Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to Huize Holding Limited First Quarter 2022 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the management's prepared remarks, we will have a question and answer session. Today's conference call is being recorded, and a webcast replay will be available. Please visit Huize's IR website at ir.huize.com under the Events and Webcasts section. I'd now like to hand the conference over to your speaker host today, Ms. Harriet Hu, Huize's Investor Relations Director. Please go ahead, Harriet.
Thank you, operator. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our earnings conference call for the first quarter of 2022. Our financial and operating results were released earlier today and are currently available on both our IR website and the Newswire. Before we continue, I would like to refer you to the safe harbor statement in our earnings press release, which also applies to this call as we will be making forward-looking statements. Please also note that we will discuss non-GAAP measures today, which are more thoroughly explained in our earnings release and filings with the SEC. Joining us today are our Founder and CEO, Mr. Cunjun Ma, COO, Mr. Li Jiang, Co-CFO, Mr. Minghan Xiao, and Co-CFO, Mr. Ronald Tam. Mr. Ma will start the call by providing an overview of the company's performance and operational highlights for the first quarter of 2022. Mr. Tam will then provide details on the financial results for the period before we open up the call for questions. I will now turn the call over to Mr. Ma.
Hello, everyone.
Harriet,
Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining Huize's first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. In the first quarter, Huize's business results demonstrated strong resilience despite a challenging operating environment caused by the ongoing pandemic, softening insurance demand in China due to economic uncertainty, and the impact of the tightening industry regulations. Thanks to the solid foundation we have established in past years, total gross written premiums, or GWP, facilitated on our platform remained fairly stable at CNY 1.3 billion during the period, despite a high base for comparison in the first quarter of last year. In terms of product mix, we have maintained a strong competitive edge in long-term insurance products. In the first quarter, GWP contribution of long-term insurance products remained above 90% for the 10th consecutive quarter.
Renewal premiums increased by 113.9% year-over-year to RMB 1.1 billion, providing steady cash flow for us to withstand times of economic downturn and market volatility. As we continue to grow our client base, we have maintained a high-quality user profile. As of March, our cumulative number of insurance clients reached 8 million, representing a quarter-over-quarter increase of approximately 495,000. In the first quarter, roughly 63.7% of our long-term insurance customers were from higher tier cities, with an average age of 33.5.
In the first quarter, our average persistency ratios for long-term life and health insurance in the 13th and 25th month have sustained at the industry high level of 94%. In terms of first year premiums, the average ticket size of savings products was approximately CNY 29,000 in the first quarter.
截至一季度末，我们与一百多家的保险公司保持了稳定的合作关系。尽管互联网人身险新规的正式落地，对产品供给侧造成了短期冲击，得益于提前部署线下和久经验证的产品定制开发的实力，我们的产品供应链快速恢复。三月以来陆续上线了新守护、汇鑫安2022等定制的重疾险产品，金银年年等定制储蓄险产品。一季度，定制产品的保费占比了69.2%，较去年同期提升了8.2个百分点。另一方面，我们与保险公司合作为客户提供线下储蓄型的产品。不仅如此，在产品的供应趋稳的基础上面，我们进一步完成了定制产品的体系升级，从寿险和健康险扩大了全线，扩大至全险种的定制，致力于通过客户群分群及产品分层，落实精细化经营。六月，我们全新上线了四款定制产品，覆盖重疾、医疗、储蓄、意外四大类险种，包括重疾险守卫者5号、医疗险健康翼守护、储蓄险金智启航、意外险孝心安2022，从多次赔、年龄放宽等角度，强化了对老、中、少三类人群的需求满足。
At the end of the third quarter, we have cooperated with 100 insurer partners. Besides the expected short-term impact of the new regulations on the supply of online insurance products. Our supply chain has covered quickly, thanks to the State, we took in time to strengthen our offline presence and our proven capabilities in products in product innovation and development. Since March, we have launched several customized critical illness products such as Jin Zhi Qi Hang and Hui Xin An 2022, as well as customized savings product such as Jin Zhi Qi Hang. In the first quarter, GWP for our customized products accounted for 69.2% of total GWP, up 8.2 percentage points year-over-year. At the same time, we have co-developed offline savings products with our insurer partners. In addition, we have extended our customized product line to a wide spectrum beyond life and health insurance customization. It allows us to refine our product management through more precise customer and product segmentation.
