Dongwu Life stands as a prime example of the rapid "Suzhou Speed" in development. However, despite its swift expansion, the company struggles with profitability. Over the past five years, its performance has been volatile, repeatedly swinging between losses and profits without achieving stability. Currently, the first quarter of 2026 has seen the company fall back into loss, with the cumulative loss scale continuing to expand, adding another layer of uncertainty to its operational stability.

Performance Fluctuations For Dongwu Life, the performance over the last three years can be described as a rollercoaster, with profits and losses alternating.

Looking at 2025, the company achieved annual insurance revenue of approximately 9.653 billion yuan and a net profit of about 846 million yuan. Compared to the significant loss in 2023 and the modest profit in 2024, the 2025 results showed a marked improvement.

In 2024, Dongwu Life successfully transitioned from loss to profit. That year, the company reported a net profit of 22 million yuan, a substantial year-on-year increase of 101.24%; total assets reached approximately 48.342 billion yuan, up 28.83% year-on-year; premium income neared 10 billion yuan, growing over 4% year-on-year; and new business value surged by 200% year-on-year, with future policy surplus increasing by nearly 1 billion yuan.

At the time, the company attributed this success to actively optimizing its business structure, reducing liability costs, and countering the pressure from increased reserve provisions through enhanced business efforts in the second half of the year.

However, this resilience did not extend into 2026. By the end of the first quarter, Dongwu Life reported insurance revenue of 6.778 billion yuan, maintaining a relatively high business scale. Yet, net profit once again turned negative, with a loss of 151 million yuan. This starkly contrasts with the net profit of 21 million yuan in the same period last year, raising market concerns about the stability of its profitability.

Analysis suggests the direct cause of the first-quarter loss is the full implementation of the new accounting standards. Starting in 2026, non-listed insurers fully adopted the new standards. The present value measurement of insurance contract liabilities and the introduction of the Contractual Service Margin (CSM) have fundamentally altered profit recognition methods.

Additionally, fluctuations in investment returns impacted net profit. By the end of the first quarter, Dongwu Life's investment yield was only -0.15%, and its comprehensive investment yield was minimal. This represents a significant deviation from the company's average comprehensive investment yield of 4.51% over the past three years.

Since its establishment, Dongwu Life's profitability has been weak. As of the first quarter of 2026, the company's cumulative net loss stands at 1.8 billion yuan, reflecting its prolonged operation under loss pressure and its failure to establish stable profitability.

Attrition Rate Tops the Industry The agent force is the core link connecting life insurance companies with clients and the market. The agent attrition rate serves as a "thermometer" for measuring the stability of a company's human resources and the health of its channels.

Against the backdrop of an overall contraction in the industry's agent force, Dongwu Life's agent attrition rate has consistently ranked among the highest in the industry, becoming a significant bottleneck hindering its business development.

Data shows that in the first quarter of 2026, among the 54 life insurance companies that disclosed agent attrition rates, Dongwu Life topped the list with a rate of 21.67%. Simply put, in that quarter, one out of every five agents left, indicating high turnover.

In fact, the solvency report for the fourth quarter of 2025 revealed that Dongwu Life's agent attrition rate for that year was already as high as 45.91%, meaning nearly half of the agents chose to leave, raising serious concerns about team stability.

Dongwu Life explained this as a "phase result of actively clearing out non-performing elements and optimizing structure," aiming to free up development space for a high-performing, professional elite team by strengthening assessments and removing low performers, thereby solidifying the foundation for transformation.

Undeniably, in the current industry trend shifting from the past "mass tactics" to "elite transformation," clearing and restructuring the agent force is an inevitable choice for all insurance companies. However, Dongwu Life's agent attrition rate far exceeds the industry average, clearly indicating that "active clearing" alone cannot fully explain the situation.

Deeper underlying reasons exist.

Firstly, the income for entry-level agents is generally low, making it difficult for them to stay with the company long-term. A former Dongwu Life insurance agent stated that the primary reason agents leave is low income.

Especially in recent years, it has become significantly harder for agents to recruit new members and develop business. Entry-level agents earn meager monthly incomes, making their departure an inevitable outcome.

Secondly, the company's business channels are imbalanced, with severely insufficient investment in the individual insurance channel. Dongwu Life has long relied primarily on the bancassurance channel, resulting in a high degree of business concentration.

While the bancassurance channel offers the advantage of rapidly generating large-scale premium income, it is difficult for the company to cultivate a stable agent force or enhance customer loyalty through this channel.

Following the formal implementation of the "unified reporting" policy, commission rates in the bancassurance channel have decreased by approximately 30%, intensifying competition among insurers in this channel.

However, Dongwu Life did not promptly increase investment and development in the individual insurance channel. This led to a lack of effective business support and insufficient development space for the agent force, resulting in large-scale attrition.

Furthermore, cross-industry management lacks insurance experience, presenting weaknesses in agent force management. Dongwu Life's senior management has seen frequent changes and continues the tradition of "cross-industry appointments." Current Chairman Zhao Kun previously worked at Suzhou Bank and an asset management company. While experienced in the local financial system, he has zero insurance industry experience.

Similarly, President Qian Qun comes from the banking sector and lacks practical insurance industry experience.

Management with such cross-industry backgrounds may lack sufficient industry insight in product development, market strategy formulation, and agent force building. This could make it difficult to design incentive mechanisms and development plans that meet agents' needs, indirectly contributing to the instability of the agent force.

For Dongwu Life, the current losses and agent challenges represent both difficulties and opportunities.

Whether it can address its professional shortcomings, optimize operational strategies, stabilize its agent force, and enhance profitability will determine its ability to break through during the industry transformation.