Internet a better engine for insurer MetLife China

Despite the slowing Chinese economy, Tan said the Chinese life insurance market boasts great potential for both domestic and foreign players.

In China, the insurance penetration rate, which measures total insurance premiums in proportion to a country's GDP, is only about 3 percent. The rate is about 8 or 9 percent in developed countries.

The declining interest rate and the uncertainties in China's stock market and real estate sectors also have made insurance products an appealing investment channel and wealth management tool, Tan said.

"There is also a growing demand for a good quality of life in China and a rising need for better health and medical services, including life insurance products, regardless of people being rich or poor."

MetLife is among the first foreign insurers that entered the Chinese market after the country opened up the domestic market and adopted market-driven reforms.

The company opened its first representative office, which conducts marketing and nontransactional business, in Beijing in 1995. MetLife China, a joint venture, was set up in 2004.

In 2011, the US insurer merged its two subsidiaries in China into today's Sino-US United MetLife Insurance Co, a 50-50 joint venture between MetLife Inc and Shanghai Alliance Investment Ltd, a State-owned investment company affiliated with the Shanghai government.

With offices in more than 20 cities in China, the company offers life and accidental insurance and savings products to its customers.

Last year, it earned a total insurance premium of 6.39 billion yuan, according to its financial report. It was ranked third among the 28 foreign and joint-venture insurance companies in China. The 28 percent growth rate of its new business premium was much higher than industrial average.

As a US insurance company with a history of nearly 150 years, MetLife has adopted a customer-driven, rather than investment return-driven approach, which has helped the company sail through the recent stock market volatilities in China, Tan said.

"We focus on providing professional and value-added services for our clients rather than pursuing excessively high investment returns, which are often associated with greater risks," Tan said.

"We help our customers with their basic need, which is protecting and preserving their existing assets and to grow them at a rate that outperforms inflation," he added.

Tan said his company remained largely unaffected by the recent sharp fluctuations in the Chinese equities market, which has suffered a dramatic fall of more than 30 percent from its peak in mid-June.