Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the CPIC Group 2025 Annual Results Announcement. I'm Su Shaojun, CPIC Group Board Secretary. It's my great pleasure to meet you again. Now this year we are conducting this event in both Shanghai and Hong Kong. It's a face-to-face opportunity to give you a brief account of our performance last year and listen to your opinions and suggestions. To protect the interest of small and medium-sized investors, we also have this event broadcast online. After the meeting, you can watch the playback on our official website.
Next, I'm going to introduce our managers on the Hong Kong and Shanghai side. On the Shanghai side, we have Mr. Fu Fan, CPIC Group Chairman, and also Mr. Yu Bin, CPIC Group Vice President. Also CPIC Life General Manager, Mr. Li Jinsong. On the Hong Kong side, we have CPIC Group President, Mr. Zhao Yonggang, and Group Vice President, Mr. Ma Xin. Also Group Vice President, CIO and CFO, Mr. Su Gang and Mr. Chen Hui, CPIC P&C General Manager. Our independent directors will also attend this meeting online. First of all, Mr. Zhao Yonggang will give you an account of our performance last year, to be followed by a Q&A session.
First of all, let's give the floor to Mr. Zhao.
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. It's my great pleasure to be here to talk to you. The year 2025 was marked by profound changes, and we have a complex and challenging environment both at home and abroad. China's economy stayed on track and demonstrated a strong resilience. Financial regulators in China encouraged the insurance companies to uphold its core values, improve operational efficiency and service quality. CPIC pressed ahead with transformation and accelerated long-term capacity building.
Our performance continued to improve, our core competitiveness continued to enhance, and we see sustained growth of overall strengths. We achieved continued progress in high-quality development. If we look at the numbers, in 2025, group operating income was CNY 435 billion, up 7.7%. Of this, insurance revenue was CNY 288 billion, up 3.4%. Our group OPAT attributable to shareholders of the parent was CNY 36 billion, up by 6.1%. Group net profit was CNY 53.5 billion, up by 19%. Our group EV stood at CNY 613 billion, up 9.1% from the end of 2024.
The group number of customers increased by 3.5% to 190 million. Group AUM approached CNY 3.9 trillion, up by 9.8%. On the capital side, we maintained a solid capital position. Our comprehensive and core solvency margin under C-ROSS II was 273% and 206% respectively. The comprehensive and the core solvency margin ratios are all above regulatory minimum requirements. This provided a reasonable capital buffer for sustainable business operation and resilience against the systemic risks. We voluntarily disclosed OPAT, which is calculated on the basis of net profit while excluding short-term investment volatility and material one-off items.
In 2025, group OPAT was CNY 36.5 billion, up by 6.1%, and of this, that of CPIC Life was RMB 28. 9 billion, up by 4.8%, and others CNY 9 billion, up by 10.1%, which mainly come from the underwriting profitability increase from P&C business. Our EV grew by 9.1% from the end of 2024. Contributions mainly came from expected return on EV and NB, and NBV. Also, EV movements was also impacted by changes to methods, assumptions, models and profit distribution, et cetera. By the end of 2025, group net assets was CNY 302 billion, up by 3.7% from the end of the previous year.
Since the using of new accounting standards, the company's net assets has increased a CAGR of 9.5%. We know that the changes in market interest rate may have a temporal impact on net asset. But over the long term, we expect our net assets to stay relatively stable, underpinned by steady profit contribution and a sound asset liability matching framework. We advanced the five financial priorities with a pioneering spirit so as to to improve economic and social development. Our MSCI ESG rating was upgraded to the highest triple A level. For technology finance, we support the development of new quality productive force, and we launched product system including the [audio distortion]
Next, we will turn to our business lines. For life business, we continue to step up systematic capacity building and AI empowerment, and also improvement in B-customer mix. Our MBV and new business margin also improved. For the life business line in total, it achieved CNY 211.6 billion in written premiums, up 4.5%. Core agent headcounts stood at 46,000. In terms of number, the 13-month persistence ratio was more than 90%, which leads the industry. For the agency channel, we continue to focus on empowerment through digitalization. In terms of business operation, we continue to focus on the procedures and also focus on customer segmentation. In terms of the product offering, we offer customized products and solutions to our customers so that they can meet, they can satisfy their diversified needs.
In terms of the building of agency teams, we focus on professionalism, digitalization, professionalism, so as to develop a younger, more better quality team. In 2025, for agency as a whole, total written premium for the channel, life channel was CNY 211 billion, up by 4.5%. Core agent headcount stood at 46,000 on a monthly basis, and FYP per core agent was CNY 64,000, up by 17.1%. In the second half of the year, monthly average of YC per core agent grew by 22%, up greatly from the first half of the year. The proportion of mid-tier customers and above increased by 5.1% year-on-year. For the bank channel, we cemented a strategic partnership with joint stock banks, especially SOE banks.
We diversified the product and service offering and built professionalism on sales teams and pushed for upgraded customer mix and enhanced digital and AI empowerment to improve operational efficiency. For the year as a whole, the bank channel achieved CNY 61.6 billion in written premium, up by 46.4%. Of this, regular pay FYP was CNY 17 billion, up by 43%. MBV amounted to CNY 6.7 billion, up by more than 100%. The share of mid-tier customers and above reached 41%, up by 1.8 percentage points. We saw rapid growth of high net wealth customers and ultra high net wealth customers. For P&C business, we put profitability first. We optimized the business mix with marked improvement in underwriting profitability.
