of liability costs and do a proper level design and increase the production products of five or more years of term, increase their share and better improve the optimization of the duration and value increase. And we also need dynamically adjust the interest rate related policies on a dual of overlooking research and make prudent assessment and necessary adjustments to the expected interest. Instead, we need to increase the supply and share of the floating products. We also need to better share the risk of interest price losses by adding such a floating rate of products and increasing our sales capacity force. We will also need to prudently determine the return for the universal products and environmental products and consideration of the maximum yield.
On the asset side, we also need to prudently make a long-term asset allocation to increase investment yield. We will also implement the policy of investing the dividend long-term capital in the fund, increase the share of equity investments and serve the real economy and write the five major chapters for finance and capture the structural and long-term investment opportunities to increase the allocation to equity. Second, in the low interest environment, we also need to better align our thinking with the fixed income investment forward, expect the market yield trend, shorten the cap of duration, use levers to better capture the temporary opportunities and reduce the gap of duration mismatch and for the bond compatible with the national strategies, we need to allocate more investment and that's the first chapters of finance.
In 2025 we will increase our investment yield and try to cover the liability cost with a better return on investment to both asset and liability management. Thank you. Thank you Mr. Yu and Mr. Xiao. Next I would like to invite more questions from Beijing in the middle of the fourth block. Thank you. The management from Securities Times. Two questions. First, investment. I'd like to follow up on the insurance market trends for this year. What is your analysis and could you also specify your investment strategy? After this question to Mr. Cai, I'd like to ask for the non-auto insurance in PICC P&C. The DRG/DIP reform has been published for consultation in the industry in January this year. What is your attitude of the impact of the DRG/DIP reform on your finance and your business?
What preparation are you considering for the imminent reform of IFRS? I thank you for your question about our outlook on the Asia market. For the Asia market this year, fully confident, we take a bullish view. There are several aspects. First, the macroeconomic trend in China is still going for the better. That has not changed. We have also noted some recently announced data on finance and PMI. They proved that the Chinese economy is further restabilizing, improving. We have also noticed some recent fiscal and monetary policies launched that are proactive and we believe helpful to boost market confidence and verify the basis of profitability of vertical companies. It was mentioned that the six ministries jointly circulated the opinions on pushing the medium- and long-term capital to the financial market.
PICC recently also formulated the plans to implement this first. We are going to step up the allocation to equity asset. Moreover, we're also endeavoring to develop more research and investment capacity for equity investment and additionally we will also actively participate in the piloting by regulators early March this year. As Mr. Xiao Jianyou said, PICC Life already received the NFRA approval and will participate in the second tranche of the equity investment by setting up RMB 10 billion of private equity investment fund.
Second, we also believe that the valuation level of the insurance market is within the reasonable range for now. Horizontally speaking, when we compare A shares valuation level with other markets, we believe that the range is relatively appealing and in a reasonable range. Second, vertically speaking, the level of valuation is around the mid level over the past 10 years. From the perspective of the long-term investment, we think it is a good time to invest in the A shares market. Third, we also hold the opinion that technology innovation is bringing new structural investment opportunities. We see the emerging AI, robotics and other such tech-centric sectors witnessing rapid growth in recent years and these new growth momentum will bring about new opportunities for investment. We also have noticed that in recent years there are international investors that are reevaluating China's assets.
They are repricing Chinese assets and some of them also increased the investment into the H-shares market. For specific investment strategies for fixed income, we still focus on longer duration and stable returns. At the same time, we will also work harder on the management to improve the returns on the price difference and I also mentioned that we should optimize the allocation and structure so I will also optimize the position structure and other stability which means stable returns from the investment. At the same time another keyword is new that would be opportunities of investment from the new quality productive forces and new factors of growth and I can answer the second question. In January 2025 we initiated the Industry Coordination Meeting Spring Festival. This year came quite early.
Financial companies wanted to conclude the annual meeting before the Spring Festival, so we actually had the Industry Coordination Meeting in January before the new year. Our main purpose is to further consolidate the integration of reporting and operations. The second is we want to deliberate with the top players in the industry to see on whether we can actually align the reporting, operations alignment or the integration on it. Then also for the non-auto expenses. So we reached a consensus and reported that to the regulatory commission, which strongly supports the integration for the non-auto insurance as well as the extension of both and also supports the same effort for agri insurance. I think that will definitely help with the improvement of the underwriting profitability and risk reduction service quality.
