From Premiums to Unsold Auctions: The Myth of Insurance Company Licenses Shattered

21st Century Business Herald reporter Lin Hanye, intern Tu Shengqing

Recently, the performance of insurance intermediary firms’ equity on judicial auction platforms has remained sluggish. The “insurance intermediary licenses,” once chased by capital, are now clearly cooling off.

Since March 2026, on Alibaba Assets’ judicial auction platform, multiple lots of insurance intermediary firms’ equity have entered the auction or liquidation process, including 10% equity of Shenzhen Sheng’an Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd., 100% equity of Baocheng Insurance Sales Co., Ltd., 90% equity of Guizhou Zhongyang Insurance Agency Co., Ltd., and others. Although some projects attracted quite a number of onlookers, there were not many people who actually registered to bid, and the phenomenon of failed auctions has occurred frequently.

From the “scarce resources” that capital once competed for several years ago, to today when even after repeated price cuts no one is interested, the insurance intermediary industry is moving from an early stage of “license dividend dependence” into a mature stage centered on capability and efficiency.

Regarding this change, Zhu Junsheng, a postdoctoral researcher and professor in applied economics at Peking University, believes this is not simply cyclical fluctuation, but a deep reshaping driven jointly by regulation, the market, and the structure of capabilities. In the short term, it is the exit of institutions and profit pressure. In the medium and long term, it is the process by which the industry evolves toward professionalization, centralization, and value creation.

“Intermediary firms that can truly get through the cycle will no longer rely on fee dividends, but will instead build sustainable long-term value by relying on customers, capabilities, and service,” Zhu Junsheng said.

Insurance intermediary equity goes cold

（Image source: Alibaba Assets platform）

Based on recent publicly available information, the cooling of insurance intermediary equity transactions is not a single case but a fairly common market phenomenon.

According to incomplete statistics, in the past two years, the failed-auction rate for insurance intermediary equity on the Alibaba Assets platform has exceeded 50%. Just since March 2026, at least five insurance intermediary firms’ equity have been placed on the auction block. Most of the starting prices have been in the range of several million yuan, and the overall market reaction has been muted.

Alibaba Assets’ public information shows that 10% equity of Shenzhen Sheng’an Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. was auctioned publicly in mid-March 2026. The starting price was 3.0336 million yuan, with 439 viewings and 0 registrations.

100% equity of Baocheng Insurance Sales Co., Ltd. will be liquidated on April 1 at a starting price of 6.3777 million yuan, with 501 viewings and 0 registrations.

90% equity of Guizhou Zhongyang Insurance Agency Co., Ltd. will be auctioned with a starting price of 3.0720 million yuan, which is already the second time this asset has been listed.

Jianjian Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd.’s 100% equity has been listed on the auction block for the 6th time this year. The starting price has been cut from 50 million yuan all the way down to 16.38M yuan.

（Image source: Alibaba Assets platform）

Some insurance intermediary firms that have been auctioned have shown signs of operational abnormality.

According to the auction announcement, Guizhou Zhongyang Insurance Agency has been included in the list of operational abnormalities. The issuance date of its “Insurance Intermediary License” is June 28, 2022. The announcement specifically notes: “Because the company has not been operating for a long time, no commitments are made regarding the validity or usability of this license.”

The auction introduction for Jianjian Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. shows: “According to feedback from Jianjian Digital Security Technology Group Co., Ltd., the 50 million yuan subscribed capital has not actually been paid in. Because it cannot be contacted through the registered residence or business premises, Jianjian Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. was added to the list of operational abnormalities on September 24, 2024.”

From the “license myth” to rational pricing

If we move the timeline back a few years, insurance intermediary licenses used to be a hot commodity in the capital markets.

Around 2017 to 2020, trading of insurance intermediary equity was once quite active. At that time, market quotations for nationwide insurance brokerage licenses generally reached 30 million to 40 million yuan. Failed auctions were rarely seen in the insurance intermediary equity auction market, and some high-quality assets could even be sold with a premium. For example, in 2017, Sichuan Jiaotou Chengtai Insurance Brokerage’s 20% shareholder equity had a starting bid of 2.61M yuan, and the final transaction price reached 4.31M yuan.