For the whole year of 2025, CPIC P&C recorded a primary premium income of CNY 201 billion. Of this premium from auto insurance was CNY 110 billion, up by 3%, and that from non-auto business was CNY 91 billion, down by 3%, as we continue to cut back on personal credit guarantee insurance business. The underwriting combined ratio stood at 97.5%, down by 1.1 percentage points year-on-year. Of this, underwriting loss ratio stood at 70.4%, down by 0.4 percentage points. Underwriting expense ratio was 27.1%, down by 0.7 percentage points. Underwriting profit amounted to CNY 4.8 billion, up by 81% year-on-year. Our auto business strengthened precision management and professional development of the distribution channels.
We drove innovation in NEV business to facilitate expansion of domestic automakers into international markets. Our underwriting combined ratio of business stood at 95.6%, down by 2.6 percentage points from previous year. The renewal rate of individual customers of auto insurance reached 78.1%, up by 1.3 percentage points. The premium from NEV business amounted to CNY 25 billion, accounting for 22% of the total auto premiums. We took initiative to optimize business mix of non-auto insurance and to focus on the system of prevention, reduction, relief, and compensation. The underwriting combined ratio of non-auto business stood at 99.9%.
Excluding impact of personal guarantee insurance, the ratio would be 97%, down by 2.1 percentage points. Our major business lines, we also achieved a turnaround in profitability. For our asset management business, we persisted in a SAA market based on profiles of liability and followed and fine-tuned the dumbbell-shaped asset allocation strategy, while moderately increasing investment in secondary market assets and alternative assets, including private debt, to enhance long-term returns. By the end of the previous year, the share of debt category financial assets stood at 72%, down by 3.5%. That of equity financial assets was 16.7%, up by 2.2 PTs. The stock and equity fund accounted for 13.4% of total investment assets, up by 2.2 PTs. Last year, we conducted disciplined and flexible TAA.
We actually enhanced our proactive management of equity assets and achieved a solid investment performance. Our net investment yield reached 3.4%, down by 0.4 percentage points. That's mainly due to a decrease in yields on fixed income assets because of the low interest rate environment. Our investment income was CNY 141 billion, up by 17.6% year-on-year. That's mainly thanks to steep rise in gains from securities trading with total investment yields of 5.7%, up by 0.1% year-on-year. We always pay a lot of attention to credit risk management. Our enterprise bond holdings and the financial bond holdings issued by non-government-sponsored banks have high external ratings. We pay a lot of attention to long-term asset liability management to maintain dynamic matching of asset liability duration.
Last year, both the effective duration gap and the modified duration gap of CPIC Life further narrowed. The overall maturity profile is well-structured. This was the performance highlights of our core business segments for 2025. For the year ahead, 2026, we will focus on the core business to pursue progress while ensuring stable fundamentals and improve quality and efficiency. We will foster new growth drivers. We will further improve operational efficiency and also our service capability to become a top-tier insurance company with market leadership and international competitiveness.
Well, that concludes my presentation. Thank you.
Well, thank you, Mr. Zhao, for your detailed presentation. Now we will have the Q&A session. We will welcome your question from both the Shanghai and the Hong Kong side, and also online. First of all, a question from Shanghai.
Thank you for the opportunity for asking the question, and congratulations on your results. Now, I have a question. What do you think was your achievement for the 14th five-year period? And what's your view on the future ahead? What are the opportunities and challenges for CPIC in the 15th five-year period ?
Well, thank you for your question. Now, for the 14th five-year period , CPIC employees united to overcome challenges and achieve new progress in high-quality development. I would say, I'm gonna focus on four points. First of all, our market position grew further. Our size of business and the capability both increased. Now I will skip details. Secondly, we see our transformation results more evident and growth new growth drivers taking place. For P&C business, new energy vehicle grew rapidly. Agricultural insurance reached number two in market share.
Our life business also saw diversified distribution strategy. For bank channel, we delivered rapid value growth and the market share of new business value continued to rise. For asset management, we continued to refine our dumbbell-shaped asset allocation strategy and deliver investment performance among the industry's top tier. Our health and elderly care services also improved. We have delivered an integrated prevention, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation, elderly care service market system. You can see CPIC Home has expanded to 13 cities with 15 retirement communities up and running. Our Yuanshen Rehab also opened in three cities. We also rolled out CPIC Doctor, an internet-based service platform.
Our Bai Sui Ju services cover the 70 cities. Fourthly, we further strengthened the development foundations. We optimize our corporate governance system and advanced the reform of our board of supervisors. We continue to strengthen our risk management capabilities and improve professional management system for selecting, developing, and retaining young talent. Our MSCI ESG rating reached AAA, and we also issued zero-coupon, high-yield H-share convertible bonds at a premium. Looking ahead, China's insurance industry is entering a critical phase with both opportunities and challenges. From a macro side, the state prioritized the development of the five major financial priorities so that insurance can play a better role as an economic absorber, shock absorber, and social stabilizer.
On the market side, industry upgrading and demographic shifts are creating new needs for risk protection and financial services. From the technology standpoint, AI presents strategic opportunities for the sector. At the same time, challenges are equally significant. China has entered a new interest rate era, so that we need to make corresponding change. Industry competition is shifting from growth-driven expansion to intensified rivalry within a situated market. Given this, CPIC will adhere to the principle of steady progress while ensuring quality and efficiency. We will accelerate the building of a world-class insurance and financial services group with market leadership and global competitiveness. We will accelerate the following, for example, accelerate innovation in technology. We will also expand inclusive insurance offering nationwide.
