Huize (HUIZ) AI Advisor Tools Cut Expense-to-Income Ratio to 24.2% in H1

Huize Holding Limited (HUIZ) said on its 2026-08-20 earnings call that AI assistants issued to insurance advisors, among other applications, produced measurable cost efficiency, and that the first-half expense-to-income ratio fell to 24.2%. Absolute expenses barely moved [1].

Huize is a Chinese online insurance brokerage. It does not underwrite; it sells partner insurers' life and health policies to individual customers and earns commissions from those insurers. Sales run through its own app, partner insurance agents and independent advisor channels. First-half gross written premiums were about RMB 4.2 billion, up 30% year over year, of which first-year premiums were RMB 2.76 billion, up 49% [1].

AI in the most labor-intensive steps

The customer app moved to a multi-agent architecture, where an AI financial planner can produce a household coverage plan in five minutes. The advisor assistant screens leads, generates interaction summaries automatically, makes outbound calls and produces tailored insurance proposals based on each customer's situation. On the claims side, the Xiaoma claims system now covers four core product types, and most products complete the full process within an hour [1].

The result management presents is an expense ratio

First-half operating expenses were RMB 175 million and the expense-to-income ratio was 24.2%, below the 26.3% recorded for full-year 2025. Over the same period AI conversation users grew 65% from the start of the year, 45% of active users generated an AI planning report, and first-year premiums through the advisor channel grew 44% year over year [1].

Most of the ratio improvement came from the denominator

Taking the expense line apart narrows the claim considerably. First-half 2025 operating expenses were RMB 177.4 million on revenue of RMB 680.5 million, a ratio of 26.07%. First-half 2026 was RMB 175.0 million on RMB 720 million, a ratio of 24.3% [2].

Absolute expenses therefore fell only 1.3%. Of the roughly 1.9 percentage points of ratio improvement, about 1.4 points came from the larger revenue denominator and only about 0.3 points from actually spending less [2]. The ratio also moves around on its own: the second quarter of 2025 alone was already 23.9%, lower than today's 24.2% [2]. A year ago the company volunteered that expenses had fallen 17% year over year; this time it gave only the absolute figure, with no year-over-year comparison [2].

Headcount supports the other half of the claim

Headcount fell from 1,113 at the end of 2023 to 827 at the end of 2024, a decline of 25.7%, then rose to 853 at the end of 2025 [3]. With headcount roughly flat and premiums up 30%, output per employee did improve. But that quarter-of-the-workforce reduction happened in 2024, before the company articulated an AI-native strategy, and in the year AI is being used to explain cost efficiency, headcount increased [3].

What is established

The AI workflow is running simultaneously on the customer, advisor and claims sides, the company has reported its effect on the same expense measure for six consecutive quarters, the ratio is low by industry standards, and premiums per employee are rising.

How much economic value it created is not established. The company puts its own AI spending at about USD 10 million a year, while expenses for the period fell only RMB 2.4 million year over year, and management attributes its thin net margin to that continuing investment. Over the same period gross written premiums grew 30% while revenue rose only from RMB 680.5 million to RMB 720 million, so commission rates are compressing. How much of this growth reflects the broad popularity of savings-type insurance in a low interest rate environment is not separable from the figures the company provides.

Application: Revenue and cost Stage: Scaled Value realized: Limited Confidence: Medium

Sources

[1] Drillr · Huize Holding Limited (HUIZ) · 2026-08-20 · earnings call

"On the advisor side, we equipped our agents with an AI-powered assistant that enhances productivity across key workflows, including intelligent lead screening, automated interaction summaries, AI-enabled outbound calls, tailored insurance proposals, and advanced customer analytics. ... Overall, these initiatives produced measurable cost efficiencies and productivity gains. Our total operating expenses decreased to RMB $175 million in the first half. resulting in an improved expense-to-income ratio of 24.2%."

[2] Drillr · Huize Holding Limited (HUIZ) · profit and expense verification

[3] Drillr · Huize Holding Limited (HUIZ) · headcount and efficiency verification