The targeted substitute rate of basic endowment insurance in China is 55%-60%; however, till the end of 2006, the number of working people with basic endowment insurance was just 141 million, accounting for 18.5% of the total employed population.
Calculated at the average growth pace of 6% in the recent 4 years, plus the increase of employed population, the coverage rate of basic endowment insurance can not reach 100% in 30 years.The majority of the income of Chinese citizens is deposited in banks, but not used to buy insurance.
In 2005, the saving deposits amounted to over USD 1.8 trillion, while the insurance premium revenue was just USD 39.6 billion, equal to 2.2% of the newly-increased bank deposits.
Generally, the annual compounded growth rate of China life insurance industry will be 16.7% from 2007 to 2010, the life insurance scale will reach RMB 767.6 billion in 2010, and RMB 2 trillion in 2020, but the figure is still small compared to the current saving deposit scale of RMB 17 trillion.