All industries should fulfill the regulations on the approval-related reporting so that we can avoid unnecessary over-competition. And you know, for the industry the biggest challenge is not new energy vehicles but the industry-wide losses for non-auto insurance. And that is way greater than new energy vehicles. That is why we talk to the top 10 players and we need to lead by example. And the total expenses actually was lowered by 4.3 points if it was not done across the industry. Instead we only worked on those that were within the boundaries of the regulations. Then we would only be able to reduce around 1 point instead of 0.3. And second, for the receivable premiums we also worked on coordination across industries for policies, commercial non-auto less than 100,000. We will actually have to issue the policy after receiving the premiums.
We want to really consolidate the integration of risk reporting and operations and to allocate more resources to customer services to establish a risk reduction management commercial model so that a whole industry can actually enter a high-quality development phase. For the non-auto insurance and for the auto insurance we actually see quite obvious results of the Matthew effect. And so this alignment toward the integration of reporting and operations actually was not creating losses for the top players. Instead we gained from such integrations. I would like to report to the investors about that. And for non-auto sectors such integration can better unleash the effectiveness of our investment into the risk reduction and can also really give play to the advantages of the brand and scale as well as our strength in the service network, pricing, underwriting, claims, and talents.
In that context we should support the integration of reporting and operations and we should even take the lead for next steps on the liability insurance employers and safety operation, production liability insurance. We should also shore up our efforts on the products and returns so that we can return to our investors with actual benefits. That's all for me. Thank you, Mr. Zhao Peng, and to the best of you. Next question from Hong Kong please. And the gentleman on the fourth row on the left side please. Thank you. Management, I'm Jared with Morgan Stanley, analyst. Two questions. What is the growth for life and health? The highest growth among all subsidiaries this year. We see for 2024, while the intrinsic value and, of course, contractual service margin all grew significantly both on and off before and after the transition.
I would like to know about the outlook of the NBV in 2025 and also from the perspective the product work and the team voting, what are the support we can expect from these two fronts? Second is for health insurance because there have been new industry policies especially for DIP reform and also the health insurance reform. And with that, in terms of the premium growth, product structure and also long term profitability, what are the outlooks? Thank you for the question about NBV as on PICC Life. Well, first it grew 69.6% which is leading the industry. As for 2024 it was 114% of new business value and for 2025 we will take effective measures so that NBV can achieve reasonable growth on a raw level. First we need to strengthen the principle of being guided by the annual targets.
So within the annual targets framework, which is strength and coordination and adoptive flexible strategies to ensure the performance of the NBV targets. And second is continuous improvement and optimization of the business structure. Over the past few years PICC Life and also the P&C Insurance a five-year period development strategy actually saw impressive growth and for the individual insurance 10-year growth and grew by 50%. And for bank insurance 5-year growth was also very impressive. And so business restructuring can support NBV and in 2025 we will also continue improve the business structure and for 2025 will also lay a solid management and control over the quality of the businesses and that can improve the value creation capacity. And we know that the combined ratio has already reached 96% and the third is more efforts in lowering the cost and improving efficiency.
We should improve the mechanisms for these two targets and strengthen the cost management control and improve the performance of return on investment for the operational efficiency and performance of the company. I would like to leverage on these two points that you mentioned. One is the product and the second is the talent team. So for the products we need to implement the requirements of serving in the country and we need to seize the opportunities of development based on the demands of the society and leverage the competitive strength of the insurance to better answer to the demands of the customers in the market. Such as for the personal insurance there is still a large potential for inclusive insurance. So we need to better serve the national strategies as well as the customer needs.
One example is the annuity insurance done as the commercial insurance and also personal long-term care insurance as the third pillar. And we should make greater strides in long-term care insurance on the health care side. And for inclusive insurance we should accelerate the improvement to satisfy the diverse needs of the people and that can improve the premium scale of the company as well as business value and also the societal impact of the company and that's on the supply or position of the products. In the second, on the high quality and long-term stable development. So we ensure the stably strengthen the provision of the security products and also the long-term dividends. And we should support optimization of business value and the combined ratio cost control.