We will also strengthen agricultural support system by expanding and innovating agricultural insurance and rural-related business to better serve rural revitalization and farming communities. We will advance the new three major strategies. Health and elderly care strategy. We will enhance specialized operations in health insurance, build a closed-loop pension finance system, and create a full scenario, high quality and sustainable elderly care ecosystem. We will pursue internationalization strategy, leverage Hong Kong as a bridgehead and an innovation launchpad to build an onshore, offshore model.
For AI+ strategy, we will drive large-scale AI adoption across core business scenarios to boost efficiency, reshape processes, optimize customer experience, and innovate service models. We will continue to strengthen our core business competitiveness. For life insurance, we will remain committed to value-driven growth, deepen the professionalization and the specialization of the agency channel, expand the footprint of the bank insurance channel, and enrich our product portfolio.
For P&C business, we will put profitability first, enhance risk protection for new energy vehicle and smart driving, and also improve the fundamental role of auto insurance, and also improve refined management in non-auto business to improve underwriting profitability. For asset management side, we will continue to optimize our asset liability management system, diversify allocation strategy, strengthen risk control. Going ahead, we will adhere to the principle of steady progress while ensuring quality and efficiency. Our goal is to deepen high-quality development and deliver sustainable value creation for shareholders. Thank you.
Well, another question from Shanghai side.
Thank you first of all. Congratulations on your good performance in 2025. I'm Liu Xinyu from Guotai Junan Securities. I have two questions. Number one is about the bank business. Actually, during the last results announcement also, we talked about the plan for bank channel for 2025 and 2026. Now, how was it going for the bank channel? Did it meet your expectations? For 2025, how about the new initiatives for the bank channel? That's for the bank channel.
Second, for the capital issue. Now, in terms of the solvency ratio, you're much better than your peers in terms of the comprehensive and the core solvency ratio. Now, of course, we also see the interest rate is stabilizing in China. Now, given this, and also we see downward trend for the 75 yield curve. Now, how are you going to maintain your solvency in order to stabilize your dividend payout?
Well, thank you for your question. Now, actually, you see during the previous results announcement, I have introduced the 2026 bank channel business plan. Now, so far as we can see, it has stuck to the plan. It was in progress. I mean, everything was in progress. If we look at the channel development and also look at the team and look at the other number, the KPIs, well, it's within expectation. For example, for the value of our business, we focus on regular pay, non-MPV. For example, regular premium business improved by 40%. We also focus on high tech. For example, total gross premium. The share of the customers, higher customers, improved by a lot. RP business, I mean, more than 11,000 outlets can sell RP business from CPIC.
In terms of improving the mix, business mix, we continue to improve the mix of our bank channel. This year, we actually established a partnership with all the SOEs, big SOE banks. We also updated the relevant management mechanism. Our share in the SOE banks improved by 0.3 PTs. We also strengthened cooperation with joint stock banks. Leveraging our strengths, we continue to improve, refine the management of the outlets. For joint bank, joint stock bank partners, we see improved balance between the different channels. We are going to accelerate the improvement of product mix. Our product quality, our product offering will be more enriched, will further enriched. For annuity business, we improved promotion efforts. The growth is above two digits.
For example, service capability also improved. We have seen more and more take on from banks on our service offerings. The utilization was up by 10%. Our business quality continued to be good. 13 months persistent ratio was 97%, up by 2% year on year. We see very solid foundation for the bank business. I'll answer your second question. For CPIC Group, in 2025, our solvency improved a lot. That is mainly because of our improved business quality and also because of the matching. For example, life company asset liability matching was better so as to offset the downward pressure on the interest rate. Our solvency improved a lot. For the P&C company, operational profitability improved. This is a big positive contribution. The company continued to be prudent in its business expansion. We pay a lot of attention to asset liability matching, continue to improve our business mix.
On the whole, we would say that our solvency for Life and the P&C company, they are both very good. Given the volatility on the capital market and the downward trend of interest rate, I believe we are quite good compared to peers. Going forward, we will continue to improve the ALM so as to better reflect the situation, actual situation of business. We actually re-categorized our fixed income assets. For example, previously, held-to-maturity assets were now recategorized as available for sale. Now, of course, this had some impact on the liability side, but it will give you a better reflection of our solvency and also a common practice in the industry. CPIC Life were among the last, one of the last to conduct this kind of a recategorization. Of course, it is also the transitional period.
We have better profit-making capabilities and also more better ALM. We can see towards the end of 2025, we have very good solvency. For 2026, even if we don't consider the transitional period policies, we will be far above the policy, far above the regulatory requirements. Going forward, I would say we will continue to focus on our fundamentals, refine our management, and our solvency will continue to be accurate, to be adequate. We can stand the volatilities of the market and provide a very good basis support for business expansion.
Okay. Now move on to Hong Kong side.
Thank you. I'm from UBS. I'm Joe Chen. First of all, congratulations on your good performance in 2025. I have two questions. Number one, outlook for 2026. Another on a financial issue. Now, I would say 2025, you have delivered good performance. Also, Mr. Zhao have mentioned the 2025, you mentioned, you are going to seek progress while maintaining stability. Now, what could you give me more specifics? Any specific plans?
Now, second question on the financial business. Net profit and OPAT. Net profit up by 19%. Compared to peers, it was rather modest. What is the modest growth, especially for Q1? Now, for A-share and H-share, there are a lot of volatility on the share market. What's your outlook on the profitability side? OPAT is within the expectation of investors, but well higher core vis-à-vis your three-year guideline. What's your expectation or your outlook on OPAT for the year as a whole? Thank you.
