The Chinese insurer is applying for a license that is will enable it to offer life insurance products, its chief financial officer Francis Tang was reported as saying by the Reuters news agency.
He did not give an expected timeline for approval.
The firm already offers 262 types of insurance product and wants to add more within the five core areas in which it operates.
These are travel, health, consumer finance, auto and lifestyle consumption, where it started by insuring shipping returns at e-commerce giant Alibaba’s online marketplace.
ZhongAn also plans to boost its earnings in coming years from the sale of its technology to other insurers and partners.
“This is how we want to see our expansion, not just outside China, but also inside China,” Tang said.
Imminent Ipo
With its initial public offering in Hong Kong, ZhongAn is pursuing the first major fintech listing in the special administrative region’s stock exchange.
China’s first internet-only insurer aims to raise up to HK$11.9bn (£1.1bn, $1.5bn, €1.2bn) from its IPO.
The company is offering 199.3 million new shares in an indicative range of HK$53.70 to HK$59.70 each.
Its final pricing will be decided on 21 September, with its debut on the Hong Kong stock exchange slated for 28 September, the company said.
Investor interest
Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp, meanwhile, has agreed to buy a stake of just below 5%, or about 72 million shares, in ZhongAn as a cornerstone investor in the IPO.
The stake could be worth about HK$4.08bn.
The issue is seen as expensive as the HK$11.9bn valuation for the insurer implies an adjusted price-to-book level of 4.3 times, more than triple the 1.3 times for the largest Chinese general insurer, PICC Property & Casualty, which had revenue of CNY301bn (£33.8bn, $45.8bn, €38.3bn) last year, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.
ZhongAn, on the other hand, reported net written premiums of CNY3.4bn last year, equivalent to 0.5% of China’s insurance industry.
Start-up
ZhongAn was founded by some of China’s top entrepreneurs, including Alibaba executive chairman Jack Ma, Tencent chairman Pony Ma and Ping An Insurance Group chairman Ma Mingzhe.
The company said it is the largest online-only insurer in China, as it serves about 543 million people and having sold over 8.2 billion insurance policies since its inception in 2013, according to data cited by its chief financial officer Francis Tang.