The third is that in 2025 we should be grounded in different channels of the sales and the customer categorization to better answer to the diversity needs of the customers from different channels and categories. So that the product provision system can match the sales channels and the product is managed in a more precise manner. So the products and the sales should have a better matching relationship to form a more precise provision system, especially for the five-year bancassurance products so that we can better support the new policy growth. And on the third and for the team building of the sales team in particular, it directly impact the MDV growth and capabilities of the sales team itself. And so for that we have several major considerations in 2025. First is on all channel sales team building.
With that, we at the same time will strengthen our efforts on the wealth management and on the wellness team and so the IWP team. So on the foundation the previous two years we will continue our efforts on that regard. And the second is and better adapt to the new reality of the rising organization which has an impact on the new distribution of the customer bases and the population, on our demographic structure. And so in the cities we should have a professional, young and high performing urban team. And so we need more resources into that direction.
And third, for the team building we should guide ourselves on the basis of the fundamental principles that continuously optimize the sales teams so that the sales forces can better leverage the brand advantage of PICC and subsidiaries as the vehicles for the company to expand businesses and to serve the customers. So this year we want to further highlight the brands and the resources of the PICC and business development so that the sales teams of the group can actually achieve growth both in terms of volume and quality.
Thank you. Let me address it. As you know, in terms of DRG and DIP reform, the government is launching measures and they can better regulate the diagnostic and the therapeutic behavior of hospitals and control the unreasonable growth of medical expenses and increase the utilization efficiency of medical insurance funds in our plan. In terms of the portfolio restructuring, premium growth and profitable growth, such measures have been helpful to the commercial health insurance for PICC. A key part of area to grow is Social Security business that is done by both PICC, P&C and PICC Health. There was quite considerable pressure on profitability with the reforms on expenditure there has been better control from the medical expenses.
Major diseases is an expansion of a traditional basic medical insurance, and in terms of the large amount insurance of employees for major diseases, the profitability has increased a lot, and that is a boost to our overall short-term profitability. The next one is about the commercial medical insurance. This is positioned as a supplement to the basic insurance coverage of major diseases. If the expenses of medical and pharmaceutical medical insurance are properly controlled, there is also a chance to grow profitability of the commercial medical insurances. For example, for the additional group medical insurance of the institutions, the self-paid part under category A and B can be supplementally reimbursed for the second time. If DRG reform can bring down effectively the medical behavior and therefore medical expenses, the compensation for group insurance can also better achieve profitability.
Third, with the BIG and DRG reforms, there is a further enhancement of the bottom line role for the medical insurance to secure the minimum medical treatment, and with the multi-tiered medical insurance system, the tiered needs of the people for medical services can be met, with people's livelihood improving with special needs, medication, rehabilitation, the out-of-hospital care, the new drugs and medical devices. Beyond a catalog of medical insurance, the demand has been growing, and that translates to new requirements and the development of space for commercial medical insurance. In terms of health management services, there are also certain technologies like the early-stage screening of cancer, wearables, and also the health disease management.
So they are not reversible under basic medical insurance but can be looked into the future development of health management and our chair the health management and insurance must be focused and also advantageous and that matches our professional capability. Recently, PICC Health has been innovating products to meet the different needs of the customer and have also developed a host of medical insurance products that meet market demand. We have more than 70 million customers covered under Haoyibao long term medical products. Through iteration you can already cover the special drugs and advanced technologies such as CAR- T which are used on hospitals. Recently, regarding the people's desire for imported and original drugs, we have also launched online outpatient medical insurance for the premium needs in the special international hospitals. We have also launched Ren Ren Bao as a premium product for medical insurance.
It is the industry first product which is based on the tax incentives and integrated with the so in the future we are going to continue to step up product development and meet the growing needs of the people for more and better medical coverage. Thank you both. I would like to now invite one more for additional questions. The lady on the line, thank you. Thanks. From Securities Times, I have two questions. AI and Big Data, so what is the status of application of big data and AI in PICC? What are going to be their impact on PICC? Second, to 2025 has been said to be year one of autonomous driving. What is the impact of the popularization of intelligent autonomous driving on your auto insurance, especially NEV? And what is the forecast for you on the evolution of the NEV car insurance in 2025?