Thank you for your question. Let me answer your first question. For 2025, we delivered a solid performance. I believe that's thanks to clear guidance from the board, and also, I believe that we've been building up momentum for years, and now it finally paid off. I would say there are four aspects to this. Number one, we remain committed to integrating into national strategy. We align with major national initiatives including the Belt and Road Initiative and the Shanghai five centers' development plan. We, for example, deepened our efforts for health insurance, expanded our product offering, enriched our elderly care products and services, and we also remain committed to value-driven operations, focused on quality and efficiency, continue to optimize business structure. For life side, we diversified the channels and strengthened the customer segmentation.
For P&C side, we improved business mix and operation. For asset management, we adopted a new methodology in asset liability management and enhanced capability to allocate assets across market and economic cycles. Thirdly, we've remained committed to collaborative growth. We drove customer-centric collaboration by turning business synergy into direct customer value. We continue to strengthen customer segmentation through deeper ecological integration with strategic partnerships, delivering notable breakthroughs in recent four years. Fourthly, we continue to focus on innovation-driven development. We advanced digital transformation, the application of large AI models across marketing, claims management, operations, et cetera.
We enhanced operational efficiency and risk control capabilities. We also promoted a younger, more professional, market-oriented team to unlock organizational vitality. We speed up product service innovation so as to set benchmarks for areas such as supporting new energy vehicles in global markets. For 2025-2026, we will aim for higher quality, stronger resilience, and a more solid foundation. We will adhere to the principle of steady progress while ensuring quality and efficiency, and further advance the three major strategies. That is health and elderly care, global expansion, and AI+ .
With this, we aim to lay a good foundation for the upcoming 15th Five-Year Plan. Or to be more specific, number one, we want to achieve breakthrough for supporting the 15th Five-Year Plan. We will strengthen core missions, serve the development model industry system and technological innovation, and enhance insurance services through people's livelihood. We will continue to deliver distinctive demonstrations, our five major initiatives or priorities to align with economic and social value.
Secondly, we will achieve breakthrough in cultivating new growth drivers. We will continue to enhance core business performance, drive up new business value in life business, and the underwriting profitability for our P&C business. We will also build a tighter asset liability coordination mechanism to optimize our ALM framework and maintain robust risk management. Thirdly, we want to achieve breakthrough in advancing the three major strategies. They are commercial health insurance and pension finance. We want to see steady growth in the health premium and pension assets. This service will more actively support and empower core business.
For international business, we are going to maintain a growing market presence for our Hong Kong-based entities. We are going to also accelerate the large-scale application of AI to build a enterprise-wide knowledge management platform and driving technical innovation, from isolated initiatives towards an integrated ecosystem. Well, let me answer your second question regarding net profit and OPAT. Under the new accounting standards, net profit will be impacted by your business mix, investment, and also asset categorization, and also your calculation of various assets and liabilities. A lot of factors are involved, especially given the volatility of the capital market.
Actually you will see a lot of fluctuation in the profit growth for insurance companies. CPIC continue to improve our insurance business quality and to deepen the long-term management of ALM. We focus on improving our investment management. We hope to maintain, well, financial stability across a long period. We see a lot of downward pressure. Quarterly decline of Shanghai stock index and Hang Seng stock index. However, the quarterly profit of CPIC maintained 17% positive growth, close to the average of the previous three quarters.
You see Q4 profitability didn't drop a lot compared to the three previous quarters. Now, for P&C side, thanks to the investment and also insurance growth, profit improved by 74%, with absolute record high numbers. For P&C business, you can see we continue to focus on profitability, we continue to manage our business. Our combined ratio improved by 1 percentage point. If we look at the profits of P&C business, we saw continued assets under investment and investment yield was better than the market benchmark. For life side. Now, influenced by the calculation of liabilities, and also if we look at the calculation methods, we are quite prudent. This will impact the profit numbers for the year.
However, if we look at the longer term numbers, the long-term ROE is still quite good compared to peers. On the whole, if we look at the insurance business, CPIC, we focus on profit growth to improve business mix and also to improve service and operation. Our profitability continue to grow and our insurance business actually will not give us a lot of uncertainty or fluctuation because of the business changes. Last year, our insurance delivered a solid and stable performance and numbers. If we look at the group as a whole, we will continue to focus on SAA based on our liability and asset profile to continue to improve our investment capability across cycles.
Given the tolerance of our risks, we will properly increase share of equity assets. You can see our performance continue to outrun the market. Last year, actually, the performance improved by 47% for this particular segment. You see a lot of volatilities, of course, on the bigger market. If we look at the longer term, we believe we'll have a more and a fuller picture, a better picture. Thanks to the growth of investment and the insurance business, we can maintain stable stability of our finances. The amortization of our margins, CSM, actually give a lot underpinning to our OPAT. You'll see our business size grows for our P&C business. Our life side, you can see a combination of factors to actually contribute to our growth of profits.
We can see the product mix is changing, the CSM margin is growing, but there will be some challenges going forward. On the whole, the whole industry is focusing more on quality growth. There are various regulatory requirements, for example, filing integrity, et cetera. On the whole, quality will be given more importance for the whole industry. We will focus on our core KPIs to improve our profitability capability, so as to maintain the stability of our profit numbers. Thank you.
Well, let's continue with our Hong Kong side.
Well, thank you. I'm from Huatai Securities. Two questions. Number one, we talk about the big health. We move it, upgrade it to health plus elderly care. Now, what's the difference? What's your strategic concerns? And what are the specific plans for the future?
Second question about investment. A lot of volatility in Q1 this year, and actually your allocation in equity assets improved but still lower than your peers. So these two factors, volatility on the market and also you're lower than peer equity allocation. So what's your next move? Are you going to increase the percentage or bring it down? Are you going to focus more on growth or more on, well, I mean, dividend paying?