Behind this heat was the “license dividend.” On one hand, between 2018 and 2023, regulatory authorities suspended approvals for insurance intermediary licenses, tightening supply and making licenses highly scarce. On the other hand, at that time, the industry’s fee space was relatively large; “report-and-pay as one” had not yet been fully rolled out, and some intermediary institutions relied on commissions and fee spreads to generate substantial returns.

However, in just a few years, this situation has undergone a fundamental reversal. In an interview with reporters, Zhu Junsheng pointed out that recently, the price of insurance intermediary licenses has fallen from around 30 million yuan to about 10 million yuan, and equity transactions have frequently resulted in failed auctions, reflecting capital’s systematic reappraisal of license value.

This change first stems from a clear decline in license scarcity. Zhu Junsheng analyzed: “As industry concentration increases and channel policies are gradually unified, the role of license entry barriers weakens. The ‘easy profits’ or ‘channel value’ that the license carries declines significantly. The license is gradually returning from a ‘scarce asset’ to an ‘operating tool.’”

Second, Zhu Junsheng said, market profit expectations have also changed. Policies such as “report-and-pay as one” compress commission levels and fee space, lowering intermediaries’ short-term cash flow and expected investment returns, which directly affects the logic of capital pricing. In addition, investment logic has become more rational: the capital market has begun to pay more attention to intermediaries’ long-term operating capabilities, customer resources, and professional service capabilities, rather than merely holding the license itself.

Zhu Junsheng said that from an academic perspective, this change marks the industry’s transition from an early stage of “license dividend dependence” into a mature stage where capability and efficiency are core.

“Clean exits and quality improvement” accelerates industry clearing

The cooling of insurance intermediary equity auctions is closely related to the industry’s ongoing clearing in recent years.

On February 27, 2026, the National Financial Regulatory Administration disclosed that from 2024 to 2025, across the country, 3 insurance intermediary groups were ordered to be revoked and deregistered, and 57 insurance professional intermediary legal-person institutions were handled; 3,730 insurance professional intermediary branches were cleared out, along with 226 insurance tied-agency institutions. By the end of 2025, the number of insurance professional intermediary legal-person institutions had fallen to 2,513, down for 6 consecutive years.

The National Financial Regulatory Administration stated that next steps will focus on the main line of preventing risks, strengthening regulation, and promoting high-quality development. Regulators will solidly carry out insurance intermediary supervision, improve the regulatory system for insurance intermediaries, continue to advance in-depth the “clean exits and quality improvement” of insurance intermediaries, and optimize the market structure of insurance intermediaries.

In an interview, Zhu Junsheng further explained the deep impact of regulatory policies on intermediaries’ profit models. He pointed out that the change in current insurance intermediary profit models is essentially the industry’s transition from “extensive expansion” to “high-quality development,” driven mainly by three aspects: policy, market, and institutional capability.

First, from the policy perspective, regulatory policies represented by “report-and-pay as one” are reshaping intermediaries’ profit foundation. The commission structure, channel fees, and the transparency of the entire value chain have improved significantly. The model that previously relied on high commissions and fee-spread arbitrage can no longer be sustained. After fees are rigidly constrained, intermediaries can no longer obtain profits through “fee space,” but must rely on real service value and customers’ operating capabilities. In essence, this change pushes the industry from “fee-driven” to “capability-driven.”

Second, from the market perspective, requirements for insurance companies in multi-channel expansion, product differentiation, and cost control are continuously increasing, and competition in the market is gradually shifting from price-oriented competition to structural competition. Against this backdrop, profit space for intermediary channels is being compressed. Small and medium-sized institutions face clear profit pressure. When income cannot cover continuously rising compliance and operating costs, some institutions choose to exit, which becomes a rational outcome.

Third, from the institutions’ own capabilities, intermediary firms that lack customer operating capabilities, data accumulation, risk management, and digitization capabilities cannot sustain their business models. After fee dividends disappear, such institutions lack alternative competitive advantages, and their survival space is significantly narrowed.

Zhu Junsheng believes that some intermediaries are “hard to sustain” not due to a single policy shock, but as a result of the combined effects of tighter policies, market rationalization, and capability divergence. This clearing process helps promote optimization of industry structure, gradually moving the intermediary market toward professionalization and long-term value creation.

