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

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 February 2020

MATTHEW LOWENSTEIN
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Abstract

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.

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Article
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Enterprise & Society , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 681 - 715
Copyright
© The Author 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Business History Conference. All rights reserved.

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References

Bibliography of Works Cited

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Boecking, Felix, and Sholz, Monika. “Did the Nationalist Government Manipulate the Chinese Bond Market? A Quantitative Perspective on Short-Term Price Fluctuations of Domestic Government Bonds, 1932–1934.” Frontiers of History in China 10, no. 1 (January 2015): 126–44.Google Scholar
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Dean, Austin. “The Shanghai Mint and U.S.-China Monetary Interactions, 1920–1933.” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 25, no. 1 (2018): 7–32.Google Scholar
Dung, Yien, and Chang, Tuh-Yui. “Zhongguo Baoxian Shiye” [China’s insurance industry]. Baoxian jikan [Insurance quarterly] no. 1 (1933): 6–9.Google Scholar
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Fayol-Song, Lingfang. “Reasons Behind Management Localization in MNCs in China.” Asia Pacific Business Review 17, no. 4 (2011): 455–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, Jos. “Localizing Management in Foreign-Invested Enterprises in China: Practical, Cultural, and Strategic Perspectives.” International Journal of Human Resource Management 11, no. 5 (2000): 883–903.Google Scholar
Huibai, Gong. “Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi” [China United Assurance Society]. In Jiu Shanghai de jinrongjie: Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanbian [The financial world of old Shanghai: Shanghai selected literary and historical materials], vol. 60, edited by Li Dinge, 294–304. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1988.Google Scholar
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“Hua’an Hequn Baoshou Youxian Gongsi zhangcheng” [By-laws of the China United Assurance Society]. Shehui Yuekan [Society monthly review] 2, no. 4 (1930): 12–19.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur J. “Life Insurance in China Presents Many Complicated Problems.” China Weekly Review 39 (December 5, 1926): 39–40.Google Scholar
Keneley, Monica. “Mortgages and Bonds: The Asset Management Practices of Australian Life Insurers to 1960.” Accounting, Business & Financial History 16, no. 1 (2006): 99–119.Google Scholar
Lasserre, Philippe, and Ching, Poy-Seng. “Human Resources Management in China and the Localization Challenge.” Journal of Asian Business 13, no. 4 (1997): 85–99.Google Scholar
Zhilian, Lu. “Yi dai mingshang Zhu Baosan” [The famous entrepreneur of a generation: Zhu Baosan]. In Shanghai Juzi: Huoyue zai Hubu de Ningbo shangren [Great children of business: Ningbo businesspeople active in the Shanghai treaty port], edited by Wang Yongjie. Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1998.Google Scholar
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Gongzhan, Pan. “‘Jiaoyu nianjin baoshou’ yu zidi jiaoyu” [“Education annuity insurance” and child education]. In Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi ershi zhou jiniankan [China United Assurance Society 20th anniversary commemorative album], 92–93. Shanghai: China United Assurance Society, 1932.Google Scholar
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Yaojun, Zhang. “Yao dang ‘zuanshiling’? Dei xian heguo ‘yang moshui’! Jingsuan zhiye ji minzu baoxianye yu Hu faren” [Want to become a “diamond collar worker”? You have to first drink “foreign ink”! The founding of the Shanghai actuarial profession and national insurance industry]. Sohu, June 22, 2018. Accessed March 19, 2019. http://www.sohu.com/a/237203899_777955.Google Scholar
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Archives of the China Mutual Life Insurance Company, Corporate Archives of Sun Life Financial, Inc. (SLCA), Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Archives of the China United Assurance Society, Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA), Shanghai, China.Google Scholar
Second National Archives, College Park, MD.Google Scholar