Well, thank you. I will answer your question about the health. Now, I believe you care about two issues. Number one, are we going to stick with our strategy and how are we going to upgrade it? Elderly care and health is a big issue for Chinese people. Last five years, we focused on customer needs. For health insurance area, in 2020 we issued this kind of a Lan Yi Bao, CPIC Blue long-term healthcare. We improved our protection and also our services. Now, are we offering good products? Well, maybe we can ask AI for this question.
Now, I just type in the question. Please advise or recommend top two health insurance products. Well, now here's the reply from the AI. It's called Doubao. Now, Lan Yi Bao from CPIC was the first recommendation. Now, the advantages or the unique features is because it is a 20-year long-term product. There will be no deductibles. It's more flexible. You can get either 90%, 70% reimbursement given different schemes. SA is quite high, CNY 6 million in total, CNY 4 million for the mid-range plan. We also pay for allowance for hospitalization. You can be up to 70 years old and still be eligible for the product. The premium. Well, actually, I'll give you a premium estimate. It costs just CNY 300 for a year.
The second recommendation is another product from CPIC. Now you can use AI to check it out. The Lan Yi Bao or the CPIC long-term health product, well, we have served more than three million customers. I mean, the product is very good. For the pension or the elderly care, we launched a lot of, for example, the Jinshouanqing pension product. You know, we are constantly improving the product. Our investment focus on, I mean, on the relative strengths of our investment managers for equity investment and the fixed income investment. The product, Jinshouanqing , has become, well, actually our biggest product for this segment. The total investment scale was CNY 60 billion. For elderly care, we launched a CPIC Home in 2021.
For example, we can also offer specialized products for those with cognitive disabilities. As of now, for CPIC Home, we actually see a lot of customers competing for our care, for our service, because we offer very good elderly care for those with cognitive disabilities. We also launched the Taiyi Guanjia , CPIC online doctor consultation platform. We would just say we've been doing a lot over the past few years. We also launched this kind of Yi Pei Tong tool, online tool, so as to improve the experience of employee health checkup. We also launched another project so that customers can get remote health check, health examination if they get injured in a car accident.
Our Taiyi Guanjia helped customers to reduce their health risks so that we'd not only pay out claims, but also manage health for our customers. Now, our big health strategy is now upgraded to health plus elderly care strategy. We are launching various initiatives recently. For example, we now have this kind of integrated approach. For the group side, we launched a elderly care organization. We have set up organizations on the HCO side level and also branch level. This kind of a long-term mechanism can give better support to business expansion. Secondly, we focus more on the integration of insurance plus service. We are going to improve the business growth and also enhance service capability. We have launched quantitative targets for the next five years.
Given the specific features of this nature of this business, we have set up a comprehensive KPI system. We also look whether how we can better integrate the service provider with the insurance provider. We're going to focus on more specific, more specialized services. Focus on more on capability to provide professional services. We focus on light asset model. For example, home stay health care, long-term nursing care will be a focus. We are also going to improve and promote long-term medical service over the Internet. That's remote service over the Internet. I believe we need to stick to our strategy. We need to upgrade our strategy. Combined, we can deepen, further deepen our health and elderly care business so as to better serve our elderly customers. Thank you.
Well, thank you very much for your attention or your interest in our asset management business. We have a lot of challenges, to be honest. You see, last year, we see a lot of big trends in China. Macroeconomy in China, we see quite well promising results. A-share and H-share saw very big growth, especially for high-tech companies. Now, given this kind of a judgment, we believe we improved our SAA and the TAA, improved our increased share of our equity asset allocation. But of course, we need to make it clear that on the whole, on one side, our investment yield is impacted by the fair value changes of our assets, which is expanding. Now, this kind of volatility is becoming bigger. How will it affect our investment yield for the long term? I believe we need more time to refine our understanding. On the other hand, equity, the share of equity investment.
I will not say we are lagging behind our peers or that others are ahead of us. I wouldn't say that. It's not saying that we are leading others or lagging behind others. I wouldn't say that. I mean, compared to peers, we are more prudent on, in terms of the share of our equity assets. I believe we believe the better yields, be it net investment yield, total investment yield, or comprehensive investment yield. CPIC, we are at least better than the market average or peers average, or actually near the top of the market, above the average. I believe we can better withstand the adjustment of those investments. I would say after adjusting for risk, we believe we offered a better solution.
We have already set up SAA based on ALM and the risk profiles. We have set up this kind of basic model. We also look at our models and also predictions for the capital market. Under guidance of SAA, we will deliver disciplined and flexible TAA. We will adopt, continue with our dumbbell strategy going forward. The market and also the macro economy trends will be like that. CPIC will, of course, first of all, be aligned or respond to the regulator's requirements and also look at the nature of the long-term insurance funding. For SAA, our percentages will be based on our liability profile. We will make it more sophisticated. We will share it. Well, we'll try to share. We'll make sure to take a share of the investment opportunities.
For our dividend payout strategy, we believe it is very stable. It is for the long term. I believe it is a good indication. Based on this kind of underlying assets, investors can get dividend payout. You get a win in this area, and also you get a capital return, and you also get resilience. You can protect against risk if you are investor of CPIC. Also you see our strategies covers AI and also health and elderly care and other some other key areas.
Well, thank you. Now maybe we have another question from Hong Kong side.
Well, thank you. Thank you for this opportunity. I'm [inaudible] from Morgan Stanley. First of all, it's a question on strategy because CPIC is a group company, and Mr. Zhao also mentioned about synergy for CPIC. Could you give more details? What will be the most important focus areas for advancing group-based management?