Capital shifts from “buying licenses” to “buying capabilities”

As many small and medium-sized intermediary institutions exit and license value shrinks, some industrial capital is still actively laying out insurance intermediary business, and industry differentiation is accelerating.

In the past two years, automakers’ moves in the insurance intermediary space have become increasingly frequent.

In 2025, BMW received approval to establish BMW (China) Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. Great Wall Motor entered the insurance intermediary market by acquiring Zhaoyin Insurance Brokerage (Beijing) Co., Ltd., and later renamed it to Laoyou Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd. Meanwhile, NIO, after completing its acquisition of Huiding Insurance Brokerage, renamed it to NIO Insurance Brokerage Co., Ltd.

Beyond automakers, large institutions with channel, scenario, or industrial-synergy advantages are also accelerating their layout. In November 2025, the National Financial Regulatory Administration approved and agreed that China Post Group carry out insurance agency business. Earlier, the relevant company under Chow Tai Fook Holdings had already completed the acquisition of all equity of Zhongjie Insurance Brokerage.

From the overall market performance, the business scale of insurance intermediary channels has not shrunk. Premium income still continues to grow. Data from the 2025 China Insurance Yearbook shows that in 2025, insurance intermediary channels achieved premium income of 5.1 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 5.9% on a comparable basis. Of this, premium income from the professional intermediary channels was 962.23 billion yuan, up 10.4%; and premium income from insurance tied-agency institutions was 1.74249 trillion yuan, up 4.5%.

However, the growth in premium income cannot conceal structural differentiation. Zhu Junsheng pointed out that intermediary institutions that still have attractive equity characteristics usually have the following traits: first, they have stable and sustainable customer resources (such as corporate customers or high-net-worth customers); second, they have professional service capabilities (such as risk management or industry solutions); third, they have some digitization capability or platform attributes; fourth, they form differentiated advantages in specific segments.

Zhu Junsheng emphasized that overall, capital entering the insurance intermediary industry is shifting from “buying licenses” to “buying capabilities.”

The industry moves toward professionalization, centralization, and value orientation

Against the backdrop of reshaped profit models and rising operating costs, insurance intermediary firms must find new growth drivers. Zhu Junsheng believes the core direction is to shift from “scale expansion” to “value creation.”

On one hand, intermediaries need to move from simply selling products to providing risk management and comprehensive services. For example, in high-growth C-end markets such as retirement and health, by offering professional consulting, risk assessment, and long-term services, they can achieve deeper customer operations and higher renewal rates.

On the other hand, they should leverage digital tools to improve operational efficiency and reduce customer acquisition and service costs, thereby enhancing profitability across cycles.

Meanwhile, integrating product resources from multiple insurance companies to provide diversified and personalized solutions also helps form professional barriers.

In addition, strengthening coordinated cooperation with insurance companies—shifting from traditional “channel relationships” to “value co-creation relationships”—will also become an important direction.

In terms of industry structure, Zhu Junsheng expects that as institutions clear out and license value becomes rationalized, the concentration of the insurance intermediary industry is likely to continue rising. The pace of exits among micro and small institutions will accelerate, and the advantages of leading and specialized institutions will be further strengthened. Over the long term, the industry will gradually form a tiered structure centered on professional capability, customer operating capability, and digitization capability. Service quality will differentiate, and the market share and customer stickiness of high-level institutions will increase significantly.

Going one step further, Zhu Junsheng noted that the functional positioning of the intermediary industry is also changing: from the traditional policy sales channel, gradually evolving into a “customer operations and value creation center.” In the future, it is expected to become an important node connecting insurance companies, health management, retirement services, and technology platforms.

Zhu Junsheng believes that the current adjustment in the insurance intermediary industry is not simply a cyclical fluctuation, but a deep reshaping driven jointly by regulation, the market, and the capability structure. In the short term, it is institutional clearing and profit pressure. In the medium and long term, it is the process by which the industry evolves toward professionalization, centralization, and value orientation. In this process, intermediaries that can truly get through the cycle will no longer rely on fee dividends, but will build sustainable long-term value by relying on customers, capabilities, and service.

(Editor: Qian Xiaorui)

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