Shanghai Municipal Library, Republican-era collections, Shanghai, China.Google Scholar
Alborn, Timothy L. Regulated Lives: Life Insurance and British Society, 1800–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2009.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Baoxian Nianjian [Yearbook of insurance]. Shanghai: Zhonghua baoxian xiejinshe, 1935.Google Scholar
Huili, Chen and Xiaofang, Fang, eds. Shanghai laodingzhi [Shanghai labor gazetteer]. Shanghai: Shanghai Shekhuikexueyuan, 1998. http://shtong.gov.cn/dfz_web/DFZ/Info?idnode=67476&tableName=userobject1a&id=64464.Google Scholar
Coble, Parks. The Shanghai Capitalists and the Nationalist Government, 1927–1937. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Cochran, Sherman. Big Business in China: Sino-American Rivalry in the Tobacco Industry 1890–1930 . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1980.Google Scholar
Cochran, Sherman. Chinese Medicine Men: Consumer Culture in China and Southeast Asia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.Google Scholar
Cochran, Sherman. Encountering Chinese Networks: Western, Japanese, and Chinese Corporations in China, 1880–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000.Google Scholar
Dung, Yien. “Life Insurance in China: A Study of the Factors Hindering Its Development.” Ph.D. diss., University of Pennsylvania, 1928.Google Scholar
Greenwald, Bruce, and Kahn, Judd. Competition Demystified: A Radically Simplified Approach to Business Strategy . New York: Portfolio, 2005.Google Scholar
Jordan, Donald A. China’s Trial by Fire: The Shanghai War of 1932. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2001.Google Scholar
Jordan, Donald A. The Northern Expedition: China’s National Revolution of 1926–1928. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1976.Google Scholar
Köll, Elisabeth. From Cotton Mill to Business Empire: The Emergence of Regional Enterprises in Modern China. Cambridge: Harvard University Asia Center, 2003.Google Scholar
Köll, Elisabeth. Railroads and the Transformation of China . Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2019.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zhiying, Liu. Jindai shanghai huashang zhengquan shichang yanjiu [Analysis of the Chinese stock market in modern Shanghai]. Shanghai: Shanghai Yuandong Chubanshe, 2018.Google Scholar
Murphy, Sharon Ann. Investing in Life: Life Insurance in Antebellum America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2010. Kindle.Google Scholar
Moran, Ryan. “Tabling Death: Life Insurance in Modern Japan, 1881–1945.” Ph.D. diss., UC San Diego, 2014. ProQuest (Moran_ucsd_0033D_14448).Google Scholar
Pitt, M. R. W. Wates Family Saga and Pedigrees. N. Harrow, England: M. R. Pitt, 1974. https://books.google.com/books?id=cJrtnQEACAAJ.Google Scholar
Porter, Theodore M. Trust in Numbers : The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Rogaski, Ruth. Hygienic Modernity: Meanings of Health and Disease in Treaty-Port China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Brett. Industrial Eden: A Chinese Capitalist Vision. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015.Google Scholar
Sheehan, Brett. Trust in Troubled Times : Money, Banks, and State-Society Relations in Republican Tianjin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Shiroyama, Tomoko. China During the Great Depression: Market, State, and the World Economy, 1929–1937. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Shun-ching Chan, Cheris. Marketing Death: Culture and the Making of a Life Insurance Market in China. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.Google Scholar
Society of Actuaries. “Transactions–Society of Actuaries.” Transactions–Society of Actuaries, 1949.Google Scholar
Wakeman, Frederic. Policing Shanghai, 1927–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996.Google Scholar
Woodhead, H. G. W., ed. China Yearbook 1921–2. Tianjin: Tientsin Press, 1921.Google Scholar
Yeh, Wen-Hsin. Shanghai Splendor: Economic Sentiments and the Making of Modern China, 1843–1949. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Pengfei, Yan, Mingyang, Li, and Cao, Pu. Zhongguo Baoxianshizhi 1805–1949 [China insurance history gazetteer 1805–1949]. Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1989.Google Scholar
Lanliang, Zhao. Jindai Shanghai Baoxian Shichang Yanjiu, 1843–1937 [Research into the modern Shanghai insurance market, 1843–1937]. Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2003.Google Scholar
Baker, Mae, and Collins, Michael. “The Asset Portfolio Composition of British Life Insurance Firms, 1900–1965.” Financial History Review 10, no. 2 (2003): 137–64.Google Scholar