The second question is about the P&C business. Actually, you also mentioned a little bit. You mean NEV business you see in faster growth and also better profitability. This is for the auto business. But non-auto. Non-auto, what's your outlook for the non-auto business for 2026? For the NEV business, is there any more risk, I mean, more risk events for the second half of 2025?
Well, thank you. I'll answer your first question. Now, as a publicly listed public company, we believe synergy is always key. We need to turn it to transform our integrated structure into core competitiveness. I believe we have already established a core structure framework for collaborative development in recent years. I would say, first of all, we have a multidimensional collaborative governance structure already. We have built an integrated collaboration framework spanning the group, the branch, and subsidiaries. With clear planning and performance incentives and standardized process, we ensure that collaboration is systematic, driven, and actionable. The philosophy of one CPIC synergy for growth has taken roots.
Secondly, diversified business collaboration model continue to expand. For example, for agency channel, we have this kind of multidimensional P&C life, health, and the health and elderly care service synergy model. P&C and life collaborate in both directions. We also have P&C sales and life model. We also have this kind of deepened integration of P&C and the health and elderly care service by leveraging our health and elderly care ecosystem, offering customers integrated insurance plus health and elderly care service solutions. For corporate business, we also are building innovative ecosystems. Thirdly, we have integrated digital operating capabilities. We share product and service resources, from standardization towards customization.
We saw deeper integration. For example, we built a one-stop comprehensive service platform for corporate customers so that direct service to the employees of our strategic customers can be provided. To summarize, over the past five years, the number of customers holding multiple policies improved by 40%. We have more strategic customers. By the end of 2025, the total number of strategic customers reached 1,040. Business momentum remains strong, with insurance, annuity, and third-party asset management all growing at rates above group's overall average.
Looking ahead, we will continue to advance towards the goal of integrated service with one interface for one customer. We move from business collaboration to customer-centric collaboration and ultimately to achieve ultimate strategic synergy. We will play a more active role to deliver more comprehensive risk protection for the real economy and public welfare. First of all, we will drive synergies through strategic guidance to provide customer with more comprehensive insurance coverage and service so that we can offer this kind of integrated insurance solutions covering the entire industry chain and the life cycle so that customer can get better experience.
Secondly, we'll leverage digital transformation to enhance synergy using technology to boost efficiency. We will build a smart platform. We will share and analyze big data to identify the features of our products and services. We will use AI+ to empower agents and service specialist to enhance their skills and professionalism. Thirdly, we will strengthen synergies through mechanism innovation, embed a culture of collaboration into our DNA. We will refine a market-driven mechanism for responsibility and incentive sharing across all levels. We need to embed into our culture and turning the groupwide advantage into CPIC's long-term moat or our long-term competitive edge. Thank you.
Thank you. Let me answer your second question. First of all, you see, for the P&C business, first of all, NEV, New Energy Vehicle business, last year, our income was more than CNY 11 billion for this segment. It was up by 5.6% year-on-year. I would say NEV business grow faster than the auto business as a whole. That's thanks to our preparation beforehand and also to better improve our NEV business. We collaborate with automakers. We also utilize our AI, our digitalization, and also we have improved our team. I would say for the whole, the cost of business improved a lot.
For passenger NEVs, the profitability is stabilizing. Going forward, I would say the replacement effect of NEV business will continue. We are going to build a ecosystem for the whole life cycle of NEV. Two things in particular. Number one, in terms of improving operation efficiency, we will continue to improve our online application, online claims payment, improve these and so as to have a integrated offering combining application, servicing, and claims. Currently, we have covered our main auto brands. We're going to further improve it.
Secondly, in terms of claims management, we will look at the specific brands and look at the losses. You know, for example, the repair of their batteries for NEVs and for example, to how to repair those vehicles being damaged by water, et cetera. We are going to use AI to determine the claims payout. We have got more data for our NEVs. I would say these things actually help us to reduce the losses.
Now, in terms of building the ecosystem, we are improving different products for smart driving and battery charging. We have been involved in the setting of industry standards for NEVs. Also, we will align ourselves to national strategies and also auto. For example, automaker going abroad. We helped in this regard. We actually export-supported technology. We helped leading automakers in China to expand in Thailand, in Vietnam. We sold them policies there. For example, we have provided coverage for 22,000 new vehicle new NEV vehicles abroad, selling abroad.
Going forward, we'll continue all these collaboration and improvements. We also hope that we can better enhance our service capabilities. Now, the second issue, for non-auto business. I would say. Also you talked about the credit guarantee insurance. I would say 2025, by the end of 2025, now Chinese regulator NFRA issued new notices on non-auto business. Of course, we paid a lot of attention to this new piece of regulation. We enhanced the risk management and also strengthened the management so as to better manage non-auto business. As of now, we have already completed the filing of relevant products and the improved optimization of relevant system.
Going forward, we will continue to comply with business, for example, looking at rates regression and the dynamic adjustment, et cetera. As of this February of this year, our combined ratio, expense ratio improved. On the whole, I would say this kind of long-term management is better, is conducive to improve the competition on the market. Actually, expense driven is now moving towards technology driven and service needs driven, service driven. For this year, we're going to focus on new areas and also national strategies so that we can seize upon this kind of a good growth opportunities.
For example, low altitude aviation and other kind of emerging areas, AI, digital technology areas. We will also look at medical opportunities, dual carbon opportunities. This kind of areas are closely related to people's well-being, so that we can expand the areas of our growth and also at the same time continue to improve our efficiency and services so that the quality and efficiency of business can both improve.