PICC is keen on innovating in the concept of digitalization with a special emphasis on the research and application of AI and big data underwriting, claims, planning, risk management and sales. They have been extensively explored and applied for big data. We have developed a group-wide big data platform and in terms of division, scenario-driven source sourcing and co-development sharing. We have pooled the data resources through the group in terms of 130,000 data sheets from over 70-plus systems and more than 50% of the data included in our data lakes and more than 80% of the data have been under sharing and common development with the centralization of big data. Our intelligent review utilization, risk management, intelligent cockpit credit assessment, audit reporting, we have seen a lot of the applications in those areas.
We have also developed a group-wide unified mid-office for data intelligence. We have also developed the OCR, NLP and 170 other AI capabilities and have been rolled out in different scenarios. For example, in 2024 in more than 70 scenarios we have offered our support for business applications so they are called more than 100 million times per day and also in 2023 the group launched our autonomously developed AI large model and we have also further improved the computing power model product application for the DIP model and we have also applied in multiple scenarios. The model development has exceeded 100 times.
For example, in terms of the intelligent outbound calls, the premium has been increased by CNY 2.8 billion. In terms of the intelligent approval of medical insurance, we reduced our loss by CNY 3.3 billion. In terms of the intelligent Q&A wherein we will offer traditional text based inquiry. Our ability to resolve questions with one go has increased by 35%. The AI coding has taken 40% of our technology development. The code adoption rate has approached 30%. We are also paying close attention to the future development of AI represented by deepfake. They have received a broad attention in the society and we are of the view that AI will be a main and advanced tool for productivity and that will surely affect all walks of life, including insurance.
We believe that in the future insurance will be profoundly impacted and will migrate from the traditional ex-post compensation to ex-ante prevention and from standardized products to customized services. From part of the sales and tech service ecosystem from single-point risk management to comprehensive risk management, there is a broad prospect of development. PICC will follow up with the coming of technologies and seize opportunities to move forward our digitalization and AI applications. We would like to introduce the technology also orchestrate computing power algorithms and enhance information protection and security surveillance. Further introduce and apply AI while keeping the data secure and business standardized so that AI will be more and more rolled out in PICC to improve customer experience. Let me address your second question in terms of intelligent driving, the cars for series production in China use basically L2 plus.
According to the current legislation, while determining the liabilities of accidents, the owners and drivers of the cars will be held accountable. Therefore, using the existing auto insurance products, the short term impact is insignificant and less in terms of the accident length we assessed together with the leading OEMs, the accident rate has slightly decreased. For intelligent driving, the risk is not by the individuals but by the OTA or system failure. So the individual accident rate has dropped but the group risk still exists. So for intelligent driving there is incremental market for auto insurance. Recently the leading companies have been working with us for the L2 level automobiles. We have also earned some premium with a recent compensation ratio or combined ratio.
We are now building a pipeline of products for L3 and Plus in terms of the ICVs. We have also planned ahead in order we have been able to meet the need for risk management and marine insurance products in the event of the launch of L3. We are the only insurance company in China to work with industry association including CATARC and the credit insurance to develop the technical provision or the industry standards for the compensation of intelligent connected vehicles or ICV. In PICC, we are improving our operating capability end-to-end from underwriting to claims or also NEV. But there are still some potential for further improvement and we also step up quality for pricing and improve our business portfolio, and we use auto insurance as window of opportunity to go through our full life cycle of automobiles. It is called Car + Everything.
The second is a full life cycle management. So from sales to products, EVs can be defined as cell phones and then the product channels and the device can be both broadened. Internally we require EVs be treated as mobile phones for product development. Moreover, we continue our innovation and capacity building for full-fledged R and D and reserve. And we also do NEV product overseas according to our own pricing advantages for NEV. And in order to help the country relieve the difficulties regarding the expansion of NEVs overseas as well as the high premium and difficult lack of access, we have developed the overseas market. So we focus on Hong Kong, explore Asia and plan for the global market as a three step strategy with AXA. On January 1, we signed our first order through PICC Hong Kong for the NEVs.