For instance, we launched four new customized products, including a critical illness product, Guardian Number 5, and the medical insurance product, 健康翼守护, a savings product, 金智启航, and an accident insurance product, 孝心安2022. These customized products have unique features such as the introduction of multiple plans and the relaxation of age requirements, which has helped us satisfy the protection needs of the elderly, the middle-aged, and the younger generations alike.
我们持续在科技输出业务端取得了进展，目前已经服务了头部的大型保司、中型保司、新型保司的数字化转型，深度参与了包括太平人寿和长城人寿在内的保司数字化加速引擎、买点体系、客户画像等项目。与此同时，我们不断地推陈出新，收获了市场的一致肯定。三月，凭借着强科技能力和高服务水平，慧择获评二零二二年最受用户信赖的互联网保险科技平台之一。四月，依托自有的大数据和科技化优势，我们推出了全新的数字化核保系统，致力于打破保险供给和保障需求的信息不对称壁垒，从健康管理、再次核保及保险推荐等方面，一站式解决慢病人群的购买保险难题。五月，慧择数科通过了DCMM三级的认证，数字管理运营能力获得了权威认可。
On our technology service business front, we have continued to make solid progress and our clients already include the likes of large, mid-size, and emerging insurance companies who come to us for assistance with their digital transformation needs. For example, we are deeply involved in the digital acceleration, tracking system, and customer profiling projects of our clients, including Taiping and Great Wall. In March, we have been named one of the most reliable Insurtech platforms for 2022, given our solid digital capabilities and high-quality service. In April, leveraging our proprietary big data analysis and technical advantages, we launched a new digital insurance underwriting system, minimizing the information asymmetry between insurance products and customers. The system aims to solve the problems chronic disease patients face in obtaining insurance by offering a one-stop solution that includes health management, re-underwriting, and insurance product recommendations.
Finally, in May, we obtained the data management capacity maturity assessment model, the DCMM Stable Class Level- 3 certification, one of the most authoritative certification systems for data management maturity in China, underscoring our industry-leading data management capabilities.
未来三年，我们将打造融合ABC端全渠道的数字化保险服务业务生态。在C端，我们将夯实慧择的基本盘，加速构建线上线下融合的全场景、全产品服务能力，发挥平台的数字化能力和利用好沉淀于平台的客户标签数据，驱动业务端客户洞察和价值客户的运营，持续挖掘客户在全生命周期里的保险需求，提升已交易用户的留存率，并通过老客户运营和转介绍机制推动裂变增长，优化获客成本。在B端，我们将加速保险科技的产品化，充分利用慧择商品供应平台和数字化工具云平台，提供数字化客户管理、智能核保风控和保险理赔支持，对保司进行赋能，进一步拓展收入来源。
Over the next three years, we have set a strategic roadmap to build an omni-channel digital insurance service ecosystem that integrates agents, businesses, customers. To customers, we will leverage our proven online platform with our expanding offline service coverage to deepen engagements with our high-value customers and offer them with a full range of insurance products across all scenarios. We will utilize the digital capabilities and multi-dimensional client data to drive customer insights and to serve our customers for their lifelong insurance needs. Moreover, we will continue to enhance retention and repeat purchase and to optimize our customer acquisition cost through customer referrals. To businesses, we will further drive industry digitalization by developing and offering our technology to insurance companies to support digital customer relationship management, underwriting risk management, and insurance claims, and further diversify our revenue streams.