Bell, Haughton, and Fraine, Harold G.. “Legal Framework, Trends, and Developments in Investment Practices of Life Insurance Companies.” Law and Contemporary Problems 17 (Winter 1952): 45–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boecking, Felix, and Sholz, Monika. “Did the Nationalist Government Manipulate the Chinese Bond Market? A Quantitative Perspective on Short-Term Price Fluctuations of Domestic Government Bonds, 1932–1934.” Frontiers of History in China 10, no. 1 (January 2015): 126–44.Google Scholar
Buffett, Warren. “2015 Letter to Shareholders.” In Berkshire Hathaway Inc., 2015 Annual Report, 3–31. December 31, 2015.Google Scholar
Dean, Austin. “The Shanghai Mint and U.S.-China Monetary Interactions, 1920–1933.” Journal of American-East Asian Relations 25, no. 1 (2018): 7–32.Google Scholar
Dung, Yien, and Chang, Tuh-Yui. “Zhongguo Baoxian Shiye” [China’s insurance industry]. Baoxian jikan [Insurance quarterly] no. 1 (1933): 6–9.Google Scholar
Faure, David, and Köll, Elisabeth. “China: The Indigenization of Insurance.” In World Insurance: the Evolution of a Global Risk Network, edited by Borscheid, Peter and Haueter, Niels Viggo, 472–94. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fayol-Song, Lingfang. “Reasons Behind Management Localization in MNCs in China.” Asia Pacific Business Review 17, no. 4 (2011): 455–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gamble, Jos. “Localizing Management in Foreign-Invested Enterprises in China: Practical, Cultural, and Strategic Perspectives.” International Journal of Human Resource Management 11, no. 5 (2000): 883–903.Google Scholar
Huibai, Gong. “Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi” [China United Assurance Society]. In Jiu Shanghai de jinrongjie: Shanghai wenshi ziliao xuanbian [The financial world of old Shanghai: Shanghai selected literary and historical materials], vol. 60, edited by Li Dinge, 294–304. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe, 1988.Google Scholar
Hu, Pingxi and Jiaguan, Hong, eds. Shanghai jinrongzhi [Shanghai finance gazetteer]. Shanghai: Shanghai Shekhuikexueyuan, 2003. http://www.shtong.gov.cn/Newsite/node2/node2245/node75491/node75497/node75554/node75566/userobject1ai92382.html.Google Scholar
“Hua’an Hequn Baoshou Youxian Gongsi zhangcheng” [By-laws of the China United Assurance Society]. Shehui Yuekan [Society monthly review] 2, no. 4 (1930): 12–19.Google Scholar
Hughes, Arthur J. “Life Insurance in China Presents Many Complicated Problems.” China Weekly Review 39 (December 5, 1926): 39–40.Google Scholar
Keneley, Monica. “Mortgages and Bonds: The Asset Management Practices of Australian Life Insurers to 1960.” Accounting, Business & Financial History 16, no. 1 (2006): 99–119.Google Scholar
Lasserre, Philippe, and Ching, Poy-Seng. “Human Resources Management in China and the Localization Challenge.” Journal of Asian Business 13, no. 4 (1997): 85–99.Google Scholar
Zhilian, Lu. “Yi dai mingshang Zhu Baosan” [The famous entrepreneur of a generation: Zhu Baosan]. In Shanghai Juzi: Huoyue zai Hubu de Ningbo shangren [Great children of business: Ningbo businesspeople active in the Shanghai treaty port], edited by Wang Yongjie. Beijing: Zhongguo wenshi chubanshe, 1998.Google Scholar
Ma, Debin. “The Rise of a Financial Revolution in Republican China in 1900–1937: An Institutional Narrative.” Economic History Working Papers No: 235/2016, London School of Economics and Political Science, February 2016.Google Scholar
McElderry, Andrea. “Shanghai Securities Exchanges: Past and Present.” The Asian Business History Occasional Paper Series 4, The University of Queensland, January 2001.Google Scholar
Gongzhan, Pan. “‘Jiaoyu nianjin baoshou’ yu zidi jiaoyu” [“Education annuity insurance” and child education]. In Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi ershi zhou jiniankan [China United Assurance Society 20th anniversary commemorative album], 92–93. Shanghai: China United Assurance Society, 1932.Google Scholar
“Renshou baoxian hanshouke zhaosheng” [Life insurance correspondence school accepting students]. Advertisement. Shouxianjie [Life insurance world] 2, no. 1 (1934): 63.Google Scholar
“Su Tu Chen.” Transactions - Society of Actuaries 33 (1981): 800–801.Google Scholar
Thai, Philip. “A Risky Business: The Chinese Insurance Industry, Institutional Change, and the Case of the Tai Ping Insurance Company.” Unpublished manuscript, Northeastern University, 2019.Google Scholar
