Chinese insurance firms saw first half premiums increase by 20.7 percent year-on-year in the world's fastest growing major economy, the industry regulator announced on Wednesday.

    Their premiums from the original insurance contracts between January and June hit 371.83 billion yuan (49.1 billion U.S. dollars), according to the China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC).

    China Life, the country's largest life insurer, recorded premiums of 121.3 billion yuan over the past six months, up 8.9 percent from the previous year.

    The insurers paid claims worth 115.72 billion yuan in the first six months, the CIRC stated. It added their total assets reached 2.53 trillion yuan (334.4 billion dollars) by the end of June, 20.2 percent higher from the previous year.

    Wu Dingfu, CIRC's chairman, said the industry regulator will unveil more measures to improve the management of insurance companies and develop the agriculture insurance, commercial endowment insurance and health insurance.

    Wu said that CIRC will strengthen industry regulation to reduce misleading insurance sales, tackle difficulty in acquiring claims and prevent financial risks to safeguard the stability of insurance market.

    The Chinese government has recently raised the investment ceiling of insurance firms in domestic stock markets from five to ten percent of their assets at the end of last year.

    Their total assets stood at around 1.97 trillion yuan at the end of 2006, and the move allowed them to invest up to 200 billion in the domestic equity markets.

    Shares of China Life gained 4.73 percent to 49.20 yuan on Wednesday and Ping An Insurance, the nation's second largest life insurer, slid 0.33 percent to 81.70 yuan.