State-Owned Insurance Giant PICC Backs Beijing 2022

The People’s Insurance Company (Group) of China (PICC Group) became the tenth first-tier Official Partner of the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 last week.

Han Zirong, the Vice-President and Secretary-General of Beijing 2022, signed the partnership agreement with Bai Tao, President of PICC Group, in a ceremony held at the Organising Committee’s Shougang headquarters. PICC had previously backed Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics and 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou.

PICC will share its local rights – in the property and casualty insurance services category – with German financial services giant Allianz who had earlier secured an 8-year deal to become a Top sponsor of the IOC – with global rights – until the end of the 2028 Summer Games (Los Angeles).

Zhang Jiandong, the vice-mayor of Beijing, praised PICC Group’s role in serving the Summer Games – when it came to Beijing in 2008 – and expressed high hopes for the company in its second Olympic journey.

“We hope that PICC Group will make persistent efforts to give full play to its professional advantages to provide efficient and professional property & casualty insurance services for the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.”

Miao Jianmin, Chairman of PICC Group, effectively agreed, “It is a great honour that PICC will have the opportunity to support the Olympic Games once again. PICC Group will work with the Organising Committee closely and contribute to the success of the Games by providing high-quality property & casualty insurance services.” 

Currently, a total of ten Beijing 2022 official partners have been signed, including Bank of China, Air China, Yili Group, ANTA, China Unicom, Shougang Group, CNPC, Sinopec Group and State Grid. The likes of Tsingtao Beer, Yanjing Beer, Arawana, Shunxin, Cultural Investment Holdings, Beijing Beiao Group and HYX have signed up as official sponsors.

The diamond-level partnership for the Games has been recently taken up by Beijing shopping mall Grand Pacific Department with eight other homegrown companies expressing an interest to back the Games. EF Education First and iFLYTEK have also been signed as official exclusive suppliers.

All the sponsors are domestic brands except for Swiss headquartered EF Education First, which became Beijing 2022’s official language training services exclusive supplier last August. The company had also been an official partner for Pyeongchang 2018.

PICC is the 3rd largest sponsor for the category inside China (2% share, last 3 years to date), but it falls a long way behind the two largest: China Life (51%) and Ping An (34%). While this sponsorship could perhaps be labelled as ‘national service’ – given the company’s state ownership – the investment may enable the company to gain some ground in the hearts & minds departments in China.