White, Eugene. “Lessons from the Great American Real Estate Boom and Bust of the 1920s.” In Housing and Mortgage Markets in Historical Perspective, edited by White, Eugene N., Snowden, Kenneth, and Fishback, Price, 115–58. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Xie, Guoxian. “Baoxian shiye zai Zhongguo” [The insurance industry in China]. Taipingfeng baoxianjie [Taipingfeng insurance world] 3, no. 1 (1937): 1–2.Google Scholar
“Yong’an renshou baoxian gongsi zhaogu yuanqi” [Origins of Wing On Life Assurance Company share raising]. Baoxian yu chuxu [Insurance and savings] 1, no. 5 (1924): 29.Google Scholar
Deyu, Zhang. “Renshou baoxian gongsi de zuzhi he gebu de gongzu renwu” [The organization of life insurance companies and the responsibilities of each department]. Shouxian Jikan [Life Insurance Quarterly] 1, no. 3 (1933): 7–12.Google Scholar
Yijun, Chen. “Jiedu Shanghai jingsuan shiye qianshijinsheng” [Interpreting the previous incarnation of Shanghai’s actuarial profession, and its present life]. Shangguan Xinwen [Shanghai Observer], March 6, 2013. http://www.jfdaily.com/news/detail?id=9927.Google Scholar
The China Press (1925–1938). Shanghai. Proquest Historical Newspapers: Chinese Newspapers Collection. https://www.proquest.com/products-services/hnp_cnc.html.Google Scholar
Coak, Brian L. “Shanghai Masonic Hall Revisited - Lest We Forget.” in “The Kernowkid.” Accessed January 22, 2020. http://www.kernowkid.com/uploads/2/9/1/2/29126801/shanghai_masonic_hall_-lest_we_forget_2.pdf.Google Scholar
“Fengongsi: Fengongsi yilan” [Company branches: list of company branches]. In Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi ershi zhounian jiniankan [China United Assurance Society 20th anniversary commemorative album]. Shanghai: China United Assurance Society, 1932. Shanghai Municipal Library, Chinese Periodicals Database for the Republican Period 1911–1949. www.cnbksy.cn.Google Scholar
“Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi xie tuanti baoshou tongjibiao” [China United Assurance Society statistical table of group insurance partners]. Hua’an [China United] 1, no. 1 (1933): 18. Shanghai Municipal Library, Chinese Periodicals Database for the Republican Period 1911–1949. www.cnbksy.cn.Google Scholar
“Hua’an hequn baoshou gufen youxian gongsi shilüe” [Chronology of China United Assurance Society]. In Hua’an hequn baoshou gongsi ershi zhounian jiniankan [China United Assurance Society 20th anniversary commemorative album]. Shanghai: China United Assurance Society, 1932. Shanghai Municipal Library, Chinese Periodicals Database for the Republican Period 1911–1949. www.cnbksy.cn.Google Scholar
The North-China Herald and Supreme Court & Consular Gazette (1870–1941). Proquest Historical Newspapers: Chinese Newspapers Collection. https://www.proquest.com/products-services/hnp_cnc.html.Google Scholar
Shenbao (1872–1949). Jindai Baokanku [Modern newspaper database]. http://server.wenzibase.com/.Google Scholar
Tan Hong'an. “Shen Dunhe: Cong ‘waijiaojia’ dao ‘honghuizhifu’” [Shen Dunhe: from “Diplomat” to “Father of the Red Cross”]. Zhongguo jingying wang, August. 3, 2013. Accessed January 22, 2020. http://www.cb.com.cn/life/2013_0803/1007024.html.Google Scholar
“Shouxian Dawang: Lü Yuequan” [The king of life insurance: Lü Yuequan]. Zhongguowang, November 24, 2011. http://news.china.com.cn/txt/2011-11/24/content_23997227.htm.Google Scholar
Thomas, R., and Dimsdale, N.. “Three Centuries of Data - Version 2.3.” Bank of England. Accessed March 20, 2019. https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/research-datasets.Google Scholar
Yaojun, Zhang. “Yao dang ‘zuanshiling’? Dei xian heguo ‘yang moshui’! Jingsuan zhiye ji minzu baoxianye yu Hu faren” [Want to become a “diamond collar worker”? You have to first drink “foreign ink”! The founding of the Shanghai actuarial profession and national insurance industry]. Sohu, June 22, 2018. Accessed March 19, 2019. http://www.sohu.com/a/237203899_777955.Google Scholar
“Zonggongsi jinglibu zhuren banshishi (Jinglibu zhuren Lü Yuequan)” [Headquarters Agency Department Director (Lü Yuequan)]. Photograph. Hua’an [China United], 1920, 17. www.cnbksy.cn.Google Scholar
Archives of the China Mutual Life Insurance Company, Corporate Archives of Sun Life Financial, Inc. (SLCA), Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.Google Scholar
Archives of the China United Assurance Society, Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA), Shanghai, China.Google Scholar
Second National Archives, College Park, MD.Google Scholar
Shanghai Municipal Library, Republican-era collections, Shanghai, China.Google Scholar