Now, I would say we expect that for 2026, the non-auto business will see steady growth in terms of premiums income. For 2025, the credit guarantee business, we actually we proactively adjusted the size of the business. We are very resolute about the adjustment. After the adjustment, now the assets or risk exposure in question reduced. By the end of 2026, I believe the impact from credit guarantee insurance will be eliminated. For 2026, the impact from this will be very small. It will not impact our overall business operation. That's just for your information.
Well, thank you. Now, let's welcome more questions from Shanghai.
Well, thank you. I'm Tong Chengdun from CITIC Securities. Well, I would say we're satisfied with your annual report. You actually delivered a lot. Now I have two questions. We have seen in your slides, you mentioned a lot about the operation or business of high-end customers. For bank channel, your 41% of customers are high-end for the bank channel. Of course, you folks talk about private bank. You have a lot of strength in this regard for the high-end customers. Now, but my question is, what's your strength in terms of serving high-end customers? How are you going to further solidify your advantages in high-end customer operation so that it can be a main driving force for your future growth?
Secondly, AI is a key word nowadays. Now, CPIC, you also spend a lot of money in AI. But my question is, what's your plan for your investment in AI? How are you going to gauge the effectiveness of AI? Because it's an open source era now. What is your capability of your AI compared to peers or compared to tech giants? Do you have an advantage? How are you going to focus on AI priorities?
Well, thank you for your question on AI and also on the first question. Now, if we look at the growth of CPIC Life, we focus on customer always. Of course, also focus on agents and also our service. We continue to improve our customer mix, customer structure, and I believe we delivered good results over the past few years. Now, to be specific, number one, we have a differentiated segments for customers. For different segments of customers, we have differentiated strategies so that we can have this kind of sophisticated management.
We share a lot of data, we gather a lot of data, we try to use data to identify the business opportunities so as to improve customer value. We offer this kind of high-end club services so that customers can have a better experience. We don't want just a one-off transaction. We want a long-term relationship with our customers. This kind of differentiated segmented management through this, we saw improvement in our customer mix. For example, the share of our mid- to high-end customer improved year-on-year. For agency channel, it improved by 5.1%, and for bank channel, it improved by around 8%. This is especially true for high-net-worth individual customers. Of course, we make well customer profiles, detailed profile. For example, more of our customers are females.
Average age 45.7 years old. A lot of our customers came from this kind of big cities. We also found that customers pay more attention to themselves. More than 70% of the policies were taken for themselves. That for their families, I mean, decreased a little bit. Now going forward, we have further initiatives. To be specific, number one, we will refine our model to better reach our customers. We will look more at the local realities. We will actually focus on the whole life cycle of the customers. Secondly, we will generate a lot of content, generate a lot of tools to match customer needs to improve customer stickiness. Thirdly, we're going to use WeChat to reach customers, to maintain old customers, identify, to source new customers.
Fourthly, we'll use AI technologies or digital technologies to review the customers, diagnose the customers, and recommend a proposal to customers all using digital tools so that all these can be recorded, can be checked, monitored on a real-time basis, on a regular basis, so that we can generate our competitive edge in terms of managing high-end customers. Now, the second question. We actually invest a lot in AI. This year, our investment in AI actually doubled from last year. According to our plan, our investment in AI CAGR, compound growth rate will be at least 40%. If we look at a wider caliber, it will be even higher. Now, anyway, first of all, we have already put down the AI structure.
We also used DeepSeek and some other large language models. Actually, last year, we utilized the service for more than 270 million times, and we have already developed enterprise-level AI agent. We have a capability for this kind of a large LLM model interaction, image interaction, image handling. Last year, we have also come up with AI applications. Actually, 129 applications using AI covered a lot of scenarios and also 150,000 agents. For example, health insurance claims and agent coaching and anti-fraud assistant, et cetera, claims investigation, et cetera.
Now, going forward, our AI+ will be one of our three major strategies. We have this kind of so-called 633 strategy. That is to focus on six main scenarios. For example, empowering agents. Now, the KPI is per-agent productivity improvement. Secondly, be integrated into operation, into all procedures. KPI in this area is the reduction of management expense or management overhead. First, certainly is the enhancement of customer service. The KPI is NPS improvement. Fourthly, there is the protection coverage. KPI is the premium income. Fourthly, expanding investment using AI. Now the KPI is the investment yield effective growth. Sixthly, empower risk management and improve risk management capability. KPI is the total amount of risk reduction.
Now, and also we would say we need to have a collaboration and a synergy and develop our competitive edge. For example, we're going to collaborate with Huawei and Alibaba, so as to develop better tools, to better train our models, and so that we can better utilize our own strengths to develop our knowledge base, knowledge library, to build our technology capability. Thirdly, we are going to develop our decision-making or improve decision-making mechanism. We can make sure that our planning is up-to-date and constantly improved.
Of course, we also pay attention to security, to the management of risks. The AI application will be managed at a differentiated approach. We train our people in terms of AI so that our people will possess this capability to use AI. They will become professional in using AI. We have come up with the new targets and the plans. We have this kind of AI lists for both the group and also for subsidiaries and the branches. This, we're going to focus on AI so that we can be more advanced in this regard based on our blueprint and the development plan so as to better serve the business of the whole group.
Given the time, I believe we only have an opportunity for the last question.
Thank you for this opportunity. First of all, congratulations on your good performance. Now, my question is that, you see your, for example, your NBV grew very fast in Q4, 2025. Now, what's your outlook for this? For NBV growth for 2026. Second question. Now, you talk about dividend, for example. Your dividend proposal of CNY 1.15 per share this year, and also, you know what? That exceeds both the growth rate of operating profit in 2025 and last year's dividend per share. You also propose an interim dividend authorization for the first time. How should we expect the company's dividend policy and capital refreshing cycle to evolve?
