Economic Observer Online
By Ouyang Xiaohong(欧阳晓红), Liang Yuqi(梁宇琦)
Mar 21, 2012
Translated by Song Chunling
Original Articles: [Chinese]

The communist party’s organization department, which is responsible for assigning positions to top state officials, on Tuesday assumed control of senior appointments at the country’s four largest insurers and raised the rank of their top executives to vice-ministerial level.

The four firms are China Life Insurance Co. Ltd, People’s Insurance Company of China, China Taiping Insurance Group, and China Export and Credit Insurance Corp., and their top executives had previously been appointed by the industry's regulatory commission.

One of the first moves by the Organization Department of the Central Committee was to move Lin Fan (林帆), who had been China Taiping chairman, and make him head of the supervisory board at People’s Insurance Company. He will also become head of the China Insurance Regulatory Commission.

Wu Yan (吴焰), who was formerly president and chairman of People's Insurance will now only hold the latter post.

The announcement confirmed reports in the EO earlier this month.

The commission’s vice president, Yang Mingsheng (杨明生), has also been appointed head of China Life Insurance, replacing Yuan Li (袁力), who was moved to China Development Bank, where he will be deputy president.

During his ten months in change of China Life Insurance, Yuan promised to pay more attention to customers, lower-level employees and the business’s long-term value. He also pledged to grow the firm’s market share above 30% and collect total premiums of more than 320 billion yuan. It’s unclear whether his successor will pursue the same strategy

China Life's profits fell 40% in 2011 and its share price has also slipped this month.