在A端，我们将建立全新的业务线，以此为切入接口，深入线下，服务全国独立代理人和保险工作室，为慧择拓展新的增长曲线。2022年前五个月由A端业务线促成的保费已经达成了人民币3,000万元。同时，慧择首家独立代理人门店即将于三季度在深圳开业。我们相信，得益于产销分离的加快趋势、产品结构向年金等投资型产品转变，以及客户对独立顾问需求的提升，A端将迎来巨大的增量空间，而慧择将以好产品、高佣金、优服务、大品牌的差异化优势满足代理人的核心诉求，为其提供丰富的产品矩阵供应面、互联网获客能力、线上展业工具及服务体系等一站式解决方案，抓住线下增量市场释放的机会。
To Agent, we have established a new business line targeting independent offline insurance agents and workshops nationwide as a new growth driver. Total GWP facilitated by the 2A business reached RMB 30 million in the first five months of 2022. Meanwhile, we will open our first independent agent store in Shenzhen in the third quarter. With the long term industry trend of insurance product distribution by independent agents and brokers, the shift in product mix towards savings products such as annuities and increasing customer demand for independent insurance agents are providing tailwinds. We believe there will be huge room for growth in the 2A business. We will meet the needs of independent agents with our differentiated advantages of good products, high commission, excellent service and well-known brands.
We will empower them with a diversified online and offline insurance product matrix, digital business development tools, and customer service support through our core Huize platform.
回顾慧择的十六年，凭借对打造专业、可靠、温暖服务的坚持，我们赢得了累计超过六千万用户的信任和支持。下一阶段，我们希望打造中国最值得信赖的一站式数字保险服务平台品牌，致力于成为中国成长型中产阶级家庭的保险服务入口。
Over the past 16 years, we have won the trust of support of more than 60 million customers with our consistent, professional, reliable, and customer-friendly services. In our next stage, we will spare no effort to build the most trusted brand of one-stop online insurance platform and become the go-to insurance service portal for middle-class families in China.
接下来请我们的CFO Ronald给大家详细介绍一下业绩和财务数据。有请Ronald。
This concludes my prepared remarks for today. I will now turn the call over to our CFO, Mr. Ron Tam, and he will provide an overview of our key financial highlights for the first quarter of 2022.
Thank you, Mr. Ma and Harriet. Good evening, everyone. For this call, I would like to quickly recap a few highlights and takeaways from our first quarter 2022 results. For detailed discussions of financial line items, I would kindly refer you to our uploaded earnings release for full details. Overall, we are very pleased to report a set of resilient operating and financial results for the first quarter of 2022 in light of significant macroeconomic headwinds, a resurgence of Omicron in China, and the challenges brought by tightening regulatory measures in the industry.
In the first quarter, total gross written premiums or GWP remained fairly stable at RMB 1.3 billion, which represents a 4% year-over-year decrease, and that is despite a high base for comparison that was triggered by the transition to the new statutory definition of critical illness in the first quarter of last year. At the same time, first-year premiums or FYP reached RMB 260 million. Renewal premiums more than doubled to RMB 1.1 billion, and that reflects the continued high user stickiness of our customized long-term insurance products. One key highlight from the quarter results is that we have continued to co-develop long-term customized protection and savings products with our insurance partners.
One of the key challenges that we have expected going into the year 2022 was the disruption on the supply side of online insurance products due to the regulatory changes. As Mr. Ma has mentioned in his opening remarks, we have already made significant progress in replenishing the supply of products on our platform, and we have now a full suite of co-develop products covering long-term health, savings, and P&C products. In the first quarter, our platform offered 482 insurance products online. These efforts continue to help to drive GWP contribution of our long-term insurance products to be above 90% for the tenth consecutive quarter. The GWP contribution of our customized products also remained at a high level of 59.2% in the first quarter.
Our resilient performance operationally and financially continues to reflect the high quality of our 8 million strong customer base and the effective customer acquisition capabilities provided by our omni-channel distribution platform model. The two key operating metrics that demonstrate this strong point are the average ticket size of our long-term savings products and the persistency ratios for the renewals of our policies. The average FYP of our long-term savings products were well over CNY 29,000 in the first quarter of 2022. In the first quarter, our persistency ratios for in-force long-term life and health insurance policies renewals in the 13th and 25th months remained at 94% on average, a very high level compared to industry averages.
Our robust product innovation and customer acquisition capabilities have not only helped us strengthen our engagement and relationship with our upstream insurance companies, but also empowered us to maximize the lifetime customer value potential of our users. While our revenue for the quarter saw a temporary setback given the industry-wide weakness in FYP presentation amidst the adverse external factors and also the high base for comparison in Q1 of last year, this was more than offset by an overall improvement in our corporate cost structure. As we have mentioned in our previous earnings call, we expected the first half of 2022 to be a period of adaptation and transition for most players in the industry. At Huize, our first priority from a strategic financial management standpoint is to further drive improvements in our overall corporate cost structure and operating efficiencies.
