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on august 27, zhongan online (6060.hk) released its 2024 interim results report. as of june 30, 2024, zhongan online issued 9.133 billion policies and achieved total premium income of rmb 15.238 billion (the same below). under the new hkfrs 17 standard, zhongan achieved insurance service income of rmb 15.088 billion, a year-on-year increase of 19.0%. in the first half of 2024, zhongan insurance ranked ninth in china's property insurance industry in terms of total premiums, and its market share has steadily increased. in the "2024 china top 500 ranking" recently announced by the international authoritative financial magazine fortune, zhongan insurance once again made the list with its long-term technological advancement and excellent business performance in recent years, and its ranking rose by 37 places to 460th. it ranks first in the domestic internet property insurance market share of over 20%; it continues to achieve underwriting profitability.

the first half of 2024 is the first step for zhongan to enter the next decade. zhongan online adheres to the "insurance + technology" dual-engine strategy, constantly verifies and iterates its technological capabilities, and exports insurance technology products that incorporate cutting-edge technological power to global insurance companies and industry chain customers, helping the industry's intelligent digital transformation. benefiting from the continuous digital transformation of the domestic and global financial industries, the technology output business segment has achieved rapid development, with total revenue of rmb 442 million, a year-on-year increase of 65.3%.

for a long time, the company has insisted on being user-centric, continuously providing innovative, inclusive and rich insurance products and services, and achieving quality growth. in the first half of 2024, zhongan's underwriting comprehensive cost ratio was 97.9%, of which the comprehensive loss ratio was 60.7% and the comprehensive expense ratio was 37.2%. the company's asset quality continues to be consolidated and its solvency is sufficient. it continues to receive a baa1 rating and positive outlook from moody's, an international rating agency, and an a- rating and stable outlook from am best.

expand product matrix and build a dense inclusive insurance protection network

this year is a critical year for the implementation of the "14th five-year plan". this year, zhongan has actively responded to the "guiding opinions on promoting the high-quality development of inclusive insurance" issued by the state financial supervision and administration bureau, and played the role of insurance as a shock absorber and social stabilizer in the economy. zhongan insists on empowering technology and providing innovative, inclusive and rich insurance products. as an internet insurance company, zhongan relies on specific internet scenarios to develop small-scale, decentralized, convenient and inclusive insurance to improve the convenience and availability of insurance services.

in the first half of the year, health and accident protection were provided to more than one million new citizen groups and flexible employment personnel, including food delivery, express riders and online car-hailing drivers.

zhongan has launched more than 100 products exclusively for specific groups, covering more than 1 million people with chronic diseases, women, and the elderly, developing customized insurance products to weave a life protection network for them.

in addition, in response to the many operational pain points of domestic small and micro enterprises, zhongan provides more than 1.33 million small and micro enterprises with multiple types of insurance protection, including corporate property insurance and liability insurance, to help improve their ability to resist risks.

explore new scenarios of social life and achieve steady development of various ecosystems

in the first half of 2024, zhongan online's ecological businesses moved forward steadily. in terms of health ecology, zhongan takes zunxiang e-life as the core, and continuously enriches the diversity of health insurance products, covering more user groups and meeting their health protection needs. the core product "zunxiang e-life" achieved its 24th iteration in the first half of the year, adding value-added services, expanding the catalog of special medicines, and extending hospital coverage to private medical institutions. outpatient and emergency insurance used to meet customers' daily needs achieved a total premium of 421 million yuan during the reporting period, a year-on-year increase of 321%; and the total premium income of mid-to-high-end products increased by 644% over the same period. critical illness insurance has become the main choice for zhongan users to improve their protection, and continues to achieve steady growth, with total premiums reaching 812 million yuan, an increase of about 4.5% over the same period last year. in the first half of the year, zhongan online's health ecosystem insurance service revenue reached 4.867 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 22.7%, covering 12.39 million insured users.

in terms of digital life ecology, in the first half of the year, the ecological insurance service revenue reached rmb 7.078 billion, a year-on-year increase of 24.2%. this was mainly due to zhongan's grasp of the continued prosperity of the e-commerce industry and the rapid growth of innovative products including pet insurance.

in terms of innovative business, zhongan closely follows the development trend of new consumption, quickly launches a variety of innovative insurance products, fills users' diversified insurance protection needs, and explores new growth curves. zhongan explores new scenarios of food delivery and sports, and launches food delivery related products covering food safety and delivery delays, as well as sports accident insurance covering regular sports scenarios and outdoor high-risk sports scenarios. in terms of pet insurance, zhongan embeds services into multiple scenarios of the pet ecosystem to serve the entire life cycle of pets. in the first half of the year, the cumulative service exceeded 930,000 times, with 1.46 million new users, and pet insurance increased by more than 2.8 times year-on-year.

