Fanhua Inc.
Q4 2020 Earnings Call Transcript

Published: 17 Mar 2021

[Operator:]

Thank you for standing by for Fanhua's Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2020 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent background noise. After the management's prepared remarks there will be a question-and-answer session . For your information, this conference call is now being broadcast live over the Internet. Webcast replay will be available within 3 hours after the conference is finished. Please visit Fanhua's IR website at ir.fanhuaholdings.com under the Events & Webcasts section. Today's conference is being recorded. If you have any objections, you may disconnect at this time. I would now like to turn the meeting over to your host for today's conference, Ms. Oasis Qiu, Fanhua's Investor Relations Manager.

[Oasis Qiu:]

Good morning. Welcome to our fourth quarter and full year 2020 earnings conference call. The earnings results were released earlier today and are available on our IR website as well as on Newswire. Before we continue, please note that the discussion today will contain forward-looking statements made under the Safe Harbor provisions of the U.S. Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. The accuracy of the statements may be impacted by a number of business risks and uncertainties that could cause our actual results to differ materially from those projected or anticipated. Such risks and uncertainties include, but not limited to, those outlined in our filings with the SEC, including our registration statement on Form 20-F. We do not undertake any obligation to update this forward-looking information, except as required under applicable law. Joining us today are our Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Chunlin Wang; Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge. Mr. Wang will provide a review of our financial and operating highlights in fourth quarter and fiscal year 2020. There will be a Q&A session after the prepared remarks. Now, I will turn the call over to Mr. Wang.

[Chunlin Wang:]

Thank you for joining us on today's conference call. Here with me, we have our Chief Financial Officer, Mr. Peng Ge, and our Board Secretary, Lily Lee. On today's call, I will share with you our new strategy initiatives and some key progress, followed by our financial forecast for 2021. Mr. Ge and I will take your questions after the report. Part one, in 2021 while the China's life insurance industry was hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, Fanhua will still protect and maintain healthy development. In 2020, despite the continued challenges from COVID-19, Fanhua accomplished another major milestone with our gross written premiums on regular life insurance business exceeding RMB10 billion, representing a year-over-year growth of 16.3% and our operating profit reaching RMB300 million. In the fourth quarter of 2020, the gross written premiums of our regular life insurance business increased 21% year-over-year to RMB2.9 billion, operating profit reached RMB71.9 million, exceeding our previous expectations. Now to our strategy assessment. First, although the growth of China's life insurance market slowed down in '20 due to the impact from COVID-19 pandemic, we still believe that China's life insurance industry will maintain a long-term rapid growth trends unchanged. And that the development of insurance intermediaries will be faster than that of the insurance industry as a whole.

[Operator:]

Our first question comes from the line of Chi Chung from CICC. Please ask your question.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Two questions from Chi Chung, CICC. The first question is with regard our guidance on the GWP of our regular life insurance business in the first quarter, which sounds quite strong growth. She's wondering whether this strong performance is due to the transition of the critical illness definition framework. And then after the new critical illness framework transition in February the 1st, how is the sales of the new critical illness products so far?

[Chunlin Wang:]

Firstly, in the first quarter, after the new critical illness Fanhua take effects, the jumpstart sales compounds in the first quarter. And the industry has actually been performing pretty well. Largely thanks to the transition of the critical illness Fanhua transition. And for us, for Fanhua, we believe that we have been outperforming the industry. It has been an industrial norm that each time after a major regulation or a policy issue, which resulted a change to insurance products. It will have of cause a huge impact on the industry. We do expect that after the transition of the critical illness framework, it will probably take the industry some time to fully recover. We've been proceeding with the transition of the products schedule, and we've been making preparations for our next marketing campaigns, which is in April and June and May. For the next marketing campaign, our major products will focus on annuity and whole life products, while we will also make efforts to educate our customers on the new critical illness products. Thank you.

[Unidentified Analyst:]

Thank you.

[Operator:]

There's no more question at this time. Our speakers you may continue.

[Chunlin Wang:]

Thank you for joining us on today's conference call. If you have any further questions, please feel free to contact us. Thank you.

[Operator:]

Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.