We are pleased to report that following the implementation of our group-wide organizational structure optimization program, we have achieved a 59.7% decrease year-over-year in our total operating costs and expenses in Q1 to CNY 285 million. As such, we achieved a GAAP net profit attributable to shareholders of CNY 10.6 million in the first quarter of 2022.
As of the end of the first quarter, our combined balance of cash and cash equivalents was approximately RMB 380 million, demonstrating our ample liquidity and solid balance sheet position to withstand the current economic downturn and providing capital for further investment in business growth. In the first quarter, we have also repurchased an aggregate of approximately 339,300 ADSs or 10% of our approved mandate under the existing twelve-month share repurchase program. Going forward, we will continue to execute on the group-wide optimization program in Q2 with the goal of further reducing our fixed cost base to improve operating leverage upon business recovery. Based on our preliminary assessment of current market conditions, together with a macro recovery in the second half, we expect to achieve quarterly profit in the second half of this year. As Mr.
Ma mentioned, we have set out a strategic direction to build an omni-channel digital insurance service ecosystem that integrates agents, A, businesses, B, and customers, C, over the next three years. We believe our ABC strategy will provide us with tremendous opportunities to strategically allocate capital to enhance shareholder value and sustain a long-term business growth. This concludes our prepared remarks for today, and we will now open up the call to Q&A. Thank you, and over to you, operator.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, we will now begin the question and answer session. If you wish to ask a question now, please press star one on your telephone and wait for your name to be announced. If you wish to withdraw your request, please press the pound or hash key. Please stand by while we compile the question and answer roster. Once again, that's star one for questions. Our first question will come from the line of Amy Chen from Citigroup. Please go ahead.
Hi. Thank you management for letting me have the chance to ask a question, and I'll be asking question on behalf of Michelle today. The first question would be that, as management has mentioned earlier, there is a new regulation this year that has brought some short-term headwinds on the supply chain, on the supply side. Would you be able to share more color on how Huize has adapted to this new regulation? What was your strategy to better cope with the changes? Did you see any changes in terms of product line and in terms of channel mix? The second question would be on, can you give us some updates related to the second quarter operations? Thank you very much.
Okay. Thanks, Amy. It's Ron here. I'll take your questions. The first question regarding the impact on the regulatory changes starting from this year. I think that the regulatory changes have been absorbed by the market and industry. I guess three key points that I would like to you know answer in relation to this question would be that most importantly we have replenished our supply side with over 400 products as of first quarter of this year. That encompasses the full suite of products from long-term health, savings, and also property and casualty.
I think that the major concern that people have or the market has on the sector is that the disruption on the supply side on the online insurance product. I think that we have demonstrated that we have already made significant progress in replenishing the supply. Also recently last week we have upgraded our portfolio of customized products and that includes even an online version of annuity product I guess which is one of the first in the industry which we have co-developed with Heng An Standard Life which is a joint venture backed by Standard Life Aberdeen in the U.K. I think that this is all major milestones and significant concrete steps that we have been taking in terms of addressing the supply chain concerns.
So that's the first point I'd like to make. The second point is that with respect to the impact on the regulation, that's also a point about how the first year commissions or the first year premium commissions have been constrained about 60%, thereby affecting the economics of the policy for brokers like ourselves. I think that what we have achieved so far is that on our new for example critical illness product that we have co-developed with the insurance companies, we have now able to achieve a basically a lifetime value of the policy, which is basically the same as what we had been before the regulatory changes.
What that means is that the preset first year commission of 60% has been compensated by a higher second and third year renewal commission rates. Therefore, we have been able to maintain the lifetime value of the policy at roughly around 120%, which I think has been a major milestone again on the regulatory changes front. The third point I'd like to make is that we've also since the second half of last year actively going into the offline space. I think with that, we have been able to launch, you know, offline versions of the savings product that we have been co-developing with our insurance company partners, particularly with Hong Kong Life.