in addition, zhongan successfully captured the boom in the automotive industry, embraced the opportunities of new energy vehicle insurance, and introduced cutting-edge technologies such as ai in its services to improve service quality. zhongan auto ecosystem achieved insurance service revenue of rmb 863 million in the first half of the year, a year-on-year increase of 24.2%. in terms of customer experience, zhongan used technologies such as artificial intelligence to upgrade its one-stop intelligent video claims service. as of the end of july, the video claims case coverage rate of zhongan auto insurance has reached 50%. with the support of this technology, zhongan can complete the accident investigation in as fast as 6 minutes, which is 85% shorter than the average offline investigation time. in the consumer finance ecosystem, facing the pressure of the uncertain macro-environment and industry challenges in the first half of the year, zhongan adopted a more prudent risk control strategy to cope with fluctuations in asset quality. the ecosystem achieved insurance service revenue of rmb 2.28 billion and continued underwriting profitability.

technology empowers and accelerates value chain efficiency, and technology output reaches new heights

during the reporting period, zhongan online continued to deepen its layout in cutting-edge technology sectors such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and big data, and reshaped the insurance value chain through technology. the company introduced artificial intelligence technology into its internal business processes, greatly improving process efficiency and service quality. introducing smart cameras in the claims process, the one-time submission complete rate of online materials reached 88%; and building an intelligent collection platform and an intelligent review platform, through large language models, optical character recognition and other technologies, the overall intelligent collection complete rate of materials reached 85%. at present, zhongan online's overall online reporting rate for health insurance has reached 99%.

during the reporting period, zhongan online also continued to explore the domestic and overseas markets for its technology output business, helping customers in multiple industries to transform into intelligent digital businesses. in the first half of the year, the group achieved a total technology output revenue of rmb 442 million, a year-on-year increase of 65.3%, and significantly narrowed its losses.

in the first half of 2024, zhongan's domestic technology output revenue was 319 million yuan, a year-on-year increase of 112.7%. this is mainly due to the product matrix including property and casualty insurance core systems, intelligent marketing, data intelligence and other products, which achieved the signing of new customers and the growth of customer unit prices, and seized the opportunity of the industry's implementation of the new insurance contract standard ifrs17. so far, more than 10 new ifrs17 customers have been successfully signed. in the first half of the year, zhongan signed 56 insurance industry chain customers. zhongan's international technology output is mainly achieved by peak3 (formerly known as za tech). the company completed a us$35 million series a financing in june this year and officially changed its name to peak3. in the future, peak3 will accelerate its expansion and development in europe, the middle east and africa, and further accelerate its layout in ai and big data to promote the process of intelligentization of the global insurance industry. during the reporting period, peak3's technology output achieved revenue of 123 million yuan.

zhongan's virtual bank in hong kong, za bank, is making continuous progress in its vision of building a one-stop digital financial service platform in hong kong, providing retail users and small and medium-sized enterprises with rich, convenient and inclusive financial services. at present, za bank has become one of the most functional virtual banks in the hong kong market. it launched us stock trading services in february this year and released the "banking for web3" vision in april to promote the integration of traditional banking services and web3 with technology. during the reporting period, za bank recorded a net income of approximately hk$255 million, a year-on-year increase of 45.9%, and a loss rate of approximately 71.7 percentage points narrowed compared with the same period last year; it had a deposit balance of approximately hk$16.801 billion and a total loan balance of approximately hk$5.619 billion. the bank's net interest margin also increased from 1.87% in the same period of 23 to 2.21%, which is better than the industry average.

looking ahead, zhongan will embrace new technological changes, accept new external challenges, and always bear in mind the mission of "technology-driven finance, providing warm insurance" and move forward from the heart. zhongan will pay more attention to listening to user feedback, improving user experience, accompanying users to grow, and promoting the company's long-term sustainable development.

about zhongan online property & casualty insurance co., ltd. (stock code: 6060.hk)

zhongan online property & casualty insurance co., ltd. ("zhongan online", "zhongan" or the "company") was established in october 2013 and is a leading internet insurance technology company in china. on september 28, 2017, zhongan online was listed on the hong kong stock exchange, becoming the first fintech stock in hong kong. zhongan online provides insurance products and solutions in four core ecosystems, including health, digital life, consumer finance and automotive ecology. zhongan online focuses on the field of insurance technology, and exports its leading insurance technology experience and technical capabilities in the form of building new digital infrastructure to help companies in the insurance industry chain achieve digital transformation.