Thank you for your first question and second question. The first one is about NBV. No, I believe you have conducted thorough research into our company. Now, because you talked about the quarterly NBV growth. Now, for 2025 Q4, our NBV grew quite fast. If we look at it's mainly because of the new business size and also n ew business margin also improved. That's on the face of it, but we also have some more underlying factors. First of all, we had a change of thinking. For example, for Q4, usually that would be a low season, right? It's not a peak season. It's a slow season for most companies. But for CPIC, we made a change of thinking. We focused on this kind of a smooth effect or the even distribution across different quarters. So we act accordingly.
For example, we improve the training of our team after a new product is launched. So this drove up the size of our business. Secondly, using AI, our agency product production improved. The conversion also improved. Thirdly, we continue to improve product mix and strictly manage efficiency to bring down the expense and comply with regulatory requirements. So that answers the first question. Looking ahead for 2026, the whole industry is focusing on quality. The agency channel is the same. We are focusing more on quality. So I believe the agency team will become more professional. Using AI, we're going to refine our procedure and processes. The bank channel also have this kind of a strategic opportunity with better improved product mix. You see bigger share of our regular pay premium business and also high margin business.
Our customers are getting better experience because of the using of digital tools. Regulatory changes focusing more on the integrity of product filing so that, well, I mean, the competition is healthier across the industry. We will seize upon these opportunities. I believe for 2026, the NBV will deliver stable growth for the whole year. If we look at the drivers, number one, digital utilization. We will improve segmented management of our customers so as to better improve the maximization of customer value. We have made two upgrades. Number one, in terms of positioning, AI will become a tool. It's not only a tool, but it's more like a procedure to empower the front-end people. It will become customer-centered rather than function-centered.
Second, about product. Product offering will be enriched. We will transform our products. We'll focus on the good quality of our business. We'll focus, for example, on long-term care for disabled people. Thirdly, we are going to have our diversified channel distribution channels. For agency, we are going to make it more professional with better digital support. We focus on, well, high performance and improve efficiency. For bank channel, we'll deepen collaboration with banks to develop differentiated or our unique strengths. For example, we are going to accelerate this kind of employer or work site marketing so that we can improve the source of our business and also quality of business.
P&C side, we are going to focus on the quality of our products, the margin of products, so that we can have a better new business value.
Now, let me answer your second question. We always pay a lot of attention to customer return. We introduced a medium and long-term dividend policy linked to operating profit, and also we launched this kind of a new authorization of interim dividend put forward by the board. Now, these measures further refine our shareholder return mechanism, optimized the dividend rhythm, and enhanced the predictability of shareholder returns and external uncertainties. The board proposed a CNY 1.1 dividend per share. That's 6.5% up year-over-year and above the average growth rate of operating profit by 0.4 percentage points.
Now you see, this kind of policy can effectively mitigate the increased volatility in net profit and thus dividend uncertainty for listed insurers. This allows investors to reasonably assess potential dividend returns by tracking insurers' long-term development potential, and also management can focus more on building internal growth, strengthen sustainable growth generation, earnings realization, risk control, et cetera. We want to properly reflect the positive contribution of investment performance and addressing investment concern.
If shareholders approve the authorization, the board will be able to determine and implement the 2026 interim dividend based on company's actual performance in the first half of the year. I would say that interim dividend is an integral part of the company's annual profit distribution. We'll continue to implement our medium and long-term dividend policies. We will take into account the total annual dividend payout and also business current performance and full year business needs. We hope that we can build a clearer, more stable, and a normalized shareholder return mechanism to send a strong signal to the market about our commitment to steady operations.
Continuing the general mandate is a normalized arrangement made by the board. As the 15th Five-Year Plan formally begins, CPIC must further seize capital market opportunities amid a complex and increasingly uncertain environment. We will refine our market-driven capital replenishment mechanism, enhance forward-looking nature of capital management, and strengthen the capital buffer so as to effectively safeguard against risks from market volatilities. Last year, we issued HKD 15.6 billion in H-share convertible bonds, leveraging the general mandate mechanism. We believe this will help optimize group's capital management framework and strengthen its long-term strategic development.
Now, that's the end of the Q&A. You see, in line with CSRC's guideline number 10 on supervision of listed companies, I would make a statement. 2025 is the company's first year building a structured approach to market value management. also we approved our first market value management system. We also rolled out, in terms of the implementation, we did a lot of work. For example, we strengthened our value creation.
Now, actually, Mr. Zhao has mentioned it. for 2025, we remain steady to pursue our profitable growth. We continue to enhance our capabilities and the competitive edge. Now, secondly, in terms of value creation, we continue to deliver our disclosure. We have a lot of, Capital Market Day, roadshow, et cetera, to deliver, to disclose all sorts of information, to continue to improve, actually disclosing of non-financial market, non-financial information.
Also in terms of our business performance, we utilize our strategies using well-proven logic to better price our shares. Now, of course, we utilized various opportunities for example AI+ and also big health, elderly care, these kind of new areas. Now, all these are in order to improve our value creation. Now, we also actually gathered some information from some questions from retail investors. Now, this covered the dividend plan, the strategy for life and P&C business, and also the equity investment strategy.
Now, I believe we have already covered these questions. Now, meanwhile, the short-term stock fluctuations may occur due to various factors. However, we remain steady. We're committed to stable operations and delivering sustainable returns to shareholders. We welcome investors' feedback on our market value management.
Now, given the time, i f you have some other questions, you can contact our IR team. Now, that's the end of this results announcement. Thank you for your participation and thank you for your times. Thank you. Bye-bye.