The China United Assurance Society and the Making of Chinese Life Insurance, 1912–1949

This article traces the history of the first Chinese life insurance company: the China United Assurance Society. China United was founded in Shanghai in 1912 as a purely Chinese-owned enterprise and became the first Chinese life insurer to survive past its eighth year. By 1935, it boasted insurance in force of over 20 million yuan. In adapting life insurance to Republican China, China United had to contend with a number of extraordinary challenges. It had to train a corps of Chinese technical experts in a country without a single accredited actuary. It had to cultivate demand for a product that was poorly understood and often distrusted. At the same time, the Society was forced to find a way to manage a nationwide sales network that could market insurance products to a country that hitherto had little knowledge of life insurance. In doing so, it was threatened by interethnic strife sparked by racist practices of the foreign manager. Finally, China United had to overcome increasingly fierce competition, high lapse rates, and excess mortality that combined to drive underwriting profits negative. The Society was able to survive as a going concern only through its investing prowess in Chinese capital markets. Using previously unmined sources from the Shanghai Municipal Archives, this article charts China United’s turbulent process of indigenization, and explores its lasting legacies in the contemporary Chinese life insurance industry.