Maybe in China, but arriving in Hong Kong, the order is signed off by PICC Hong Kong and AXA. But the pricing was done by PICC P&C and around 50% has been ceded to the domestic insurance company. And along this model we plan to launch it in June in Thailand. There may be a delay of one to two months because of the failure to reach a consensus on ceding in Thailand and other countries such as rollout will take place step by step.
That is on one hand because of our strategic consideration for new energy vehicle insurance. So we know we're already in a stage of the existing market considering the saturation in China. So we would like to focus on the overseas expansion and our pricing capabilities for petrol or new energy vehicles really have had a significant improvement with our models. We want to package it as a standard project and provide that to other entities in the industry and so that the entire industry can actually be freed from unnecessary considerations. And we would like to share our pricing mechanism free of charge so that we can lead to standardization of the market for a reasonable rational competition. And also the healthy development of the new energy vehicle related insurance. And from the perspective of the national policy the Government Work Report.
There is strong support for their development and our estimate is that around 2025 the premium of new energy vehicles will be around RMB 100-180 billion which will account for about 16%-18% of the total auto insurance premium. That is our expectation and it also explains our increased investment. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Yu. To answer honestly and Shanghai Stock Exchange's requirements on better services to the investors. On March 30, we made an announcement published for solicitation of questions and we received lots of positive feedback from the investors. We would like to give our gratitude for your support. Our management has already made very detailed and frank answers for the questions during the session.
There is one representative question and also the last one for the 2024 results announcement, and it is that since last year China raised a lot of new requirements and policies with regard to the market value regulation and management, and we see many listed companies are disclosing their market cap management system, so like to know more about the considerations of the company in that regard. Thank you. I can answer that question. Well, since last year the top level design of the market cap management continue to improve. As you know, the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China required listed companies to improve quality and also healthy stable development of the capital market.
At the end of last year the CSRC also issued guidelines to provide guidance for listed companies to properly address the investment value and improve the levels of returns of the investors. I think these are contributors conducive to the stabilization of the expectations and also the long term stable development of the capital market. We highly value the market cap management. In the next steps we'll focus on three things and first is better performance. Over the past four years PICC Group and PICC P&C outperformed in the market average. I think the fundamentals of the market is the continuously improving performance of the company. This morning President Xi Jinping met with the representatives of the industry and commerce and the People's Congress Hall. He said believing in China is believing in tomorrow. Investing in China is investing in the future which further consolidated our confidence and determination.
We believe for a period to come, the insurance industry, that for the strategic period of time, given life or property and casualty, we face unprecedented valuable opportunities growth, and we have a competence and capability to maintain the stable and steady development. Also, we'll strengthen the operations and management to adapt to the new accounting standards. We will improve the underwriting profits and ROE. The second is dividend optimization, which has always been the focus of analysts and investors. We will comply with the regulations and, referencing industry standards, will optimize the dividend payout policies under the new standards. We will research based on the core of long-term and stable growth of the per share. At the same time, we'll consider the policy for the payout rate.
And third is the diversification of the means instruments that probably noticed last year. The board of directors already deliberated and passed our market value management system. On the one hand, we will further consolidate the responsibilities of the board and management on the management of the market cap. On the other hand, we will clarify the tools and means for the management including buyout and increasing position as well as other measures. And we will conduct ongoing research and proactively communicate with our supervisors and regulatory committees to leverage the new tools for the improvement of the market value. At the same time, we will also strengthen our interactions communications with investors, analysts and media through road shows and investor open days, etc. To answer to the concerns of the market. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Zhao. You remind me of two things.
I have confidence in confidence itself and I believe in belief itself. We'd like to thank everyone for coming to the results announcement: the leadership, the investors, analysts and the friends of the press. This results announcement has achieved a lot of attention from the market. It's quite long and our goal is to better address the concerns and questions from the investors, analysts, the press and capital market. I believe that the management actually already answered quite in a very detailed manner. This is perhaps the longest results announcement because it's almost two and a half hours and Q&A has exceeded 110 minutes.
Actually asked for approval and then whether we can extend the Q & A session, and I got the approval because we want to answer the questions for our friends and try our best to serve you the best, and we see some of the questions are still left unanswered. Some hands they were raised but not caught up. But we would try our best to find more options if they answer your questions in a frank manner in the future and to contribute with our due services, and thank you. That concludes the results announcement today. Thank you.