Under the leadership of the Central Party Committee and the State Council, the insurance industry fully carried out the scientific outlook on development, initiatively participated in relief of extremely serious natural disasters, prudently tackled the impacts of international financial crisis by enhancing monitoring and risk prevention, and the insurance market maintained a fast and stable growth in 2008.

The insurance business enjoyed a rapid growth. The incomes of original insurance premium totaled RMB978.41bn in 2008, an increase of 39.1% over the previous year, the fastest year since 2002. Of it, the original insurance premiums of property insurance amounted to RMB233.67bn, up by 17% year-on-year; that of life insurance, RMB665.84bn, up by 49.2% year-on-year; that of health insurance, RMB58.55bn, up by 52.4% year-on-year; and that of accident insurance, RMB20.36bn, up by 7.1%.

However, some noticeable problems still existed in the insurance industry in 2008. For instance, some companies had a large share of investment products yet slow-growing traditional guarantee businesses; profits of the insurance industry dropped considerably due to impacts of serious natural disasters, large-scale adjustment of capital market and international financial crisis; and a few of companies had poor solvency. All those problems shall be solved through development in the future.