Interface News Reporter | Lu Wenqi
The professional evaluation system for insurance sales agents is set to undergo significant changes.
On 10 16, Jiemian News learned from industry sources that the China Insurance Association has issued the "Measures for Building a Credit File for Insurance Sales Personnel" (hereinafter referred to as the "Measures"), which will take effect on 2027 1 1. According to the "Measures," insurance sales personnel will have a credit file covering their entire career. In addition to basic information and professional experience, indicators reflecting sales quality—such as policy persistency rates, surrender rates, and complaint rates—will also be included.
This means insurance agents will be evaluated based more on sales quality and long-term service performance, as the industry shifts from a premium-volume-focused approach to more granular credit management.
Specifically, the Measures stipulate that credit records encompass four categories: basic information, occupational status information, credit evaluation information, and public credit information.
Occupational status information includes work experience, inter-agency transfer records, training assessment results, and sales competency qualification levels. Credit evaluation information covers performance appraisals, work achievements, and reward or disciplinary actions, explicitly listing indicators such as the 13-month policy persistency rate, long-term insurance surrender rate, and complaint rate.
Historically, premium volume and new business performance have been key metrics for evaluating insurance sales agents. However, an excessive focus on short-term sales scale can lead to issues such as prioritizing sales over service. In contrast, the policy persistence rate better reflects business quality, while surrender rates and complaint rates help identify problems in both sales and subsequent service delivery.
Yang Zeyun, a faculty member of the Finance Department at the Business School of Beijing Union University, told Interface News that this "Measure" marks a milestone in shifting from an extensive, manpower-driven approach to credit-based, precision management.
In his view, the file establishes a credit record covering the entire industry and spanning the full career of sales personnel, aiming to fundamentally improve the professional environment and regulatory mechanisms for insurance sales agents.
Notably, credit file development not only affects sales personnel's daily performance evaluations but also impacts the insurance company's staff management.
Per the "Measures," insurance institutions must establish a quantifiable, traceable, and tiered credit evaluation system to regularly assess sales personnel's historical credit. Additionally, while ensuring legal compliance and information security, they should enhance credit information query capabilities and progressively enable industry-wide exchange and sharing of credit data.
This means that as the relevant mechanisms are gradually refined, sales personnel's credit records will become a key reference for insurance companies in recruiting, managing, and evaluating talent. This will also help limit the ability of non-compliant salespeople to evade credit constraints by moving between institutions.
Yang Zeyun stated that for insurance institutions, building credit records means enduring the pain of management upgrades and increased operational costs; for sales personnel, it compels compliance in practice; for consumers, it ensures a more secure consumption environment. "However, for the industry as a whole, it represents a reconstruction and enhancement of the credit system and framework."
In recent years, the insurance industry has continued to advance the professionalization and career development of its sales force. In 2025, the National Financial Regulatory Administration issued the "Notice on Promoting Deepening the Reform of the Individual Marketing System in the Personal Insurance Sector," which explicitly called for strengthening systems for recruiting and selecting sales personnel, training, performance evaluation, and incentive and constraint mechanisms to drive the professional development of insurance sales agents.
This credit file initiative can be seen as a further extension of the aforementioned reform direction within the realm of credit management.
However, whether the credit file system truly delivers depends on its implementation. On one hand, metrics such as surrender rates and complaint rates may be influenced by multiple factors, requiring scientifically sound evaluation criteria. On the other hand, specific measures for exchanging and sharing industry credit information still need to be established. Yang Zeyun also emphasized that the ultimate effectiveness of the system hinges on the completeness of supporting regulations and the execution strength of each institution.