I think that has all been coming through in the second quarter of this year. I think we have been over the past two quarters able to adjust and adapt to the new regulatory regime, and then we have come out quite strongly with respect to the supply side of things, with respect to the online, offline presence, and services and products, and also the economic arrangements of the insurance companies. The second question regarding the Q2 guidance. I think, as we all know and the market's very well aware of, Q2 has been an extremely challenging period of time for the Chinese economy in general, with enforced lockdowns in major cities across the country.
With that kind of backdrop, I think it is very reasonable to expect a very weak Q2 in terms of operating performance. I think from a FYP perspective, we have been showing some sequential recovery because of the stride that we have made on replenishing the supply side on the online insurance products. However, we also see continued challenges and particularly with the lockdown situation. We also have less of an offset from the strong renewal policies contribution from the first quarter of this year, which was a result of this very strong quarter, first quarter of last year because of the critical illness definition regime change. I think that Q2 will be flattish year-over-year.
Correspondingly, I think that with the macro recovery that we expect in the second half of this year and with the economy coming back on stream, we do expect that we will be able to achieve a quarterly profit in the second half. Thank you.
Thank you very much. That was very clear.
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Mindy Gao from CLSA. Please ask your question.
Oh, hi. Thank you for taking my question, and this is Mindy from CLSA, and I got two questions. The first one is, as we see the resurgence of COVID outbreaks in the first half in China, and I just wonder how would that affect our business in the first half of 2022? My second question would be, as we noticed earlier that Huize has been included in the provisional list under HFCAA recently, and I'm just wondering what would be the impact and how does the management plan to deal with the potential risks of delisting? That's my two questions. Thank you.
Thank you, Mindy, for your questions and thanks for joining. Two questions. The first question on the COVID impact on the business. I think when I put it on two sides of things, right? I think first side of things would be from a business operational perspective. I think that we are not as affected by, you know, the emergence of COVID than maybe some of the more traditional offline agencies or brokerages because most of our activities are done online, as you know. However, I think that the more pertinent point to make is that the Omicron outbreak has really dampened income expectations of the average consumer in China.
I think that it also has unfortunately led to quite massive layoffs in the economy across different industries. I think that major you know impact of Omicron on the industry really has to do with the consumer's confidence and the consumer's ability or willingness to you know consume any insurance products, which, as we all know, insurance product is a non-essential item in a way. It's the most discretionary of all financial products available, compared to things like securities or you know fixed income product, I think.
Therefore, I think that the major impact Omicron has is on the demand side of the industry, and it has been very, very weak in the first two quarters, as we can also you know, take reference from the FYP numbers of the major insurers in China and also from the other brokerages and third-party intermediaries. That would be the answer to the first question. For the second question on HFCAA and the delisting risk, I think that the market has somewhat absorbed all of this news flow already by now. I think most of the Chinese companies that are listed in the U.S. ADR markets has already gone on this list.
I think, from the company standpoint, what we would like to make as a statement is that, you know, we continue to maintain our listing in the U.S., and we will take, you know, all the steps that is required to make sure that we will safeguard shareholders' interest and shareholder value. Obviously, we'll be looking into measures, including, you know, potential secondary or dual listing in Hong Kong in order to somehow hedge this risk of the delisting scenario.
I think that we also have been seeing some encouraging signs in the news, you know, reporting on the collaborative efforts between the two sides of the regulators' table, you know, from the China side or from the U.S. side in terms of progressing on the issues on on-site inspection of audits, et cetera. I think frankly, this is somewhat out of the corporation's level of control. We will remain, you know, optimistic on a resolution of the matter between the two sides. We, on our own level, will continue to take more measures in order to safeguard shareholders' interest.
Thank you.
Thank you.
That's very clear.
Thank you. As a reminder, if you wish to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. Thank you. As there are no further question, I'll turn the call back to Harriet for closing remarks.
Thank you, operator. In closing, on behalf of Huize's management team, we want to say thank you for your participation in today's call. If you require any further information, please feel free to reach out to us. Thank you for joining us today. This concludes the call.
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, that does conclude our conference for today. Thank you for participating. You may all disconnect.